Accounting and Accountability For Farm Animals Conc - 2022 - Critical Perspecti

Critical Perspectives on Accounting 84 (2022) 102409
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Critical Perspectives on Accounting

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cpa
Accounting and accountability for farm animals: Conceptual limits

and the possibilities of caring
Uliana Gottlieb a, *, Gustav Johed b, Helena Hansson a
a
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Economics, PO Box 7013, Uppsala SE-75007, Sweden
b
Stockholm University and Stockholm School of Economics, Department of Accounting, P.O Box 6501, Stockholm SE-113 83, Sweden
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Keywords: This study explores dairy farmers’ accounts of farm animals in a context heavily influenced by the
Farm animal welfare concept of farm animal welfare (FAW). We illustrate how external demands linked to FAW,
Accounting performance concerns, and proximity to animals shape farmers’ formal and cognitive accounts of
Accountability
animals. We explain how different accounts underlie farmers’ accountability for animals. Using
Animals
Limits of accountability
FAW as an example of a referent concept, we propose that accountability can be limited
Care conceptually by its referent. This limit is not a matter of its (in)ability to account fully for all lived
experiences. Rather, it is a matter of what one is or is not accountable for—such as the mortality
rate but not culling—as well as assumptions regarding the referent—such as the nature of animal
welfare and how it can be assessed and safeguarded. Even when it is conceptually bounded in this
way, self-accountability has potential to alter farming practices by reflecting on caring about
animals and on what this implies for oneself and the animals.
1. Introduction
You can’t end up saying, “No, I’ll do it tomorrow.” You can wash a machine; you can do that tomorrow; it makes no difference.
But the animals must … it must be one hundred percent all the way. (Farmer 23)
Despite a long tradition of including non-human actors in interdisciplinary accounting research, such research has rarely examined
animals (Laine & Vinnari, 2017; McLaren & Appleyard, 2020, 2021; Singleton, 2012; Solomon & Jones, 2013; Vinnari & Laine, 2017).
Yet, analyzing the social and organizational practices that constitute livestock farming is, according to Dillard and Vinnari (2017), a
promising avenue of critical accounting research, not least because the management of animals, as the farmer’s quote indicates, is a
much more holistic practice than managing machinery. Furthermore, because the animal is a living asset, managing and controlling
farm animals makes farming a practice that is distinctively intertwined with social, moral, and ethical considerations (Christensen &
Lamberton, 2021; D’Silva, 2009; Pluhar, 2010; Vinnari & Vinnari, 2014), which, in practice, are addressed through the concept of farm
animal welfare (FAW). Thus, FAW warrants closer analysis in accounting and accountability research.
Animal welfare, which concerns the state of an animal in relation to its environment (Broom, 2011), is a publicly debated issue
(Laine & Vinnari, 2017), and this debate led to extensive reporting practices regarding farm animals. Farm animal welfare laws aim to
ensure farming practices accommodate the natural behavior of animals and prevent excessive suffering (e.g., Brambell, 1965). While
laws implicitly focus on the state of the animal (Broom, 2011), they explicitly focus on the organization of work (Porcher & Schmitt,
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: uliana.gottlieb@slu.se (U. Gottlieb).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2021.102409
Received 29 August 2019; Received in revised form 15 November 2021; Accepted 16 November 2021
Available online 8 December 2021
1045-2354/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
U. Gottlieb et al. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 84 (2022) 102409
2012) for the farmers who are closest to farm animals and hold a minimum formal responsibility for them as owners. Recently,
McLaren and Appleyard (2020, 2021) suggested that FAW reporting may establish an industry benchmark for companies in the food
industry; companies will seek to improve their FAW scores as a way to better their image, eventually contributing to improved animal
welfare at the farm level. However, since any account is incomplete (e.g., Messner, 2009; Roberts, 2009), reporting more about FAW
could also make accounts of it a “sideshow to the economic main event” (Christensen & Lamberton, 2021, p. 10), leaving farming
practices unaltered.
Unlike previous studies of FAW that have been concerned with reporting practices, we focus on how farmers enact accountability
for FAW in their daily work practices. Accountability for farm animals is heavily influenced by public ideas about them, which means
that prevailing ideas about FAW can limit accountability for farm animals (Messner, 2009) to the extent of those considerations
mobilised by the concept of FAW. A lack of self-reflection among the public has focused attention on the scapegoating of farmers and/
or the food industry instead, because as “introspection [on] one’s own dietary habits could lead to personal discomfort, it is [therefore]
likely that ‘producers’ will be identified as the culprit and the target of an indignant spectator’s anger” (Vinnari & Laine, 2017, p. 9-10).
As such, accountability for farm animals is always limited by its referent concept (Dubnick, 2014), which establishes its association to
broader public values (ibid.). Demands for accountability based on such a referent, in turn, influences farmers’ efforts to meet and
account for these public values (e.g., Messner, 2009; Roberts, 1991). Furthermore, public demands that farmers are to be accountable
for FAW are political due to expectations regarding what farmers should “explain, justify and take responsibility” for (Messner, 2009,
p. 918, citing Cooper & Owen, 2007; emphasis removed). To empirically analyze accounting and accountability for FAW at the farm
level, we asked the following question: How do farmers render accounts of, and are accountable for, farm animal welfare?
We answered this research question through interviews with dairy farmers and other key stakeholders in Sweden, a country that
prides itself on its high level of animal welfare regulations (Veissier et al., 2008). Based on this research, we seek to make two con
tributions to the field of accounting. First, we add to the scarce literature in accounting that addresses farm animals and FAW (Laine &
Vinnari, 2017; McLaren & Appleyard, 2020, 2021; Singleton, 2012; Vinnari & Laine, 2017; Vinnari & Vinnari, 2021). As a complement
to previous studies, we analyze how FAW underlies farmers’ feelings of being obliged to attend to requirements regarding their animals
and the way this structures farmers’ accountability for them. Our argument differs from previous studies, some of which consider the
FAW concept to be immoral because it enables the continued use of animals (e.g., Regan, 1983), while others do not critically reflect on
the concept or its metrics (Broom, 2011; McLaren & Appleyard, 2020, 2021). Second, we argue that the limits of accountability
(Joannides, 2012; McKernan, 2012; Messner, 2009; Roberts, 2009) also arise due to its referent concept; we find that accountability is
not only limited in terms of an (in)ability of the accountable self to render a complete account of their experience (Messner, 2009), but
also limited conceptually due to the basis, norms, and assumptions surrounding FAW as a referent.
The following section grounds our case contextually, relating it to existing studies of animals and accountability. Following this, we
introduce our field material, presenting the context-specific demands for accountability that farmers face regarding their animals and
how they address these with measurable records and reflections related to animal husbandry. Ultimately, we discuss what accounting
for animal welfare implies in relation to the limits of farmers’ ability to be accountable for animals, the enabling and constraining role
of accounting in this, and the potential for emotional accountability for the animals (Dellaportas, 2019).
2. FAW, accounting, and accountability
2.1. FAW as a referent concept
That contemporary policies on farm animals recognize animals as sentient and social creatures is largely thanks to the Brambell
Report (1965), which built on research insights in animal biology (Veissier et al., 2008). The concept of FAW has continued to develop
through contributions from ethologists, zoologists, psychologists, and agricultural researchers, becoming established as a research area
and a concept widely used in policy (Broom, 2011). While the scope of FAW has continued to develop, it has always recognized
animals’ ability to suffer physically and mentally—a key principle in animal welfare laws. Sweden is considered to be among the
leading countries in terms of the strictness of its regulations concerning farm animals (Veissier et al., 2008), including requirements for
access to pasture in the summer for cows older than six months, requirements for group housing for non-suckling sows and prohibition
of tail docking. Furthermore, the concept of FAW is central to the Animal Welfare Act (SFS 2018:1192), motivation for which declares
“that the use and keeping of animals comes with a moral obligation to take into account the needs and welfare of the animals”
(Näringsdepartementet 2011, p. 21). The 2018 Animal Welfare Act and ensuing regulations1 present FAW as a relational concept
because the farmer must satisfy both simple and complex aspects of farm animal welfare, understood to mean the individual animal’s
state, regarding its attempts to cope with its environment, and a potentially measurable “quality of a living animal at a particular time”
(Broom, 2011, p. 122).
New insights about farm animals’ affective states (Fraser, 2003, 2008) have led to a need to go beyond early indicators of FAW,
such as lifetime reproductive success and unproductive, repetitive stereotypies such as biting the bars of an enclosure (Broom, 1991).
Existing metrics for FAW have increased the visibility and measurability of FAW (Burchell et al., 1980), making FAW easier to
evaluate/audit (e.g., Power, 1991). Still, quantification inevitably leaves out certain parts of the context (e.g., Roberts, 2009).
Although long-standing measures of FAW have resonated with prior understandings such as an absence of hunger or pain, they could
1
E.g., the Swedish Board of Agriculture regulations and general advice on cattle farming in agriculture (SJVFS, 2019:18) and the Animal Welfare
Ordinance (SFS 2019:66).
2
not measure or allow reporting of other key aspects of FAW, such as the farmer-animal relationship. Some metrics that address the
farmer-animal relationship emerged in the Welfare Quality® Protocol produced by researchers (Reis & Molento, 2020; Welfare
Quality®, 2009), but are yet to permeate into practice. Indicators of good human-animal relationships or of the positive emotional
state of farm animals require more judgment from the individual farmer about animal behavior (Reis & Molento, 2020) than less
subjective FAW metrics, such as water consumption or mortality rates. While some indicators may be considered more relevant than
others, Reis and Molento (2020, p. 13) remind us of a possible decoupling between the reporting of indicators and actual farming,
noting that there “is not a simple relation of having standards in place and animals with better welfare.” Arguably, however, today’s
livestock farmers are invariably entwined with the concept of FAW.
A farmer is accountable for their animal husbandry—the keeping and the wellbeing of their animals; their resulting responsibilities
and actions are based on a concept of FAW. On this count, Dubnick’s discussion (2014) about a “referent concept” seems useful because
accountability comes to share “a close relationship with some referent concept” (Dubnick, 2014, p. 50): in this case, what the concept
of FAW includes and implies. Dubnick’s discussion on democracy presents a parallel to FAW as a concept that shapes the legal form of
