Millions of animals die in floods and wildfires each year. Should factory farms be required to have a relocation plan?
The fall of 2021 was particularly brutal for British Columbia. The Canadian province was hit hard by devastating floods and landslides, forcing the evacuation of more than 15,000 people. By early December as clean-up began, government officials estimated that farmers left hundreds of thousands of farm animals behind to die: 12,000 hogs, 420 dairy cows and over 600,000 chickens in total, in addition to millions of honeybees.
These types of climate disasters used to be exceptional. But according to the most recent U.S. national climate assessment, the country experienced only around three billion-dollar disasters per year during the 1980s. Four decades later in 2022, there were 18 in just that single year alone. Governments are investing in climate disaster preparedness, but there is one population consistently left out of evacuation plans: farm animals.
The pattern is unmistakable. News stories describe massive sheds packed with animals flooded or consumed by fire, leading to millions of deaths, but most of these media accounts fail to ask what might happen next time. That’s no accidental omission. In the U.S., Canada and the UK, there are no laws requiring farm animals to be relocated before disaster strikes. It’s just too expensive, say the agricultural economists who spoke with Sentient Media. And even though a new bill pending before Congress could change the incentive structure, it’s not clear whether the outcome would be better.
Billions of Animals Are at Risk from Looming Climate Disasters
Most industrial-scale factory farms are packed to the brim with animals. According to the British Columbia Chicken Marketing Board, the average number of chickens held per barn in the region is 50,000, for instance. “There is no current limit on the number of animals that can be housed on farms in Canada,” read a statement from Canadian animal protection organization Animal Justice in 2021.
Dealing with that many animals in a natural disaster is practically impossible, and there are no legal welfare protections in place for those scenarios. There are “no regulations setting out welfare standards for farmed animals or requiring an evacuation plan,” according to Animal Justice.
In a nutshell, it’s a financial decision for farmers. “The cost of relocating livestock is affected by a number of factors,” explains David Ortega, an associate professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, “including the animals’ weight and size, distance traveled, time of year, diesel prices and the cost of insuring the livestock during transportation.”
Moving that many animals on short notice is expensive. “This can all add up very quickly and be very costly for producers, who are already operating under tight margins,” says Ortega. Expect surge pricing too. When it comes to relocating animals in an event of extreme weather or other types of disasters, Ortega says, “there would be a surge in demand for transportation and hauling services, which would further increase the costs during those periods, making this a very challenging option.”
Governments and Private Insurance Foot the Bill for Animals Left Behind
Farmers weigh the cost of relocating animals against the cost of leaving them behind, but there’s also another factor — the insurance plan. The financial loss resulting from leaving animals behind to die is typically subsidized by governments, or paid out by private insurance.
“Substantial compensation for livestock losses in disasters (including some disease outbreaks) is provided by the U.S. government through both standing programs and ad hoc interventions,” explains Jim Leitzel, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Chicago.
These payouts may be incentivizing producers to leave their animals behind. “When faced with a looming disaster, animal owners and contract farmers — both are eligible for compensation — have limited financial incentive to take costly measures to save their animals.”
What’s more, there’s little economic benefit to arranging and paying for rescue. “Compensation is generally not linked to prevention efforts,” says Leitzel. In other words, it doesn’t pay to rescue or relocate. It’s cheaper to leave them behind.
With More Disasters Comes Steeper Insurance Costs
But as climate disasters increase, so does the cost of compensating farmers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has an initiative called the Livestock Indemnity Program, which compensates producers for farm animals lost due to extreme weather events.
Read more. https://sentientmedia.org/farmers-animals-natural-disasters/
