The Farming Roadmap 2050: an opportunity to place animal welfare at the heart of England’s farming future

The Government’s Farming Roadmap 2050 recognises high animal welfare standards as integral to British farming. It brings together commitments to phase out low welfare practices, improve food labelling, strengthen supply chains and promote higher standards through international trade. Read alongside the Animal Welfare Strategy for England published last December, it provides a valuable platform for reforms that will improve the lives of hundreds of millions of animals whilst supporting farmers and consumers. Its vision presents a timely reminder that animal welfare can be at the heart of England’s farming future.

‍Domestic farming practices

‍The Roadmap reinforces the leading farmed animal welfare commitments in the Animal Welfare Strategy. That Strategy sets out reforms benefitting hens, pigs, farmed fish and other animals, both on farm and at slaughter. Its central ambition is clear: to ensure that all “farmed animals, including farmed fish, have a life worth living and as many animals as possible have a good life”.

‍The Animal Welfare Strategy is now being implemented. Earlier this year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) consulted on phasing out enriched cages for laying hens and improving lamb welfare. The Roadmap reinforces this direction: it commits the government to work with farmers and industry to raise standards and move away from practices where the evidence shows that they compromise welfare.

‍Amongst the most impactful reforms from the Animal Welfare Strategy are ending enriched cages for hens and the routine use of farrowing crates for pigs. Both practices cause vast suffering at scale. Ending them is therefore critical to the Roadmap’s ambition to embed animal welfare in everyday farming. Other major commitments from the Strategy—including phasing out carbon dioxide gas stunning of pigs, introducing legal requirements for the humane slaughter of farmed fish and ending the live boiling of lobsters—will also help to achieve the Roadmap’s goal of delivering sustained improvements in welfare.

‍These reforms matter immensely to animals. Regulatory standards shape how animals live – and how they die. Outdated standards must be modernised so that our legal framework protects animals from avoidable pain and distress in accordance with the legislative recognition of animal sentience in the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 and the central principles of the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

‍Stronger welfare standards can also strengthen the market position of British farming. The Farming Roadmap recognises that “the UK’s high welfare standards are a key selling point for consumers at home and abroad”. It is right to do so: data from the Institute of Grocery Distribution (“IGD”) shows that animal welfare is the second-most important ethical concern for British shoppers after freshness of product. Yet, England is falling behind on key welfare measures. Enriched cages are already banned in Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany, and will be prohibited in the Czech Republic from 2027, in Slovenia from 2029, in Slovakia from 2030, and in the Netherlands from 2035. Similarly, farrowing crates are already banned in Switzerland, Sweden and Norway and are being phased out or heavily restricted in Denmark, Germany, Austria and New Zealand. Now, the entire EU is proposing to end the use of cages and crates, as confirmed in the European Commission’s recent Livestock Strategy.

‍ This international momentum supports the direction set by the Roadmap. The EU is the UK’s largest trading partner, including for animal products. The business case for modernising British standards in line with EU market expectations is therefore compelling: phasing out cages and crates will strengthen the sector’s long-term competitiveness and manage the emerging risk posed by stagnant welfare standards. Indeed, the EU’s Livestock Strategy does not just commit to ending the use of cages and crates but also to introducing equivalent import requirements—which could preclude market access for British farmers if they do not also raise standards. By moving first, the UK can give British farmers an early competitive advantage, strengthen future access to European markets and reinforce its reputation with respect to higher welfare production.

‍ Supply chain fairness and welfare labelling

‍ The Roadmap recognises that greater transparency and fairness across the farming supply chain can benefit both consumers and producers. Its commitment to clearer and more consistent food labelling would help consumers make informed choices whilst rewarding farmers using higher welfare practices. To advance this ambition, the Roadmap commits the government to working with farmers, food businesses, veterinary professionals, scientists and animal welfare organisations to strengthen information on food origin and production standards.

‍ The government’s own analysis demonstrates the considerable benefits that animal welfare method-of-production labelling could deliver for animals, farmers and consumers alike. Defra’s impact assessment conducted as part of its Fairer Food Labelling Consultation in 2024 found that implementing its proposed five-tier welfare label for pork, eggs and chicken would benefit British farmers by £46 million per year, contribute £140 million to the wider economy over ten years and improve the lives of 111 million animals every year. These findings align with research conducted by the University of Reading highlighting a strong consumer willingness to pay for higher welfare. Notably, households would collectively pay £496 million per year to move the remaining 21% of egg-laying hens in cages to free-range systems and £1.4 billion per year to move pigs to housing systems which do not use farrowing crates.

