As populations in low and middle income countries adopt more meat-intensive diets, the animal welfare implications are profound and require proactive policy response.
The global diet transition creates a welfare challenge of historic scale. As billions of people gain access to animal protein, the systems being built to supply that protein are predominantly intensive models with poor welfare standards. Factory farming is expanding in countries without the regulatory frameworks that have produced welfare improvements in Europe and parts of North America. Welfare advocacy in this context requires working with animal agriculture industries in developing economies to build welfare standards into systems while they are being established, rather than reforming entrenched poor practices after decades of establishment.