Abstract In 2005, The International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements
(IFOAM) developed four new ethical principles of organic agriculture to guide
its future development: the principles of health, ecology, care, and fairness. The key
distinctive concept of animal welfare in organic agriculture combines naturalness
and human care, and can be linked meaningfully with these principles. In practice, a
number of challenges are connected with making organic livestock systems work.
These challenges are particularly dominant in immature agro-ecological systems, for
example those that are characterized by industrialization and monoculture. Some of
the current challenges are partly created by shortages of land and manure, which
encourage zero-grazing and other confined systems. Other challenges are created in
part by the conditions for farming and the way in which global food distribution
systems are organized, e.g., how live animals are transported, how feed is traded and
transported all over the globe, and the development of infrastructure and large herds.
We find that the overall organic principles should be included when formulating
guidelines for practical organic animal farming. This article explores how the special
organic conceptions of animal welfare are related to the overall principles of organic
agriculture. The aim is to identify potential routes for future development of organic
livestock systems in different contexts and with reference to the specific understanding
of animal welfare in organic agriculture. We include two contrasting cases
represented by organic livestock systems in northwestern Europe and farming systems
in tropical low-income countries; we use these cases to explore the widely
different challenges of organic livestock systems in different parts of the world.