livestock keeping and understandings of animals’ wellbeing. No aspect of livestock raising escapes FAW. Just as public accountability
may reflect a conceptual relationship to democracy, accountability for farm animals reflects a conceptual relationship to FAW. A
referent concept thus becomes “a moral force” that influences action. For example, as the concept of FAW expanded to encompass
animals’ freedom of movement, this was reflected in changes to policy and practice, with the phasing out of tie-stall barns, in which
cows are kept tethered in narrow stalls much or all of the time (Veissier et al., 2008).
In accounting research, McLaren and Appleyard (2020, 2021) analyzed FAW benchmarks used in the food industry with respect to
producers, retailers, and restaurants. While Reis and Molento (2020) are skeptical about the potential for reporting practices to
improve FAW, McLaren and Appleyard (2020, 2021) suggest—but do not examine an argument—that companies’ disclosures of FAW-
related indicators may eventually improve animal welfare. Their studies address a growing trend of FAW corporate reporting: for
example, reporting the practices of the live animal export industry (Christensen & Lamberton, 2021). However, McLaren and
Appleyard (2020, 2021) do not reflect on the problematics of measuring FAW, farming practices to improve FAW, or the conceptual
assumpions of FAW versus the notion of fundamental rights of animals (Vinnari & Vinnari, 2021). To follow through with an empirical
investigation of FAW, one must consider the farming context (Sørensen et al., 2001), where trends in food consumption and powerful
position of the food industry (e.g., Christensen & Lamberton, 2021; Laine & Vinnari, 2017; Vinnari & Laine, 2017) cause ambiguities
on and controversies over the concept of FAW, which, as we will show, underpins farmers’ accountability (e.g., Dubnick, 2014) for
farm animals.
2.2. Accountability, care, and conscience
“To say that someone should be accountable for particular events or actions is to hold certain expectations about what this person
or organization should be able and obliged to explain, justify and take responsibility for” (Messner, 2009, p. 918, citing Cooper &
Owen, 2007, emphasis removed). Accountability for FAW thus involves, first, someone confronting accountability demands regarding
animal welfare, such as the food companies that McLaren and Appleyard (2020) analyzed, which then become the subject—the
accountable self. It then involves accounts that offer a reason for their conduct, such as compliance with FAW laws. Finally,
accountability involves some monitoring of FAW, such as through formal indicators to track actions geared at improving FAW. Roberts
discusses accountability as “the condition of becoming a subject who might be able to give an account” (Roberts, 2009, p. 959), an
account “of oneself and of one’s activities” (Joannides, 2012, p. 245). Accordingly, accountability encompasses a notion of answer
ability, and, at its core, accountability is relational communication to someone about something (Bovens et al., 2014). However, if we
attribute responsibility for the farmer-animal relation solely to the farmer, we disregard the powerful dairy industry (e.g., Christensen
& Lamberton, 2021; Laine & Vinnari, 2017; Vinnari & Laine, 2017), as well as how our animal product consumption habits contribute
to farmers’ accountability. In this regard, Roberts (2009) argues that the accountable self is a collective concern (e.g., Dubnick, 2014),
a formation emerging out of its social context, making FAW a concern for all, albeit in different ways.
Accounts are typically understood as motivated by demands external to the self, with the normative grounds of accountability being
justified in terms of principles of rights and institutionalized procedures (McKernan, 2012, p. 260). Accountability involves performing
recognized duties and rendering accounts of them (McKernan, 2012, p. 260), and accounting enables accountability by narrating
“reasons for conduct” (Messner, 2009, p. 920). Still, reporting on accountability has been discussed as insufficient (Roberts, 2009,
2018) because accounting does not necessarily equal accountability. For example, Roberts contends that a subject appears to be
accountable through their accounts (e.g., Alvesson & Spicer, 2012) but may make no actual improvements to their practices (Roberts,
2009). This concept of the mere appearance of accountability resonates with the situation of modern livestock raising, whereby farm
practices that adapt animals to industrial systems (and not vice versa) (Porcher, 2011) may result in their visible suffering becoming
invisible. Alternatively, the accountable self may satisfy demands for accountability, but if current accounting practices are inadequate
(Catasús, 2008), the most accountable decision may be: “don’t publish everything that we do” (McLaren & Appleyard, 2020, p. 48).
Farmers may not make accounts public or comply with FAW requirements due to their fear of not being understood by people distant
from the farming context (e.g., Laine & Vinnari, 2017) or their personal conviction that better FAW does not equate with rigidly
prescribed practices. In this way, accountability is viewed as something not merely owed to a community but also as involving
“singular responsibilities that will typically not be intelligible in social terms” (McKernan 2012, p. 259), suggesting that the choice not
to make something public is also an issue of personal conscience (Roberts, 2009).
To relate accountability to a farmer’s conscience would be, as Roberts points out, “an exercise of care in relation to self and others, a
caution to compassion in relation to both self and others, and an ongoing necessity as a social practice through which to insist upon and
3
discover the nature of our responsibility to and for each other” (2009, p. 969). He argues that the subject’s close proximity is central to
the formation of conscience (Roberts, 2003), where proximity can be understood both as physical distance to a practice (including to
consumers) and also as a form of identification within the self, meaning closeness to those for whom the self is accountable (e.g., the
animals). Closeness to animals and distance from consumers may influence accountability; Porcher and Schmitt (2012) conclude that
much of the variation in how farmers relate to their animals depends on the degree to which they develop close relations with their
animals. Some are “more careful and sensitive with their animals,” while others “resist perceiving the needs and actual conditions” of
their animals (Reis & Molento, 2020, p. 13). Thus, there is tension in FAW as an accountability referent: on one hand, what the farmer
is accountable for is a collectively formed expectation, making FAW a matter of general concern; on the other hand, accountability is
also a highly personal matter with a limited narrative ability to convey the specifics of the farmer’s close relationship to the animal.
2.3. Limits to “how” farmers can be accountable versus “what” are they accountable for
The more personal aspects of accountability (Roberts, 2009) concern the limits of one’s ability to be accountable. Messner (2009)
suggests that accountability has a limiting space, a continuum of limits of the accountable self to fully account for every facet of
experience. One such limitation is opaqueness—our necessarily incomplete understanding of ourselves, since there are aspects of our
conduct that are “foreign” to the self. An animal’s circumstances may remain foreign to consumers who actively choose not to reflect
on their own consumption habits (Alvesson & Spicer, 2012). Or, as Messner (2009) argues, opaqueness can relate to tacit knowledge
and an inability of the self to justify all aspects of one’s own practice. For example, a farmer’s commitment and enthusiasm regarding
their relationship with their animal would be an example of what Messner argues is “difficult to rationalize and thus cannot easily
inform an account that one has to give” (2009, p. 926).
Considering these limits of and to accountability, Messner (2009) raises the question of whether more accountability is always
desirable. Addressing the downside of accountability through the ethical implications of greater accountability implies that we must
also consider the person or group being held accountable and not just those being accounted to or accounted for (Messner 2009, p.
924). To analytically address limits requires us to address the question of how one can or cannot account, narrate one’s experience, or
alter the medium of the required account. Yet opaqueness and the mediated nature of the self raises the question of what it is we are
expected to be accountable for. While Messner problematizes the amount and intensity of accountability, rather than the type of
discourse one is subject to (2009, p. 929), it is the latter that is of relevance for what (Dubnick, 2014) one is accountable for. Butler
(2005)—whom Messner (2009) cites—acknowledges that a “capacity to reflect upon ourselves, to tell the truth about ourselves, is
correspondingly limited by what the discourse, the regime, cannot allow into speakability” (Butler, 2005, p. 930). Consequently, the
question of what it is about the farm animals that farmers are accountable for may be more contentious (e.g., Dubnick, 2014) than what
specific actions they are accountable for (Roberts, 2018): for instance, meeting an explicit requirement for access to pasture.
3. Research approach and methods
Our study uses multiple case studies of farms to gather rich, in-depth information from the farmers and others in the industry. This
allows us to interpret how and why farmers do what they do in terms of their material practices and the narratives they provide
regarding those practices. Specifically, we conducted 29 semi-structured in-depth interviews (Qu & Dumay, 2011), of which 20 were
conducted with full-time dairy farmers (see Table 1 in the Appendix). We selected the farmers from a statistical register (Lant
bruksregistret, Statistics Sweden) to represent different regions, including both conventional and certified organic production systems,
and encompass different farm sizes, ranging from around 50 to over 1000 cows. The farm interviews targeted the main decision-makers
at the farm, but sometimes other family members involved in farm management also took part. All the farmer interviews were con
ducted at the respective farm sites, which in many cases allowed us to see the specific software and documents that respondents used in
their decision-making and FAW reporting. Many respondents offered us a tour of their facilities. The formal part of the interviews
lasted between one and two hours and was recorded and transcribed. The interview questions encompassed personal background, farm
history, goals, planning, indicators, and tools used by the respondents (Ferreira & Otley, 2009). Because this study is part of a larger
project (Gottlieb et al., 2021), our concern with FAW emerged during data collection and was not explicitly emphasized or invoked by
the interviewer(s). This reduced the likelihood of farmers answering in a particular way for the sole purpose of portraying a certain
notion of welfare. As data collection progressed, we modified, added to, and subtracted from some of the questions to obtain more in-
depth information about specific common animal welfare measures and practices.
In the interviews, farmers pointed to the major role of other stakeholders in determining which tools and metrics farmers use. We
thus sought to complement farmers’ accounts of the metrics, practices, and controls with interview data obtained from stakeholders
that supply, require, or are otherwise involved in promoting the use of certain metrics or in establishing broader norms regarding farm
animals. This resulted in nine additional interviews with farm advisors, bank advisors, and representatives of regulatory, consumer,
and animal welfare research and policy organizations. We asked them about the nature of the services they provided to farmers or the
requirements they imposed. Additionally, due to the important role of regulations with respect to accountability, we also analyzed key
