Captured or Independent? Veterinary Institutions, Animal Welfare Science, and the Politics of Farmed Animal Welfare and Meat Reduction

This presentation reports on emerging research at the London School of Economics examining how veterinary institutions and the wider animal welfare science community shape policy and practice in farmed animal welfare and sustainability. Veterinary surgeons hold explicit professional duties to protect animal health and welfare, while animal welfare scientists operate within a mandated scientific field that implicitly carries parallel responsibilities. Yet the extent to which these professional and scientific communities drive, resist, or merely accommodate change within animal agriculture remains insufficiently understood.

Drawing on the first phase of a mixed-methods study, the talk presents early findings from a case study of the British pig veterinary profession, including documentary analysis of welfare standards, policy positions, and the profession’s engagement with sustainability and meat reduction debates. Preliminary international comparisons suggest that major National Veterinary Associations have not adopted science-based dietary or environmental targets aligned with frameworks such as Eat-Lancet or national climate recommendations. The analysis also situates these observations alongside developments in other jurisdictions—for example, policy debates in the United States around Proposition 12 and the positions taken by the American Veterinary Medical Association.

The presentation concludes by considering whether multiple forms of alignment and influence between veterinary bodies, animal welfare science institutions, and livestock industries limit the scope for independent professional leadership. It explores how principles from public interest theory and emerging concerns about professional and epistemic capture may apply not only to veterinary organisations but also to the broader animal welfare science community as a global epistemic actor.