CROSBANIM - Towards the crossover institutionalisation of Animal Health and Welfare

Context and challenges

In a context of important questions regarding the evolution of livestock systems set against major societal challenges (notably One health/One welfare), this interdisciplinary project focuses on the determinants for a reconfiguration of these systems resulting from an analysis of the Crossover Institutionalisation of the Health and Welfare of Farmed Livestock (CSBEA). This is based on the observation that the future of livestock activities is closely linked to a proliferation of norms and standards (both formal and informal). The latter are particularly affected by two "turning points" that are tightly linked but rarely addressed together: (1) a health "turning point" triggered by certain crises such as BSA and ASF, and (2) a moral "turning point" which mainly takes the form of growing interest in the rights and welfare of animals.

Objectives

Faced with this abundant and sometimes ambivalent institutionalisation, the exploratory CROSBANIM project has two main aims:

• To produce an inventory and maping CSBEA standards and instruments with particular focus on the dynamics underlying their construction.
• To analyse the effects of these standards and instruments on actors in livestock farming (breeders, advisors, veterinarians, etc.) and research scientists working in animal sciences.

The second part will focus on how livestock farming actors negotiate the compromises between health and welfare in terms of free-range or confined husbandry.

By drawing on the complementarities between human and social sciences and animal sciences, this project will be able to generate knowledge on the institutional conditions for the coexistence or hybridization of animal health and welfare. This knowledge will notably help to initiate prospective discussions on the continuities and/or breakdowns that characterise CSBEA, the research required in both animal and human sciences and more generally the future of the livestock industry in our societies between now and 2050.

Species concerned

Partnerships

• Human and social sciences: Joint Research Unit for Agroecology, Innovations and Ruralities (UMR AGIR), Science for Action and Transition (ACT) Division INRAE, Odycée team in the Centre for Research in Economic Law, Joint Research Unit for Innovation, Science for Action and Transition (ACT) Division, INRAE, EPIDEC team in the Joint Research Unit for Pathogen/Host Interactions (UMR IHAP), Animal Health Division, INRAE. This project thus involves researchers working in law, economics, geography, social psychology, management sciences, the psychodynamics of work and sociology.
• Animal sciences: SYSED team in the Joint Research Unit for Genetics, Physiology and Livestock Systems (UMR GenPhyse), Animal Physiology and Livestock Systems Division, INRAE, and Caribbean team in the Herbivore Joint Research Unit (UMR UMRH), INRAE. The animal sciences team thus involves specialists in animal husbandry, ethology and veterinary sciences.
• External partners: three technical institutes (Pig Institute-IFIP, Breeding Institute-IDELE, ITAVI); ENSFEA and the Triangle Joint Research Unit on Action, Speech, and Political and Economic Thinking.