regulatory, legal, and policy documents and reports in the area of animal welfare.
We mapped the metrics, practices, and controls elicited in the interviews and then focused on those that were more explicitly and
directly related to livestock management. We then selected the practices most closely related to the concept of FAW, as defined in the
literature, and the ones that interviewees used more often and perceived as more important. Table 2 in the Appendix provides an
overview and examples of the mapped metrics and practices, as well as how these are linked to aspects of FAW and their sources in the
literature. As a result, three aspects of FAW were distinguished and reflected in farmers’ practices—animal health, natural behavior,
4
and psychological wellbeing. Out of all the indicators, actions, and reflections, we considered, on the one hand, those which were
tangible and external, and, on the other hand, those which were more internal, emotional, and less tangible. For the more external
metrics, we identified which stakeholders the interviewed farmers associated with them or which were named in the documents
analyzed. We also considered what their intrapersonal relationships were like, based on the metrics and controls. In developing the
analysis, we moved back and forth between the empirical data and our conceptual foundations regarding the linkages between ac
counting and practices of animal husbandry. This process resulted in systematic refining of our conceptual focus and of the thick
descriptions, which in turn helped to reinterpret our theoretical claims and deconstruct the phenomenon of accounting and the
accountability of farmers for the welfare of farm animals.
Choosing this approach and data focus, however, also imposed certain limitations on the analysis and our findings. In particular,
the views of proponents of animal rights, which have been considered in previous studies (Laine & Vinnari, 2017; Vinnari & Laine,
2017), were not empirically reflected in the context studied, although we do discuss the implications of the study for such groups.
Rather than exploring all the nuances of how research studies have measured FAW, we instead engage with the metrics and practices
that are most prominent in the studied context and reflect the implications of the vague boundaries of FAW as an evolving concept for
accountability. Finally, the empirical context of Sweden has several implications. Colder climatic conditions prevent year-long grazing,
and to some extent, necessitate more stringent regulations concerning the conditions of animals kept indoors for lengthy periods of
time. This leads to an emphasis on the amount of space available to each animal, as well as hygiene practices, which may not be as
relevant to animals that are housed outdoor much of the time.
4. Farmers’ required, measurable, and reflective accounts
4.1. FAW: External demands and animal’s natural behavior
Unlike other assets managed by private companies, farm animals are connected to the realm of public accountability and not
foremost to shareholder accountability because they are sentient living assets. As such, the general public, as consumers, is the “highest
principal” (e.g., Joannides, 2012) to whom farmers owe a high standard of animal welfare. Even though consumers are detached
physically from production and, in general, lack knowledge about livestock farming, all the farmers we interviewed mentioned that
they sensed public concern (e.g., Dubnick, 2014) regarding how not to manage animals. One such example was a low-cost practice of
covering the floors inside the barn with fiber-rich dried cow manure together with regular straw:
If a journalist felt like writing something about it, I mean make a fuss about the fact that the cows rest on their own shit, what
would happen then? What would the consumers think about that? (Farmer 26)
This farmer’s bitter tone, explaining a practice of which most consumers are likely oblivious, is telling: farmers already know how
consumers would react to this information and the negative repercussions that would follow for farmers. The practice as such was not
“intelligible in social terms” (McKernan 2012, p. 259), although the farmers themselves did not see it as in any way related to FAW,
rather simply a part of farming. In addition to powerful popular assumptions about what is good for animals, which creates a sense of
readiness among farmers, it is the legal framework that reflects the normative grounds (McKernan, 2012) for farmers’ accountability.
The Animal Welfare Act (SFS 2018:1192) contains a requirement that cows graze on pasture for a minimum specified number of days
from spring to fall (SJVFS 2019:18). In interviews, farmers often mentioned that grazing cows are visible evidence (e.g., Burchell et al.,
1980) to the public that farmers ensure animals’ natural behavior. Furthermore, state control of such access to pastures is further
complemented by control programs administered by organic certification bodies, whose quality control schemes may prolong the
grazing period for animals. Processors are particularly powerful in this regard, and their control programs, which previously were
voluntary, are now compulsory. Processors strongly incentivize control programs by offering milk price bonuses. However, farmers
viewed participation in such programs as a way for processors to load public demands onto farmers (e.g., McLaren & Appleyard, 2020):
Arla [the biggest milk processor] wanted 70% of all farmers in Sweden delivering to them to participate, and that is just for them
to, in turn, get some response from [customers] when they sell [to supermarket chains] … That is why we are part of this
program. (Farmer 14).
Further, with ecological certifications come responsibilities, often controlled by farmers’ self-reporting. And it is through reporting
practices, such as changes in the herd, that farmers assume the obligation of accountability to distant consumers for ensuring good
animal welfare (Roberts, 1991). These accountability obligations are perceived to be a significant burden on farmers (e.g., Singleton,
2012), to the extent that farmers described regulations using kilos:
It’s awful. The rules for a farm, it’s a big, big, giant box like this [indicating the size of the box by hands] of documents. I don’t
remember if it was 20 to 30 kilos of paper, which we have to know. It’s kind of impossible. (Farmer 7)
The amount of legislation was central to farmers’ narratives, including expressions of fear for the future. However, the expectation
of an increased administrative burden may not be linear to the number of provisions, as it is also their strictness that is discussed. In this
vein, one respondent explained that different accountability requirements have different weights, and compliance with certain
environmental requirements for ecological certification gave them a certain leeway for a lower degree of compliance with other, lower-
priority concerns: “so long as we are with KRAV [ecological certification], it feels like all other aspects get aligned. KRAV does not
become one more thing; rather, if you take care of it … have certain documentation, follow the rules … then you do well in other parts”
(Farmer 10). While compliance with ecological certification requirements resonated with the public’s focus on the environment and
animals’ natural behaviours, farmers felt that compliance with some other issues was controlled too stringently by FAW controllers
5
from public authorities. For example, due to food safety concerns cows should be trackable at all times, and therefore they need to wear
ear tags. Farmers felt that controlling these tags was one way that external controllers inflated their authority:
Then they come out and check, and we then had seven [cows], of which one had lost both [ear tags], and the other six had lost
one. And then they do not count in terms of the percentage of how many animals you have. So, seven out of our 700, roughly,
that’s not a very big percent. No, it’s the number that counts, and that is above their limit. So, then there will be sanctions for it.
(Farmer 8)
Similarly, the reporting obligations of continuously accounting for changes in the herd size to the Board of Agriculture were strictly
enforced because farmers who did not meet those obligation risked reductions in their subsidies:
This is done continuously, as we have this reporting obligation, so when animals, calves die, it must be reported in the central
animal database […] at seven-day intervals; it must be correct. (Farmer 11)
Changes in herd size were self-reported, placing the responsibility and, in a narrower sense accountability to authorities, on farmers
who had to account for numerous naturally occurring events and animal behaviors, including their movement (Singleton, 2012). These
events include culling sick animals or animals dying of natural causes, births, slaughter at a slaughterhouse or at home for private
consumption, sales, exports, purchases and imports, and temporary transfers to other facilities (Jordbruksverket, 2021). Although
much of the information about such natural behavior and events is automated, it needs to be checked manually, and the reported
information includes the full identification of the individual animal, its sex and breed, the date of the event, the location of the event,
and additional information (such as the identification number of the mother in the case of births). The frequency of reporting within
seven days of the event further indicates that animals are expected to die or to be moved often, requiring farmers to constantly pay
attention to them.
Aside from self-reporting, farmers’ handling and upkeep of their animals are more directly assessed through different controls by
the regional authorities, processors, and certification organizations. On the one hand, many of the interviewed farmers expressed
agreement with the purposes of such physical controls concerning animal welfare:
That they come out and check whether the animals feel good; that’s okay.… That it should be clean in the milking room and that
type of thing. (Farmer 8)
Controls of the cleanliness of the site and animals, as well as the health of the animals, were framed as acceptable demands. These
demands also resonated well with farmers’ understandings that if the barns are clean and well managed, then the rest of the farm is
most likely also well run. In fact, keeping the animals clean and uninjured is easily verified. However, farmers often mentioned that for
more complex aspects of FAW, the scope of divergent interpretations among controllers was too large and allowed for individual
discretion regarding the less explicit and regulated elements of keeping animals (e.g., Messner, 2009 on “tacit knowledge”). In
particular, farmers often disagreed with controllers about aspects that related to the natural behaviors of cows and how farmers
managed their herds for that behavior. Caretaking presumes understanding the needs of animals, typically from first-hand experience,
and when farmers felt that their understanding was disregarded or contradicted, they felt that associated accountability demands were
less acceptable. Such discrepancies between farmers’ practices and the formal rules of accounting for livestock movement is also
highlighted by Singleton (2012, p. 427), who stated that “[r]evisioning accountability to be about caring, touch, and responsibility
interferes with notions of what legislation is and how it works.” Referring to an event that had to do with the control of “small stupid
things,” one farmer recalled the rules concerning “how many trees should exist” per hectare. She referred to situations where the
controller would ask the farmer to remove trees in a pasture or prevent animals from entering the pasture, which ultimately resulted in
the animals being less protected from the sun. To the farmers, this was as intrusions into their own practices (Messner, 2009) because
“a farmer thus does not get to use their understanding” (Farmer 7). At issue was farmers’ understandings of animals and their pref
erences, which ran counter to the actual rules, but also that regulators had “adapted the laws of animals to the way a person works”
