Sustainable policy making at the crossroads of animal welfare and food safety

Agricultural policies are in the midst of far-reaching transitions, including the transformation towards sustainable production as well as consumption of food. The latter is closely related to changing consumption patterns in many countries, consumers are increasingly attentive to animal welfare and environmental and climate production. Related to this, food safety is an import aspect for many consumers. Governing the related transformation of production systems, remains a challenge for policymakers. Under what conditions are these demands successfully integrated in agricultural policymaking? And how can variation between countries be explained? In order to explore these questions, we select to policy areas that are especially relevant with regards to the sustainable transformation of food production and consumption and that are closely related to each other: animal welfare on farms and food safety. Both areas are currently receiving increasing scientific as well as political attention. Both policy areas are highly permeated by EU regulations, implementation and compliance however varies significantly between member states. Under what conditions member states are more likely to comply with EU demands or even go beyond EU requirements in the two policy areas is in the focus of our study. In order to identify explanatory variables, we conduct a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of food safety and farm animal welfare policymaking in the EU-15 member states. Explanatory conditions include public opinion, institutional conditions and party politics. Despite the close interlinkages between the two policy areas and their contribution to the sustainable transformation of food systems, farm animal welfare and food safety policymaking are mostly governed independently from each other. This missing integration also applies for scientific research, though we assume that there are important synergies. Taking into accounting these synergies in the design of policies, we argue, can contribute to more sustainable policymaking.