‍The public’s support for improved welfare labelling is striking: 99% of individual respondents to Defra’s 2024 consultation supported mandatory method-of-production labelling reform. The proposals consulted on by Defra would build on existing mandatory labelling for shell eggs introduced in 2004, which helped to drive the market towards cage-free production—with the percentage of free-range eggs rising from around 32% in 2004 to over 60% in 2023. Clear information allowed consumer demand for higher welfare to positively shape the market, benefiting millions of animals. Cage-free eggs now account for 83% of the market.

‍Again, labelling is an issue on which other European countries are trailblazing. From 1 July 2027, Switzerland will require meat, milk and eggs—including imports of these products—to be labelled with information disclosing whether painful procedures (including castration, dehorning, pig tail-docking and tooth clipping, and poultry beak trimming) were performed on the animals without anaesthesia. Similarly, legislation recently proposed in Germany would require mandatory method-of-production labelling for pork products—again, including imports—sold in supermarkets, restaurants, canteens, butcher shops and other retail and food service settings, from 2027. Under the German proposals, British pork produced only to baseline UK animal welfare law (and not to the higher German standards) would receive the lowest rating on the five-tier welfare label. These developments highlight the clear urgency both of raising Britain’s farmed animal welfare standards and implementing clear labelling rules as part of the Farming Roadmap and Animal Welfare Strategy.

‍ Farming and international trade

‍International trade provides another route to reinforce food security, farm resilience and animal welfare. The Roadmap addresses this pathway by pledging to uphold strong animal welfare protections, as the government has previously committed to in its Trade Strategy. The Roadmap, like the Trade Strategy, promises to consider whether overseas produce benefits from an unfair advantage and to use the full range of available powers—including permanent quotas, exclusions and safeguards—to protect sensitive sectors. The UK–India agreement concluded in May 2025 and the deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council concluded in May 2026 are cited as examples in the Roadmap, with pork, chicken and eggs excluded from tariff reductions in these agreements.

‍The exercise of such powers is vital—and ought to become a defining feature of the UK’s approach to trade agreements. Making tariff reductions welfare-conditional and excluding entire sectors as necessary in free trade agreements (FTAs) is essential to protecting British farmers. The guiding principle is straightforward: trade policy should reinforce, rather than dilute, the value of higher-welfare British production. Some US states such as California and Massachusetts have gone even further by enacting sales bans on imported pork and eggs that do not comply with their own cage and crate bans, an approach the EU is now looking to emulate in the form of welfare-based import restrictions.

‍Additionally, the government can protect domestic farmers against low welfare imports by closing an outdated loophole in the Government Buying Standards for Food and Catering Services (the “GBS”). This rule permits imported animal products which do not meet UK standards to be used in government contracts where this would lead to a “significant increase in costs which cannot reasonably be compensated for by savings elsewhere”. At the same time, the government can support higher welfare domestic farmers by updating the GBS to require that government departments subject to the GBS also purchase cage-free eggs and crate-free pork, as well as chicken meat produced in compliance with the Better Chicken Commitment. Using public purchasing power in this way would create stable demand for higher welfare production and provide tangible support for British farmers who invest in it.

‍Strengthening international standards

‍The UK can also advance the Roadmap’s ambitions through international cooperation. Multilateral institutions—including the World Trade Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations—provide forums through which the UK can build support for higher farmed animal welfare standards. The Roadmap commits the government to promoting high standards within these institutions and to working with global partners to advance recognition of animal sentience, phase out low welfare practices and establish high standards as a global norm.

Two practical initiatives would give substance to this ambition. First, the UK could use WTO forums to build recognition that proportionate animal welfare measures can be legitimate trade measures—as already recognised by the WTO Appellate Body. Second, UK-backed development finance institutions could require agricultural projects they finance to meet, at minimum, EU-equivalent welfare standards—an approach already taken by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Making funding welfare-conditional would align overseas investment with domestic policy, support higher standards internationally and help create fairer markets for British producers.

Conclusion

The Farming Roadmap 2050 presents a vision in which animal welfare plays a central role in England’s farming future. This outcome can be achieved by raising standards on farms and at slaughter, improving welfare labelling, and using trade policy, public procurement and international cooperation to promote stronger protections globally. Through these avenues, the government can improve the lives of hundreds of millions of animals whilst supporting farmers and strengthening public confidence in British food.