(Farmer 6). For example, cows could hide their newborn calf in the bushes (to guard it against predators) then join the herd after a
time. Cows may also remain inside the barn on a warm summer day because it is cooler than out in the pasture. Such examples have
been questioned with regard to FAW regulations, yet for the farmer, these constitute natural behaviors in these specific situations.
When farmers’ understanding of animals’ behavior in a given situation conflicted with the rules in the mandated controls, they felt
“hunted” by controllers (Farmer 8) because the “concern for accountability (evaluation) may become so dominant that concern for the
underlying practice is moved to the back burner” (Messner, 2009, p. 929)—such as explaining that cows may choose to stay in the barn
at certain times.
4.2. Accounting metrics of FAW and the practice of “asking the cow”
I assume that we should have a profit in the company. Then, other parts are broken down into “what do we have to do in order
for us to achieve that profit?” Which really means going down to production levels. [From the budget] I know we have to
produce 21,000 L of milk a day here. [From the milking software] Here, I look at the number of calves. There is a forecast, and
then I just enter them [into the budget]. And heifers and planned culling, how many cows to dry and then I get milking outgoing
balance, and then down here I get the tank [milk volume]: how much to produce per day. (Farmer 25)
As can be seen from the quote, when farmers discussed cows and milking in operational terms, they conceptualized the animals as
units of production (e.g., Dellaportas, 2019), as evidenced by the metrics that tie numbers of animals to production goals. Of these, the
most direct metric characterizing dairy production is milk yield per cow, per day or year, depending on the animal’s age, time
lactating, breed, and level and type of feed. As the quote above shows, non-financial production indicators such as milk yields are
6
central to dairy farmers, who in most Swedish dairy farms are still directly involved in operations. Production indicators, often updated
in real-time, are readily available through advanced, fully automated milking and feeding equipment (e.g., Holloway et al., 2014).
Milk production metrics can indicate a cow’s current productivity and its potential. Technology enables real-time analysis of milk
production by making inferences about the cow’s status: for example, predicting fertility through hormone levels or disease state
through analysis of blood and urea in the milk. These numeric or descriptive indicators are the basis for measurable accounts and make
visible the animals’ FAW status that relates mostly to health: cows’ biological functioning, injuries, and disease (Botreau et al., 2007;
Fraser, 2003). It is noteworthy that while a cow’s productivity is not a direct animal welfare concern, as a biological function, pro
ductivity does become relevant for FAW and is represented by animal health metrics (e.g., Robson, 1991). A powerful discourse in
policy and agricultural sciences (Lagerkvist et al., 2011) is that healthy cows are productive cows, and FAW, which includes health
issues, is desirable in the sector because it goes hand in hand with productivity. Maintaining cow health was often framed by the
farmers and farm advisors in terms of financial restraints; spending to ensure cow health was acceptable because it translates into
future financial benefits for the farm. For example, mastitis—an infection of the udder—was one disease that was tracked in order to
forecast future income:
If a cow gets mastitis once, then you milk her for free, so to say. You earn nothing from this. If she gets mastitis twice, off she
goes. (Farmer 1)
Some metrics serve as early warning indicators and thus incentivize farmers to ensure the wellbeing of their cows, at least to the
point that their cows survive and produce. They can, however, also be considered negative characteristics of the individual, as seen in
the example above. When these issues are confirmed, it leads to the animal’s removal, similarly to Holloway et al. (2014) showing how
“lazy” cows in robotic dairy farms may get culled. Just as a cow complying with milking routines is controlled (ibid.), so is the cow’s
health (an aspect of its welfare) controlled from a commercial perspective. For example, a cow can be taken out of production and
slaughtered after some years, contributing to revenues, rather than dying sick and incurring costs in the process:
There is a difference between being able to send the cow [alive] to slaughter and getting SEK 10,000 [about 1000 USD] or [dead
and] paying SEK 1500 for a cadaver. (Farmer 26)
The mortality rate is tracked for different groups of livestock, with a particular emphasis on calves. Most farmers interviewed
agreed that it is costly to buy calves elsewhere if one has a high calf mortality rate and is “stand[ing] there with empty spots in the
barn” (Farmer 16). Health and mortality indicators are widely used, as they are easier and less time-consuming for farmers or hired
farm advisors to measure. The mortality rate implies that deaths due to poor health are considered and expected, although undesirable:
We maybe had 7% calf mortality, and then we worked on it, and then we got it down to 3% calf mortality. Everyone who has
worked with it then got very happy, that they saw that it got better. (Farmer 26)
As this quote suggests, industry indicators do appear to become a part of the information set for decision-making and are used for
benchmarking between farms, thus affecting farming practices with respect to certain aspects of FAW (McLaren & Appleyard, 2020,
2021). The health and mortality indicators referred to above are “signs of animal welfare” (e.g., Hulsen, 2008) and part of the overall
pool of farm management indicators called “Cow Control,” which is linked to a unique database of cattle covering about 80% of dairy
cows in Sweden. This tool has been evolving for decades, starting with the primary objectives of measuring, and advising on milk
quality and udder health (Advisor 1). With such a large reference group of animals, the metrics and their levels are both positioned and
perceived as reflecting the norms, even for those farmers we interviewed who did not use the Cow Control tool and advisory service.
We can see the ubiquity of these supposedly voluntary reporting practices in a quote from a farmer who did not participate in the Cow
Control program:
Well, many of these numbers are considered normal. When you have been around for a while, you know them, and you have
heard of them for many years, and then you have these green guys. Green is … or yellow is quite normal, and green is good.
(Farmer 8)
The interviewee here refers to color-coded indicators used in the program. A green smiley face means that the farm’s level on a
particular indicator is among the top 50% in the cow database, while a red sad face means the farm’s level is in the lowest 10%. Farm
advisors use the Cow Control indicators as background information and when offering suggestions for improvement. Thus, there is a
commercial interest behind these benchmarking practices, seeking to make farms more commercially viable, which in turn is assumed
to reflect the farmers’ natural instincts to be competitive:
Many of our better farmers are actually … competitive people, so it’s in their nature, and they strive and compete with what
they had before and in the follow-up on certain key figures that they think are more important. (Advisor 3)
Animal health benchmarking is also coupled with the commercial practice of selling additional services to farmers. In cases of red
indicators reflecting poor animal welfare, farmers were advised to evaluate and correct their practices using the “Ask the Cow”
method. This functions as a self-directed control system that tracks red FAW indicators. A trained adviser from the advisory organi
zation that offers the Cow Control service comes to the farm and inspects it for animal hygiene, hoof quality, and body condition, and
behavioral aspects (such as whether they stand in the stall, lay outside it, are limping, or have problems getting up). The adviser then
prepares a report with suggestions on what is implied to be important for the animals; this suggests that the technology-linked and
benchmarked animal welfare metrics may not be sufficient to ensure that farmers maintain a sufficient level of FAW. The Ask the Cow
program is relevant to FAW accountability, and in a manner similar to on-site controls discussed before, shifts the emphasis more
directly to the cows, to the point that the name of the program alludes to their ability to talk (if only through body language), shifting
the power away from the farmers and to the advisors undertaking assessments of FAW on behalf of the cows.
7
Health and behavioral indicators, as aspects of welfare, are thus influenced by the industry actors that farmers are in close contact
with. Some of the indicators guide understandings of what is “normal” practice in livestock management and what is sufficient in terms
of FAW—in part because those farmers who are “good producers” (including as reflected in these benchmarks) use them. Indicators of
animal health, productivity, and appearance (including their smiley face icons that could be viewed as infantilizing farmers) also
become instruments “mediating relationships between humans exposed to difficult reflexivity on themselves” (Joannides, 2012, p.
252): reflexivity on one’s own achievements and the quality of one’s animal husbandry. The indicators operationalize which FAW
aspects ’count’ more in practice and incentivize achieving higher welfare levels through expected increased revenues or cost mini
mization. Formal rendering of accounts through the Cow Control benchmarking program leads farmers to reflect on their role as
managers of animals and constitute a system of “managerial accountability” (Sinclair, 1995). This operationalization of animals’
welfare makes FAW a target of management that complements broader farm goals but reduces the complexity of animals and the scope
of the concept of FAW that gets addressed. In contrast, the visual examination of the cow, as in “Ask the Cow” method, emphasises the
importance of proximity to the animals considered in the next section.
4.3. Reflective accounting and emotional ties to the animals
Responsibility for animals is shaped in direct contact with them. This responsibility is operational in the sense that this is what
farmers do—and what they are responsible for doing. Yet, for some farmers, it is also shaped by their desire to be identified as dairy
farmers, rather than, for example, crop farmers. Some interviewed farmers explicitly preferred to work with animals rather than
perform other tasks: “some like cows and work more with cows; others like machines and work more with machines” (Farmer 1). In this
and other quotes in this section, it is noteworthy that in the original Swedish, the word for cow is used in its diminutive form (“kossa”),
signifying affection. Often, there is an underlying trait that leads farmers to choose to work with animals despite its demands: for
example, tending to the cows calving at night or not being able to take a vacation because they must be fed. This is important because it
facilitates farmers’ deliberate assumption of responsibility for their animals, which is “a condition for the possibility of accountability:
without it, the giving of an account makes not much sense” (Joannides, 2012, p. 256). Willingness to center one’s work on raising
livestock in close, constant, and often affectionate interaction with them (Bock et al., 2007; Porcher, 2011) is a precondition for
genuinely trying to give them the best care possible. Through their experience with animals, many farmers become emotionally
committed to their animals (Boedker & Chua, 2013):
[T]he most important thing, you should think it’s fun. Otherwise, if it’s not fun, and you see it as a job, then you don’t want to
get up Sunday at five o’clock in the morning [to milk the cows] and stuff. (Farmer 1)
This quote illustrates the kind of “commitment” and “enthusiasm” that “are difficult to rationalize and thus cannot easily inform an
