Misleading labels and certifications that fail to meet European standards: purchasing animal-derived products without knowing whether animal welfare standards have actually been met risks no longer being possible. The new labelling for animal-derived products proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health could amount to a greenwashing operation that would strengthen intensive farming, jeopardising the ecological transition towards systems that offer greater protection for animals.

Public awareness of sustainability is growing, but labelling isn't working

According to the recent Rapporto Coop 2021, 38 per cent of Italians prefer to purchase healthy and sustainable food products. In consumption related to meat and meat-derived products, there is also a very marked increase in the number of people choosing to buy organic. Alongside this trend is the growing sensitivity among consumers regarding the conditions in which animals are raised for food.

In response to this awareness, there has been a proliferation of animal welfare labels and claims that are, however, inconsistent in their meaning and potentially misleading. For instance, the same claim "animal welfare" can correspond to different standards and criteria, making it impossible for consumers to make an informed choice.

A similar case is that of the animal welfare certification linked to pork products currently being handled by the ministries of Agricultural Policy and Health. The new certification could in fact award the animal welfare label even to products derived from sows and piglets kept in one-metre-by-one-metre cages, with their tails docked, living piled on top of one another.

The new certification could lower animal welfare standards even further

Labelling can be a fundamental tool for conveying accurate information to consumers and giving them the opportunity to make informed food choices, but the recent draft decree on animal welfare certification does not move in this direction. And it is not only consumers who lose out — once again it is the animals, whose needs risk being completely ignored.

The decree proposes the establishment of a dedicated scientific technical committee and, specifically, new production standards for pigs. These, however, risk being harmful for at least three reasons: they would first and foremost be responsible for reducing the protections afforded to farmed animals, contravening the European directive on the protection of pigs; they would betray consumer trust; and they would cause a distortion in access to funds from the Common Agricultural Policy and the PNRR — the national plan for the country's recovery created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is supposed to promote a green and sustainable transition.

The proposed new standards, being so low and indifferent to animal welfare, would end up favouring intensive farming operations once again, without providing adequate differentiation or incentive for those producers who genuinely want to invest in practices more in line with higher animal welfare standards. The reason is that this certification offers priority access to European funds for the ecological transition to large-scale intensive producers. Betraying the purpose of the CAP and the PNRR in this way is a trick we simply cannot afford.

The unacceptable practices within farms condemned by the EU too

Life in a cage for animals is unsustainable. Even more so when this affects animals that can weigh up to 170 kilograms while confined to a one-square-metre pen, as is the case with pigs and sows. For this reason too, the European Union has committed to eliminating the use of cages in farming by 2027. It is therefore unclear why a new decree would certify as "animal welfare" even products derived from animals kept in cages.

The vast majority of Italian pigs, moreover, undergo systematic tail docking, carried out by farmers to prevent aggression and injuries caused by the high levels of stress and overcrowding within farms. This routine procedure has been declared illegal by the European Union through the directive on the protection of pigs; nonetheless, it is still widely practised in Italy. If the new standards were to be approved, even farms that keep only a small percentage of pigs legally reared with intact tails could obtain the labelling.

Animal protection organisations, including Animal Equality, and environmental organisations are calling for these inadequate standards to be completely revised, taking into account the observations of civil society and the non-governmental organisations that fight for animals and the environment every day. The design of food labels cannot be levelled downwards, made uniform across all species regardless of the farming system, and thereby become vague and deceptive for consumers. Animal welfare, environmental and social sustainability are fundamental prerequisites for the future of the Planet.