Hybrid governance and welfare standards for broiler chickens raised for human consumption

Abstract

This article examines the welfare standards that govern the lives of chickens raised for meat in Australia and the United Kingdom. While ‘meat chickens’ are subject to a wide range of welfare interventions, we focus on the development and implications of the ‘private’ standards which are the most significant determinants of meat chicken welfare in these jurisdictions: the RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme in Australia and the Red Tractor Chicken Assurance Scheme in the United Kingdom. While the jurisdictions appear to have a similar regime that favours private regulation, differences in the origins and governance of these systems can be identified, offering insights into the use of hybrid regulation in areas associated with the welfare of non‐human animals. The similarities and differences in these countries point to the importance of individual relationships, as well as supply chain power in the adoption of private standards as a response to comparatively unstructured community concerns about welfare (Australia) and welfare and food safety (United Kingdom). While hybridity as a form of new public governance can be seen to facilitate innovative and varied responses to state devolution, the article concludes the overarching anthropocentrism of policymakers and the policy sciences explains a closed, incremental, and conservative form of practice in this area. Observations of the wider ‘animal turn’ in the social sciences are recommended to consider future systems of hybrid regulation that are not centred on anthropocentrism and more fully expand hybridity's participatory promise. Hybrid governance can focus on the use of hybrid organisational design and/or hybrid regulatory practice; each has very different characteristics and their respective use is often a function of local conditions and situations. Hybrid standards‐making systems need to be open to public participation in development and implementation (oversight), or risk capture and moral hazard. Public policy is largely predicated on strong anthropocentrism, which can be addressed through the use of critical rather than simple pluralism to expand the number of interests captured in regulatory practices.