account that one has to give” (Messner, 2009, p. 926). Many of the farmers’ personal reflections point to feeling something regarding
the animals and their circumstances beyond a mere rational consideration of their role in farm production. Farmers mentioned their
animals when they reflected on the things that they were the happiest about in their work (Bock et al., 2007). The farmer quoted below
mentioned their animals, even though they were on the verge of bankruptcy due to difficulties with their small cooperative:
That’s when you see that the animals are doing well, and yes, they get milked when they have children—I mean, get calves. And
the grass is growing, and there we have good alfalfa. And I love the plants, and I know that this is what the animals eat, and this
is good food and … Yes, I love the animals and that… I had some animals of my own, too [growing up]. A pig, yes, you know.
(Farmer 7)
Farmers linking their own wellbeing to that of their animals—to the point that this could ameliorate a situation of financial dis
tress—was a constant theme in our interviews. This feeling involved feeling satisfaction from knowing that their animals were well,
which served as emotional confirmation that they were doing a good job, something that they could see with their own eyes:
Where I feel most satisfaction is when I walk among the animals, and they are feeling good. Just going and looking, that’s the
greatest satisfaction I have. (Farmer 9)
This “feeling good” is a reward that can be registered when a farmer reflects on how she feels and why (Roberts, 2009): because she
enabled the animals to “feel good”:
Rather, it’s that we try to make sure the animals feel good, and then we know that we will also feel that we are happy. That is the
motivation. … You see it [that animals are doing well]. A cow that doesn’t feel good doesn’t eat its food, for example. (Farmer
18)
This quote shows that farmers have some means to infer when animals “feel good.” The farmers may control for measurable ob
servables, such as how much the cows move, through the help of wearable tracking devices. Farmers may also infer—almost intui
tively—whether the animals feel well based on their experience, something often referred to as having “an eye for the animals.” This
refers to farmers’ ability to take good care of their animals by being able to spot their needs and problems using technical, visual, and
auditory cues (Christensen & Lamberton, 2021). More subtle examples included noticing if a calf’s ear is drooping a bit, signifying that
something is wrong, or that certain individual cows are biting each other.
Farmers feeling proximity and connection to the animals they are accountable for (Dellaportas, 2019) is just as important in
developing their sense of responsibility and accountability as farmers’ connection to those to whom they are accountable (Roberts,
2003): regulators, processors, and, indirectly, the wider public. This proximity to their animals seems to be both physical and, to some
extent, psychological (Dellaportas, 2019), especially on smaller farms where the farmers envision their animals as individuals and not
just as numbers:
8
You get a picture of the cow [in your mind] when you see the number [of the cow in the register list]. So, you know that much.
You know more or less what her udder looks like. That’s how most farmers live; they recognize their animals, how they look.
(Farmer 7)
That farmers consider how animals feel and recognize that their own actions have an impact on this is suggested by some of the
livestock management decisions that they make. One example that suggests farmers feel a “kindred spirit” with their animals is the case
of a female farmer who was willing to act “[m]ore flexibly, individually towards the cows” (Farmer 7) because she thought that they
might not all be able to “cope” with being inseminated at the same time after calving. This farmer engaged in self-reflection and
allowed her personal conscience to influence her personal accountability, likely, as a result of her unique experience of understanding
the strains of pregnancy. Furthermore, treating cows as individuals (Holloway et al., 2014) meant that the farm’s economic efficiency
objectives took a back seat to animal welfare ones. Farmers make decisions in multiple areas that align animal and human interests,
going beyond mere numbers and logic to consider emotional factors as well. These decisions involve issues such as animal health, feed
planning, and logistics, reproduction, barn arrangements, and grazing. It is in these moments of deliberation and reflection that
farmers act “behind closed doors” (Roberts, 2009), engaging in reflection that considers more than their rule-defined minimum ob
ligations (McKernan, 2012). In such reflection, they exhibit a sort of gift of being able to consider the animals’ needs beyond what is
required. In some regards, when they move beyond the obligatory, farmers are accountable to nobody but themselves, to nobody
beyond their own conscience, to their own notion of what “caring” means, and their own understanding of what it means for their
animals to “feel good.”
“Caring” may further imply that farmers are aware of and reflect on the suffering or discomfort of their animals and seek to prevent
it. In one such indication of compassion, an interviewee reflected upon the discomfort of cows after someone else trimmed their
hooves, something he usually did himself.
And he trimmed the hooves on all the cows in four hours; it went really fast. But he took off too much. Then five, four months
later, they went out to pasture in April, late April. And then they were still sensitive. Previously they could cross the dirt road;
they could walk everywhere, the cows here, they just walk. But now they go really slowly, so it’s … no, it’s not good. They are
sensitive because he took off too much. (Farmer 1)
Consideration and observation of the cows’ situation may be followed by specific actions, such as installing disinfectant sprayers to
prevent clover eczema or keeping animals in pairs when they are moved to new groups so that a single individual is not bullied after the
transition. In relation to specific cost outlays, examples of compassion include buying softer mattresses for animals to lay on in the
barns or installing rotating grooming brushes. One advisor even noted, “Sometimes they invest too much in what is usually called cow
comfort, and they don’t really get that back in production” (Advisor 4). Farmers are more likely to make this type of expenditure for the
animals’ sake when the outlay is relatively small. However, in terms of more costly improvements, such as building new barns with
wider aisles, it is much harder to separate consideration for the cows’ wellbeing from expected increases in productivity due to facility
improvements:
[as a goal] And in the future a new barn for the cows, because that’s the downside, it works [the current one]. But yes, it’s not
good for the life of the cows, maybe. Sure, they do well, but for example, some larger ones … the cows that get a little bigger,
they have difficulty moving. It’s a bit restricted in places and space and so on. (Farmer 1)
The psychological aspects of cow welfare are not accounted for by reported metrics but are nevertheless approached through
intuition. Some farmers refer to improving their animals’ psychological state by offering a “better animal environment”:
Well, it is calmer in a way. The animals come and go as they please. They eat and lie down and get milked when they want to.
(Farmer 10)
This suggests that farmers use not only visual cues to discern their animals’ emotions (Dellaportas, 2019) but also infer the con
dition of their animals by what they hear. Our interviewees did not mention any specific metrics used in accounting for their animals’
emotional condition, only intuition, and reflection that emerged from their close contact with the animals. While recent regulations
such as (SJVFS, 2019:18) mention aspects of FAW, such as allowing animals to be “held in a way that means they can have eye contact
and touch each other” (FAW researcher interview), at the farm level, these requirements appear to be left to the discretion of farmers
and are not reflected in specific indicators. Recent research is emphasizing behavioral signs of animal welfare, including expressions of
cows’ social and other behaviours, good human-animal relationships, and positive emotional state (Welfare Quality®, 2009). How
ever, in current Swedish practice, the closest thing to formally implementing these findings is the Ask the Cow program discussed in the
previous section, and this program is deployed only at farms that score poorly in terms of more quantitative animal health indicators.
This is partly because such additional measures are time-consuming and the indicators are harder to measure.
As we have discussed, animals’ emotional states, beyond their state of physical health, are not captured well by currently used
metrics and formal account-giving; in the same way, neither does the very fact that animals are confined to production arise in farmers’
accounts of their animals’ wellbeing. When farmers say they feel good knowing that their animals feel good, this does not extend to the
reality of their having to cull certain individuals, which farmers perceive as natural. Unprompted reflections about their animals being
“used” arose only when farmers criticized certain actors, such as vegan or animal rights activists, whose arguments conflict with
farmers’ core beliefs. These core beliefs appear to include a conviction that what they do creates value for consumers in terms of
providing food, open landscapes, and better meat that limits the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
I see it as an incredible resource, to be able to pass it through the cow. Out comes a high-quality food, and then the end product,
when the cow ends its life, so we get high-quality protein, through the meat.… I think it’s good environmental thinking. Yes.
9
Then the media gets to drive their agenda, but I think this drive that is going on now, it’s about ethics; I get a sense of it. It’s not
about the environment in the first place, but the vegan movement has found a way to achieve its purpose. (Farmer 7)
It is this aspect of demands from actors, such as animal rights activists, to justify one’s key purpose for operating that is expressed as
being unattainable in farmers’ accounting—both quantitative and qualitative—as it conflicts with their perception of doing a good job
in their treatment of their animals, of providing them the best possible care. From the farmers’ perspective, feeling good due to a
conviction that their animals feel good does not meet demands that ask for justification of the very use of animals for food (Laine &
Vinnari, 2017; Vinnari & Laine, 2017), something that FAW, as currently understood in research and practised in agricultural policy,
does not promote.
5. Discussion
5.1. A conceptual limit of accountability for animals
Our way of making sense of FAW in the context of dairy farming is to consider FAW as a referent concept for accountability (e.g.,
Dubnick, 2014). As a referent, FAW is concerned with what is assumed to be important and sufficient for accountability. Currently,
FAW has evolved to underlie “what” is entailed in social norms of animal welfare and social consensus about what constitutes good
conduct (Sinclair, 1995) with respect to farm animals. But, as a referent concept for accountability, there are boundaries that limit the
resulting rendering of accounts (e.g., Dubnick, 2014; Messner, 2009). For example, there are limits to the concept of FAW per se, as it
does not address whether it is acceptable to use animals for food production in the first place. Also, the concept is limited by what is
known about animal welfare: health and biological aspects are far better researched and understood than animals’ emotional states. As
such, boundaries have implications for the subject that is being accounted for (e.g., Roberts, 2009). In our discussion that follows, we
will outline how the limits of accountability for farm animals based on FAW can be structured in two main ways.
First, while FAW laws may prohibit or phase out close confinement that prevents animals from being able to move, this issue is but
