Historically, there is a close connection between productivity and welfare. For most of human history (in fact, for all but the past 50 years), agriculture has been rooted in animal husbandry. Husbandry meant, in essence, care; the word comes from the Old Norse hus/bond, “bonded to the household,” a suitable locution epitomizing the symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship between humans and domestic animals that was agriculture, what Temple Grandin has called “the ancient contract” (T. Grandin, personal communication).

Husbandry meant putting one's animals into the best possible environment for their biological needs and natures, and then augmenting their natural ability to flourish with protection from predation, provision of food and water during famine and drought, help in birthing, medical attention, etc. The essence of husbandry was putting square pegs into square holes, round pegs into round holes, and creating as little friction as possible in doing so.

So powerful is the husbandry image that, in fact, when the Psalmist wishes to schematize God's ideal relationship to humans, he uses the shepherd as a metaphor: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (1). We want no more from God than what the shepherd provides the sheep!

Under such conditions, productivity and welfare were inextricably bound together and good welfare was sanctioned by the most powerful of sanctions — self-interest. If the animals' natures were not met, they did not produce. If they produced, it was because their needs were met, physical and psychological. Thus, when agricultural scientists equate productivity with welfare, they are, by and large, correct vis à vis husbandry situations.

In the mid-twentieth century, husbandry was replaced by industry, and, symbolically, academic departments of animal husbandry became departments of animal science, defined as “the application of industrial methods to the production of animals.” In this model, one no longer needed to keep animals happy to keep them productive. Technological “sanders,” such as vaccines, antibiotics, air changing systems, and so on, allowed us to put square pegs in round holes while still assuring productivity. The historical link between productivity and welfare was severed; animals could produce while being miserable.

Consider the egg industry. If one had tried 100 years ago to raise chickens in cages, 100 000 to a building, all of the birds would have died of disease within a month. Today, however, with the help of technological fixes, birds produce, even though almost all considerations relevant to their well being are thwarted. In these operations, individual bird productivity is less than it would be for the same bird under husbandry conditions, but productivity of the operation as a whole is assured. Cramming 6 chickens into a small cage reduces productivity per bird, but increases productivity per cage; in the end, chickens are cheap and cages are expensive.

In current systems, such as confinement swine or egg production, productivity cnnot be seen as a measure of welfare, let alone as closely tied to it. Productivity is a predicate reflecting an economic measure of the operation as a whole; welfare is a description tied to individual animals.

Those who believe productivity assures welfare are thinking of the productivity of individual animals under husbandry conditions. The equation of these 2 measures makes no sense in the context of industrialized agriculture where productivity is measured in terms of the economic value of the whole system.