Evidence increasingly shows that higher welfare standards can reduce costs and improve productivity, challenging the assumption that welfare and economic efficiency are necessarily in conflict.
The animal welfare and economics relationship is more favorable to welfare than is commonly assumed. Many welfare improvements reduce disease, improve feed conversion, reduce mortality, and increase product quality in ways that partially or fully offset costs. The assumption that welfare is always economically costly to producers leads to underinvestment in welfare improvements that would benefit both animals and the bottom line. Economic analysis of welfare interventions is an important tool for motivating adoption among financially-constrained farmers.