“Animal Welfare” and “economic efficiency” according to the official discourse of portuguese livestock industry

by Rui Pedro Fonseca

This paper presents the official discourse of the livestock industry in Portugal in what relates to its description of the ways in which non-human animals are exploited - considering two (interrelated) fields that are continuously referred to by this industry: "animal welfare" and "economic efficiency". According to the variety of collected samples, the official discourse of the Portuguese livestock industry assumes that the exploited animals have a physical and emotional condition similar to that of humans (sentience). Regardless of this generalized acknowledgement by the various sub-sectors of the Portuguese livestock industry, the cited and paraphrased practices (either those related to "animal welfare" or to "economic efficiency") are shown to be contrary to the principles of sentience.


Biography:
Rui Pedro Fonseca is an Integrated Researcher at Centro de Estudos em Investigação em Sociologia (CIES-IUL) and has a Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) post-doc fellowship, having as his supervisores José Jorge Barreiros (CIES-IUL) and João Teixeira Lopes (ISFLUP)