one aspect of animal domestication that falls outside the current boundary of FAW. Thus, FAW informs political decisions around farm
animals (Broom, 2011) and shapes livestock farmers’ practices. A conceptual limit of FAW as a referent thus reflects the boundaries of
norms and assumptions mediating a farmer as an accountable self (Messner, 2009). A conceptual limit is linked to the notion of the self
being opaque (ibid.), and the interviewed dairy farmers perceived the belief that animals should not be kept for food production as
“foreign” (Messner, 2009, p. 925) to their selves. While poor treatment of animals is a sensitive issue for farmers and involves
internalized blame, in our field material, farmers perceived culling animals as normal, and this practice did not diminish their pro
fessional pride in providing high-quality, safe food. FAW thus also reflects aspects of what is perceived as socially desirable. Such
perceptions are relevant to political actions, since FAW policies draw on public perceptions of what is acceptable or necessary as a
mandate (European Commission, 2016; Näringsdepartementet, 2011). In other words, farmers’ accountability for their farm animals to
the wider public (based on FAW) employs a widely accepted frame of reference. However, that frame is limited by the current
boundary of its referent, which translates into practice through indicators such as the mortality rate.
We should note that the conceptual limits of accountability in this context relate to the structural discourse of accountability, which
is “the articulation of understandings about the way things work, derived from prevalent ideologies and the language that accompanies
them” (Sinclair, 1995, p. 232). Reflecting a particular regime of truth, in our case, FAW frames accounting for farm animals in a way
that does not challenge the historical acceptance of using farm animals for food production. In fact, legally meeting animal welfare
requirements is one way of actively respecting and furthering customs of the EU Member States relating to particular religious rites,
cultural traditions, and regional heritages (European Union, 2012). Thus, accountability based on FAW is closely linked to a broad
sociopolitical consensus. As our understanding of FAW evolves through research, and as this evolution leads to changes in practice, the
moral implications of FAW may continue to be revised also. How, when, and to what extent this may happen is a question that involves
a wide range of stakeholders functioning as the “moral community, whose values and beliefs will serve to judge” the “intentions,
actions and outcomes” of farmers and their account-giving (Schweiker, 1993, p. 236). The community that accepts FAW as a concept
for balancing current demands from different societal actors “defines the ‘good’ in terms of which ‘reasonableness’ will be judged” by
this community (Shearer, 2002, p. 563). This community is underpinned by the economic relations and cultural traditions surrounding
food production and consumption. In order to avoid the pitfall of an accountability that is subservient to economic logic (Shearer,
2002), these very relations and traditions must be reconsidered, and the accountable self would need to emerge differently (e.g.,
Roberts, 2009) in terms of broadening the scope of who, beyond farmers, is accountable for cows.
The general understanding of FAW also has important implications for the current extent of farmers’ accountability. On the one
hand, the regime-like status of FAW emphasizes the importance of, a need for, and acceptance of farmers’ accountability for animals.
On the other hand, this very regime-like status and acceptance of FAW as a unifying objective in the field also means that it may be
problematic to expect more accountability from farmers alone for the use of animals in a way that frames such practices as immoral, as
they are in the concept of animals rights (Regan, 1983). At the extreme end of more accountability, it would be naïve to expect farmers
to assume responsibility for abolishing animal farming at a time when the moral community as a whole accepts eating animals,
because, as Messner (2009, p. 931) argues, “[d]emanding an extension of accountability is not without problems, because it means that
the accountable self would have to challenge a regime of truth on which its identity and viability is built.” We therefore question how a
livestock farmer, as an accountable self, could or should be accountable for a regime of truth that resides outside of FAW’s conceptual
limit: i.e., one that morally precludes any use of animals. Reconciling the different regimes of truth employed by individuals currently
and historically embedded in only one of these regimes can result in an ethical burden on those individuals tasked with undertaking
such a reconciliation (Messner, 2009, p. 933). In terms of more accountability being expected of farmers only, “to put this burden
10
Fig. 1. Accounts and accountability for aspects of FAW. Source: The authors.
entirely on the individual organization or manager is to ignore the need for a more comprehensive socio-political reflection upon
conflicts of accountability” (Messner, 2009, p. 932, emphasis added). However, this does not deny the possibility of a broader systemic
change molding the prevailing regime of truth and further refining the boundaries of FAW, especially with respect to behavioral
indicators and emotional states. Neither does it preclude farmers’ considerations in accounting for FAW, such as those concerning
animals’ sentience.
Second, to better understand the implications of using a referent concept to hold farmers accountable, it is worthwhile to more
closely examine accountability in relation to the various components of FAW and how they are accounted for. Our analysis has been
structured around three aspects of FAW—natural behavior, animal health, and psychological aspects—that illustrate the relationships
between different accounts and the extent of farmers’ accountability for their animals. In this relationship, as Fig. 1 shows, we see that
accountability is more widespread, yet partial in scope, in association with the greater measurability of the underlying accounts. By
structuring it in this way, we want to emphasize the relevance of the various boundaries of the components of FAW for accountability,
understanding that the boundaries of psychological aspects and natural behaviors are not as well operationalized. The extent of
accountability relates to discussions in the accounting literature, which, at a minimum, finds that “the partial form of accountability
relations” is based on more traditional and measurable types of accounts, e.g., financial accounting (Messner 2009, p. 919). In our
analysis, this extent of accountability—that is, its degree of comprehensiveness (ibid.)—reflects the “what” questions of accountability
that we have discussed in terms of how comprehensively they conceptualize animals’ complexity. The accounts underlying the varying
extents of accountability also range from more measurable, as discussed in Section 4.2, to more personal and emotional, as discussed in
Section 4.3 and also considered below in relation to cognitive empathy (Dellaportas, 2019). The illustrated relationships can be further
viewed in terms of two modes (quadrants) for conceptualizing farm animals and being accountable for them, which we discuss in detail
in the next section.
5.2. Enabling and constraining role of the measured accounts
The first mode for conceptualizing FAW accountability concerns the quantification and objectification of animals (Dellaportas,
2019) in terms of certain aspects of FAW. Our field material shows that animal health and those aspects of natural behavior addressed
in regulations (such as grazing) are metrics that are reported and controlled. These metrics relate to managerial accountability
(Sinclair, 1995), and both the metrics and the controls shape farmers’ tasks and expected behavior. Farmers, as producers and livestock
managers, surface through specific indicators such as milk yields and calf mortality rates, and the specific levels for those metrics
become normative with respect to farmers’ capacities. Also, aspects such as diseases, hygiene, and access to the pasture are becoming
prescriptive; in so doing, they minimize extreme undesirable suffering, such as physical pain. Being able to track indicators of animals’
physical states promotes desirable actions, such as keeping their environment cleaner, and prioritizes actions geared towards animal
welfare over management of other farm assets. This illustrates the kind of trickle-down effect that McLaren and Appleyard (2020) say is
possible through benchmarking: i.e., it affects actual business practices, primarily by means of metrics addressing the resources
provided to animals such as space per animal that are easier to measure (Reis & Molento, 2020). It also draws attention to indicators
that reveal unfulfilled potential (Boedker & Chua, 2013), which can be beneficial for animal health but can be detrimental as well if
they are overly focused on yields and production. Lastly, the narrative of healthy cows being productive cows in this conceptualization
enables an alignment between farmers and other industry stakeholders, such as advisors. This alignment enables the availability of a
much broader range of indicators than those that farmers themselves record.
However, the same aspects that enable improvements in animal welfare are also constraining, not only in relation to the animals
being used but also within the conceptual boundaries of FAW. Because the measures are aligned with and justified based on their
complementarity with economic performance (Reis & Molento, 2020), some are given more weight than others, depending on their
perceived impact on the bottom line. For example, monitoring the prevalence of mastitis is given more weight than hoof health, even if
both are deemed necessary aspects of FAW. Our data show that farmers give more importance to animal mortality, an index even more
11
central to production considerations, than to grazing access. Moreover, the overwhelming number of indicators—and our fieldwork
uncovered more than one hundred—along with farmers’ capacity to monitor them all, mean it is even less likely that individual
farmers will monitor aspects that may be pertinent to animal wellbeing but bear little relation with productivity. The prerogative for
detailed prescriptions in the externally controlled metrics may backfire and result in a perceived “impossible” and “inflexible” volume
of demands from regulators, processors, and other private stakeholders that leaves no room for farmers’ own “understanding” as
developed through lived experience. The current systems and tools offered by the farm advisors and machinery suppliers that host,
organize, and integrate most of the management-related indicators may not accommodate additional indicators of animal welfare that
conflict with established production-linked metrics. While indicators make some aspects of FAW easier to manage, they may overly
simplify the complexity of farming and animal wellbeing and lose sight of individual animals in a herd reduced to averages and
comparative figures. Overall, animal welfare metrics enable widespread accountability for health and grazing, although this
accountability is rather narrow in scope. The inherently constraining role of such metrics means they must be complemented by
qualitative observations of FAW.
5.3. The potential of farmers reflecting more on animals and emotions
The second mode of conceptualizing accountability for FAW is more focused on animals’ emotional states and farmers’ reflections
on the animals’ situations. Even though these psychological components of FAW are not new (e.g., Brambell, 1965), FAW accounting
in practice has little room for accounts of animals’ emotional states or good human-animal relationships, which makes it more
challenging to achieve accountability for these factors. In our case, we found glimpses of such a conceptualization in farmers’ re
flections on their relationship with their animals and the care they provide for them, as well as their considerations of animals’
