Managing Animal Welfare in Food Governance in Norway and Sweden: Challenges in Implementation and Coordination

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Animal welfare is an important issue in society, and having a strong animal welfare legislation is per se important. However, in addition to a strong legislation, it is necessary to create a system that can enforce the legislation and to have a public administration in place in order to achieve a coordinated implementation. Both Norway and Sweden have received some criticism for their coordination of animal welfare control efforts. However, they have reacted to this criticism in different ways. Norway has centralised the coordination, making the Norwegian Food Safety Authority (NFSA) solely responsible for animal welfare control. Sweden, on the other hand, has instead focused on developing better guidelines to be used by the 21 regional County Administration Boards in order to improve uniformity. In this study, we have compared the Norwegian and Swedish ways of coordinating animal welfare control and identified challenges and relevant organisational preconditions for achieving uniform and consistent compliance. The results show that Sweden’s organisation may need more coordination between multiple organisational units, while Norway has better preconditions for achieving uniformity in animal welfare administration. However, in Norway, the safeguards for the rule of law might be an issue, due to NFSA acting as de facto “inspector”, “prosecutor” and “judge”. ABSTRACT: A key issue in food governance and public administration is achieving coordinated implementation of policies. This study addressed this issue by systematically comparing the governance of animal welfare in Norway and Sweden, using published papers, reports, and legal and other public information, combined with survey and interview data generated in a larger research project (ANIWEL). Governing animal welfare includes a number of issues that are relevant across different sectors and policy areas, such as ethical aspects, choice of legal tools, compliance mechanisms and achieving uniform control. Based on the challenges identified in coordinating animal welfare in Norway and Sweden, relevant organisational preconditions for achieving uniform and consistent compliance were assessed. The results showed that Sweden’s organisation may need more horizontal coordination, since its animal welfare management is divided between multiple organisational units (Swedish Board of Agriculture, National Food Agency and 21 regional County Administration Boards). Coordination in Norway is managed solely by the governmental agency Norwegian Food Safety Authority (NFSA), which has the full responsibility for inspection and control of food safety, animal health, plant health, as well as animal welfare. Thus, Norway has better preconditions than Sweden for achieving uniformity in animal welfare administration. However, in Norway, the safeguards for the rule of law might be an issue, due to NFSA acting as de facto “inspector”, “prosecutor” and “judge”.