Finally, we come back to where we started and the debate
within welfare science over the relative weight given to input and
animal based assessment methods for farm animal welfare.
Growing reference to, and advocacy of, system-based labelling
schemes such as are used for shell eggs throws the shoe back on the
foot of input-based welfare assessment, leaving a questionable
place for the new range of output-based measures currently being
experimented in a number of different situations. We feel that there
is the danger here of a missed opportunity. The recent report from
the Farm Animal Welfare Forum (2010) on ‘Labelling Food from
Farm Animals’, while promoting the principle of production system
labelling, makes the clear point that outcome measures should be
introduced “to provide assurance that the welfare potential of the
various production systems proposed for labelling is being realised
in practice” (2010, p. 18). This, we regard as essential