COVID-19 Effects on Livestock Production: A One Welfare Issue

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights that we exist in a global community. From a single city, it spread to 188 countries across the world and infected 30 million people by September 18, 2020. Decades of modeling pandemics predicted potential consequences, but COVID-19's impact on the food supply chain, and specifically livestock production was unexpected. Clusters of cases among workers in meat processing plants evolved quickly to affect human, animal, and environmental welfare in several countries. In processing plants, the hygiene focus is on product quality and food safety. Because of their close proximity to one another, COVID-19 spread rapidly between workers and the lack of sick leave and health insurance likely resulted in workers continuing to work when infectious. In the United States (U.S.) many processing plants shut down when they identified major outbreaks, putting pressure especially on pig and poultry industries. At one point, there was a 45% reduction in pig processing capacity meaning about 250,000 pigs per day were not slaughtered. This resulted in longer transport distances to plants in operation with extra capacity, but also to crowding of animals on farm. Producers were encouraged to slow growth rates, but some had to cull animals on farm in ways that likely included suffering and caused considerable upset to owners and workers. Carcass disposal was also associated with potential biosecurity risks and detrimental effects on the environment. Hence, this is a One Welfare issue, affecting human, animal, and environmental welfare and highlighting the fragility of intensive, high-throughput livestock production systems. This model needs to be reshaped to include the animal, human, and environmental elements across the farm to fork chain. Such a One Welfare approach will ensure that food production systems are resilient, flexible, and fair in the face of future challenges.

One welfare impacts of COVID-19 – A summary of key highlights within the one welfare framework

“…Sheep remaining in full fleece longer into the summer are at greater risk of flystrike, lice and impaired mobility, while their lambs may find it harder to suckle ( NSA, 2020 ). The pig and poultry industry in particular were among the worst affected, mainly due to their intensive production system nature ( Marchant-Forde Jeremy and Boyle Laura, 2020 ). Examples of incidents within the poultry industry that can have One Welfare impacts are changes on the demand of poultry products, egg packaging and protective personal equipment shortages, labour shortages, salmonella testing capacity impacted due to reductions in postal services and laboratories capacity, etc.…”

“…Moving from livestock farming to slaughter, the multiple incidents of COVID-19 positive cases amongst workers in meat processing plants resulted in many slaughterhouses closing down. This had an impact on human wellbeing, animal welfare, and the environment ( Marchant-Forde Jeremy and Boyle Laura, 2020 ). The reduction on processing capacity affected transport, with some animals/hauliers travelling longer distances to plants in operation, live animals kept living for longer periods with an impact on stocking densities and space on farm, leading, for example, to increased heat production and associated reduced environmental factors as well as the need for on farm culling of animals ( Parry, 2020 ; Marchant-Forde Jeremy and Boyle Laura, 2020 ; Vidaurreta et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Simple daily routines, such as walking a dog or caring for livestock have been affected by sickness, social distancing and/or quarantine restrictions ( Bowen et al, 2020 ). Wider issues such as transport, education and training, animal care or safeguarding the average food and feed supply, vital for both people and animals, were and still are being affected ( Marchant-Forde Jeremy and Boyle Laura, 2020 ; Vidaurreta et al, 2020 ; Zhuo et al, 2020 ). World leaders had to prioritise key issues such as food security and livelihoods of the most vulnerable, as well as setting up expert groups to understand and mitigate the pandemic’s impact on society, by improving our understanding on the virus origin, spread and control measures ( EU, 2020 ; CA, 2020 )…”

“…Section 3 of the One Welfare Framework describes the many One Welfare facets relevant to this prescription ( García Pinillos, 2018 ). Farm animal welfare also plays a pivotal role in driving animal health, performance and food safety all of which are crucial to the sustainability of animal production systems ( Marchant-Forde Jeremy and Boyle Laura, 2020 ). 5) Build healthy, liveable cities.…”

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: A syndemic perspective

“…Fear influences health-seeking behavior in a negative way, resulting in avoidance of contact with health care facilities for preventive, promotive and treatment health care [ 61 , 109 ]. Fear leads also to the abandonment of the household [ 110 , 111 ] and to disruptive consumption patterns: one of the most immediate impacts of COVID-19 was a wave of panic buying by the public as lockdowns were announced [ 112 ].…”