emotional states, e.g., considering their comfort and feeling if they are calm or contented.
Although they lack established ways to report animal emotions and behaviors, farmers nevertheless acknowledge them. The
acknowledgment of farm animals as sentient creatures surfaced in the farmers’ own reflections of themselves as being happy when
their animals feel good, their expressions of compassion when they face difficulties, or their intuitive perception, rooted in experience,
of what the animals may need. While accounting can engineer affect (Boedker & Chua, 2013), such as happiness from lowering the
mortality rate in our case, the focus of the available accounting metrics may also diminish the ability to envision alternative ways of
perceiving animal welfare and reduce feelings of affection towards animals (ibid.). Instead, some farmers develop an “eye” for animals’
needs through their proximity to the animals and interactions with them, without this resulting in concrete numbers that can be
reported in accounting systems. Dellaportas (2019, p. 1623) argues that “[e]motions should be viewed as a source of information,” and
as we saw, emotions are integral to the farmers’ self-reflection about their own practices. In this case, self-reflection develops foremost
an emotional intelligence that is important for reducing the opaqueness of the self (Messner, 2009). As feelings and commitments are
hard to account for (Messner, 2009), rather than devising a system of accounting that can measure things that are hard to measure,
account-givers can engage with these feelings through feelings. By being aware of this dependence, the communicative and relational
(to others) core of accountability could be extended towards a more qualitative and emotional realm, where accountability is closer to
a virtue than a mechanism (Bovens et al., 2014).
“Caring” can serve as a relevant notion for exploring the possibility of cognitive or thought accounts of emotional relationships to
animals. Caring is somewhat elusive in accounting and accountability, although sought after by scholars (Dellaportas, 2019; Jerak-
Zuiderent, 2015; Roberts, 2009; Singleton, 2012). Messner (2009) has already noted that managers’ justifications, especially of
positive outcomes, are sometimes acceptable when alluding to feelings. Considering that positive outcomes and practices are desirable
alongside avoiding poor practices and outcomes, the role of feelings and managers’ awareness of them should be of interest with
respect to what accounts (in a broad sense) can include and the potential of accountability. While regulations govern specific actions
linked to the notion of caring in the sense of providing care to farm animals, such as feeding, providing medical treatment, and even
checking up on animals, caring encompasses a second dimension of having an emotional connection to someone/something and not
just providing care. Thus, caring can be an expression of the unforced response and opennes to the other (Messner, 2009) that forms a
genuine ethical relation to the other. Our data include unsolicited accounts expressing compassion towards and awareness of animals’
emotional states derived not from indicators but observation and reflection. We also highlighted instances that suggest farmers do not
have to, but also want to, prevent unnecessary suffering on the part of animals. As the FAW concept evolves, so too can the oper
ationalization of caring from “providing care” to feeling for and sympathizing with, eventually enabling accounts in the form of
cognitive empathy, i.e., a sensory state that enables a more complex understanding of animals (Dellaportas, 2019).
Farmers’ reflections on their animals and their sense of connectedness to their emotions may enable farmers to be accountable to
themselves. Importantly, self-accountability may motivate farmers to pursue increased animal welfare beyond the current limits of
FAW: i.e., to achieve better emotional states in their animals. Some farmers stated that their own wellbeing was conditional on the
wellbeing of the animals that depended on them, pointing towards interdependent relationships and emotions (Bock et al., 2007;
Dellaportas, 2019; Porcher, 2011). Their discourses included emotional expressions that reflect attempts at self-analysis regarding
whether they are doing a good job of taking care of their animals. Some farmers indicated that they may have specifically sought out
responsibility for animals, making their interactions with their livestock not “just a job.” These reflective accounts of emotional
interdependence align with farmers’ personal discourse: “what accountability feels like” to the farmers (Sinclair, 1995, p. 227). Beyond
what is obligatory, farmers are not accountable to anybody other than themselves, their consciences, and their own notions of what
caring for animals should ideally comprise. To be accountable to oneself is not a matter of “justification of one’s own actions for one’s
own sake” (Messner, 2009, p. 921, emphasis added) but is rather a matter of self-reflection that is not mandated by external forces. Self-
accountability is not just about being the mediating link between animals and the public but also about being an agent affected by
12
one’s own actions. The realization of this emotional response, a kind of cognitive accounting of it, could enable self-accountability by
memory and as a part of an internal dialogue. Dellaportas refers to “mentalizing emotions” by taking the perspective of the other
(2019, p. 1916), and we further clarify this as the affective outcome from initially reflecting on what caring means and becoming aware
of the implications of caring, for both the animals and for oneself. Going forward, it is worth exploring how to promote such reflection
through transformative learning techniques, with the aim of developing “emotional self-awareness, expression and critical reflective
capacity to explore the connection between emotions and decision-making” (Spannring & Grušovnik, 2019, p. 1195; Taylor, 2001).
Through self-accountability, one could hypothetically approach accountability to the animals. For this hypothetical accountability
to animals to be possible, the human’s emotional wellbeing must depend on the wellbeing of the animal, and the human must be the
main party with which the animal has a relationship. In a way, the only one that a specific animal can directly influence is the human
interacting with it and who is emotionally dependent on its wellbeing. Such an accountability to the animal would be essentially
symbolic in the mind of the accountable self. Moreover, the circumstances of the animal-human relationship (Bock et al., 2007) and
agricultural systems (Reis & Molento, 2020) are likely to weigh in heavily. As Porcher (2011, p. 4) argues, “the actual place of
affectivity in this work [with animals] depends on the production system, on how intensive it is, and on the farmers’ degree of au
tonomy.” Such aspects of the farm context may thus also diminish the possibility of self-accountability.
Precisely because accountability cannot be summed up by “carefully drafted performance contracts, control systems or audits”
(Sinclair, 1995), accountability must be enabled in broader self-reflective, sensing, and emotional dimensions. Self-accountability,
being enforced “by psychological, rather than external, controls,” is regarded as particularly “powerful and binding” (Sinclair, 1995,
p. 230, emphasis added). No matter how inconspicuous the notion of caring for animals may be, it should be promoted due to its
potential to encourage a “variety of other possible experiences of accountability” (Roberts, 1991, p. 361; Sinclair, 1995): for example,
accountability for animals at the boundaries of its referent concept, such as animals’ emotional states.
6. Conclusions
This study makes two interrelated contributions to the accounting literature. First, the analysis contributes to our limited
contextual understanding of accounting practices surrounding farm animals not merely as livestock assets on the balance sheet, but as
sentient beings whose welfare farmers formally seek to improve. We add to accounting studies of farm animals (Laine & Vinnari, 2017;
Vinnari & Laine, 2017) by addressing a gap in the extant accounting literature on FAW by illustrating the missing “effects on the
underlying practices” of sectoral measures of FAW (McLaren & Appleyard, 2020, p. 38), as well as other reasons why, and ways how,
farmers render accounts of their animals. Second, we illustrate how farmers’ accountability for their animals is linked to FAW as a
referent concept (Dubnick, 2014) and how it is conceptually limited by the boundaries of this referent (Joannides, 2012; McKernan,
2012; Messner, 2009; Roberts, 2009). We suggest that accountability is not only limited in terms of how the accountable self can (or
cannot) render a complete account of their experience (Messner, 2009). Accountability is also limited by: the terms of what norms and
assumptions permeate the underlying referent of accountability (such as acceptance of using animals for food production) and the
broader discourse enabling these to be brought into the realm of speakability (Butler, 2005, p. 930); what the moral community judges
farmers for and demands accounts of (Schweiker, 1993, p. 236); and what the majority of societal actors define as good (Shearer, 2002,
p. 563). While accountability to the public is warranted, it is also problematic (Messner, 2009) to hold only farmers more accountable
for actions falling outside of the conceptual limits of FAW—i.e., for using animals for food production—so long as the socio-political
consensus reserves the mandate for producing animal-based food to farmers (at least so far, considering emerging lab-grown products).
However, within the current conceptual limits of accountability for farm animal welfare, we envisage the possibility that farmers could
be self-accountable, because of their close proximity to their animals, by rendering cognitive accounts (Dellaportas, 2019) of the
relationship between themselves and their animals. Such accounts and self-accountability, we argue, might serve to fill the gaps in the
referent, particularly regarding the animals’ emotional states, something not measured currently.
Our findings suggest that there is much potential to further the emerging research agenda on accounting, accountability, and
animals. More generally with respect to accountability for farm animals, we could consider the conflicts in accountability at the
intersection of considerations over sustainability and food security. In this regard, settings like Sweden remain highly relevant,
especially given the practice of stakeholder engagement by authorities tasked to reconcile sometimes conflicting regimes of truth.
However, other contexts may offer further insights into conflicts over accountability for animals linked to the religious considerations
of Hinduism or Buddhism, for example. The linkages between accounts and emotions are also relevant for future studies of accounting,
accountability, and animals. The margins of accounting (Miller, 1998) could be extended through interdisciplinary research with the
natural sciences with respect to questions of animal sentience and emotional states and how these could be accounted for. Within the
farm context, the preconditions and mechanisms that enable farmers to care about animals, to reflect about and empathize with them,
offer further possibilities for exploration. In that regard, practices that increase knowledge about the animals’ behavior and emotions
and enhance empathy—as acts of cultivating farmers’ ongoing “active enquiry” (Roberts, 2009, p. 966)—are relevant topics for further
investigation of accountability.
Acknowledgements
The authors greatly appreciate the invaluable comments of two anonymous reviewers and support of the Guest Editors Eija Vinnari,
Wai Fong Chua, and Jane Baxter. The first author further appreciates the funding from the Ellen and Tage Westin Scholarship for the
data collection. The sponsors had no further involvement in the study.
13
Appendix
Table 1
Interviewees.
Interviewees Range of dairy cows Production methods Interview duration Interview date
1 Male farmer <200 Conventional 66 min Aug. 9, 2017

