“Historic” roadmap towards animal-friendly production
Animal welfare history in the making in the Netherlands. Early July 2025, altogether 11 stakeholders, including farmers’ organisations, processors and marketing organisations, retailers, social interest groups and the authorities, all signed a roadmap towards better animal welfare in livestock production. The ambitions are thought to cost billions.
More space for animals, more opportunities to express natural behaviour in good health, and a minimal amount of physical processing on the animals. Those are key aspects of the agreement on improving animal welfare for dairy cattle, pigs, poultry and calves in the Netherlands.
Stakeholders have been discussing about the plans for nearly 3 years. Included in the talks were animal husbandry associations, the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals, supply chain partners as well as the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. Jointly, they signed the so-called “Covenant on Animal-Friendly Livestock Production”. The covenant stipulates a step-by-step approach to animal-friendly livestock farming by 2040.
Research, pilot projects, and supply chain agreements will be conducted to ensure that the new requirements can be implemented responsibly: they must improve animal welfare, farmers must be able to recoup their investment and there must be a market for the products.
The covenant is the practical twin brother of a coinciding general administrative order which will be put up for a vote in Dutch parliament in autumn 2025. That order roughly aims to codify that animals should no longer be adjusted to fit into a housing system, but instead housing systems have to be made fit for animals. The covenant therefore aims to make sure that the general administrative order shall not lead to unfeasible situations. The aim for the first new rules to take effect on January 1, 2027.
Far-reaching agreements
In some cases, the covenant even includes more far-reaching agreements than those stipulated by law. For example, the roadmap towards animal-friendly and future-proof dairy farming includes agreements for the dairy sector on further promoting grazing, which also offers added value through market concepts.
All parties signing the covenant have their own set of responsibilities. Livestock producers will have to make investments. Market parties will have to work to ensure a market for the products made under high welfare conditions. The Dutch animal welfare society will play a key role in communicating with consumers. The authorities will be responsible for providing opportunities for frontrunners and co-funding research and pilot projects. In total, €51 million has been made available for this purpose.
Signatories of the rigorously negotiated agreement are satisfied, particularly because it enjoys such broad support. Only the poultry union as well as the veal sector has been hesitant, but neither of them rule out to joining at a later stage.
Authority accelerates or slows down
An independent Animal Husbandry Authority will monitor progress. The authority must ensure that the livestock farming sector can actually realise the animal welfare progress, including a revenue model for producers and scope within existing permits to adapt farm houses. In 2028, 2033 and 2038, the authority will assess whether a next step with higher animal welfare agreements can be taken. Sector organisations are very pleased with the authority, which aims to prevent livestock farmers from being subjected to unattainable requirements. Animal welfare organisations, on the other hand, fear that this approach will always provide an excuse for not taking the next step towards animal dignity.
Legal guarantee, measures cost billions
Researchers at Wageningen Social and Economic Research (WSER) calculated that implementation of the legal rules will cost between €5.9 and €8.4 billion in investment costs. That depends heavily on whether the adjustments involve building expansions. The annual costs, according to the researchers, are between €1.2 and €2.1 billion. The research team stated that annual costs per farm vary between €23,000 and €400,000. The lower livestock density is the main driver of higher costs. The team believes that substantial compensation is needed, particularly for the major changes in sow farming, to ensure that pig farmers can maintain their income. However, the objective of the agreements is for the additional costs to be covered by the market.
Elbert Roest is chairman of the covenant. Having the covenant accepted, he described as “a happy moment” as well as “a historic step.” He said, “I consider this a happy moment for the animals. With the general administrative order and the covenant, we have a clear path to more animal-friendly livestock farming. Improving animal welfare will be a structured agenda item in the coming years, and we have concrete programmes for how we will approach it. The implementation will begin now. Nowhere in Europe or the world have so many parties jointly initiated such a movement. This is truly historic.”
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