2 Farmer, father (joint interview 1) <200 Conventional 50 min Aug. 16, 2017
3 Farmer, son (joint interview 1)
4 Farmer, husband (joint interview 2) <200 Certified organic 60 min Aug. 23, 2017
5 Farmer, wife (joint interview 2)
6 Male farmer 200–800 Conventional 75 min Sept. 12, 2017
7 Female farmer <200 Certified organic 74 min Sept. 18, 2017
8 Male farmer 200–800 Conventional 99 min Sept. 20, 2017
9 Male farmer > 800 Conventional 61 min Oct. 31, 2017
10 Male farmer 200–800 Certified organic 79 min Nov. 3, 2017
11 Male farmer 200–800 Conventional 77 min Nov. 21 2017
12 Male farm manager > 800 Certified organic 87 min Jan. 10, 2018
13 Male farmer > 800 Certified organic 98 min Jan 11, 2018
14 Farmer, husband (joint interview 3) <200 Conventional 85 min Oct. 30, 2018
16 Male farmer <200 Conventional 47 min Oct. 31, 2018
17 Farmer, husband (joint interview 4) 200–800 Conventional 55 min Nov. 1, 2018
19 Farmer, husband’s father (joint interview 4)
20 Farmer, husband (joint interview 5) <200 Conventional 66 min Nov. 5, 2018
22 Male farmer 200–800 Conventional 58 min Nov. 7, 2018
23 Male farmer 200–800 Certified organic 62 min Nov. 12, 2018
24 Male farmer 200–800 Conventional 55 min Nov. 14, 2018
25 Male farmer > 800 Conventional 63 min Dec. 3, 2018
26 Male farmer 200–800 Conventional 87 min Dec. 13, 2018
27 Advisory organization, unit director, “advisor 1” 47 min May 23, 2018
28 Advisory organization, production advisor 1, “advisor 2” 30 min May 28, 2018
29 Advisory organization, production advisor 2, “advisor 3” 46 min June 1, 2018
30 Advisory organization, economic advisor, “advisor 4” 55 min June 4, 2018
31 Bank 1, agricultural expert 36 min Nov. 28, 2018
32 Bank 2, loan officer 45 min Dec. 14, 2018
33 Consumer organization representative 66 min June 20, 2019
34 Government authority senior official on FAW 46 min July 1, 2019
35 FAW researcher, member of an animal welfare organization 76 min July 30, 2019
Source: The authors.
Table 2
Mapping of practices related to FAW.
Aspect of Examples from research Examples of specific tools or policy Examples of indicators and practices
welfare documents as sources
Health FAW encompassing biological function Milking equipment software, “Cow Milk yield, milk per dairy cow; somatic cells
(Fraser, 2003), state of body systems (Broom, Control” advisory tool, processor quality and bacteria in milk; calf mortality rate
2011), freedom from hunger, thirst, scheme, organic certification rules, (percentage of calves that die in each age
discomfort, pain, injury, and disease (Botreau “health” explicit in Animal Welfare Act range); cow hygiene; the presence of injuries;
et al., 2007) (SFS 2018:1192), “Ask the cow” advisory ability to stand up; “Cow Comfort” practices
method (providing softer mattresses, rotating
grooming brushes, wider barn aisles);
considering how much and what animals eat;
cleaning drinking water for animals; delaying
insemination, etc.
Natural FAW encompassing opportunities, conditions Animal Welfare Act (SFS 2018:1192) and Reporting that animals are on pasture, calves
behavior for living/biologically functioning in a regulations, e.g., (SJVFS 2019:18) and the in organic production systems remain with
natural way and expressing appropriate Animal Welfare Ordinance (SFS 2019:66), the mother for a few days, “Cow Comfort”
behaviors, e.g., grazing (Broom, 2011; Fraser, organic certification rules practices, etc.
2003).
Psychological FAW related to emotional states, e.g., fear, Enabling visual contact among animals Moving several cows at a time between
wellbeing distress, frustration, security, or contentment. (SJVFS 2019:18), preventing fear of groups to prevent bullying; paying attention
humans (Welfare Quality®, 2009). to animals’ vocalizations, etc.
Source: The authors.
14
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Critical Perspectives on Accounting 84 (2022) 102409

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

Accounting and accountability for farm animals: Conceptual limits

2. FAW, accounting, and accountability

2.1. FAW as a referent concept

2.2. Accountability, care, and conscience

3. Research approach and methods

4. Farmers’ required, measurable, and reflective accounts

4.1. FAW: External demands and animal’s natural behavior

4.3. Reflective accounting and emotional ties to the animals

5.1. A conceptual limit of accountability for animals

5.2. Enabling and constraining role of the measured accounts

5.3. The potential of farmers reflecting more on animals and emotions

1 Male farmer <200 Conventional 66 min Aug. 9, 2017

Source: The authors.

Source: The authors.

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