As the world wakes up to the realities of industrial farming, one animal cruelty index calls out the worst offenders
The journalist and podcaster Ezra Klein once described going vegan as like waking up from the Matrix. Once you are attuned to animal cruelty, you see it everywhere and cannot fathom how humans not just tolerate but endorse a system that subjugates so many.
Historian Yuval Noah Harari has called factory farming one of the worst crimes in history while others have likened it to slavery.
Much of this is seen as joyless pontificating – and some of it is – but none of us can deny that animal cruelty goes hand in hand with industrial farming. (If you do deny it, then we recommend reading Eating Animals which provides a more comprehensive account of industrial farming than we can do here.)
There are myriad initiatives to try to reduce meat consumption globally. There’s Veganuary which encourages people to go vegan for the month of January, there’s Meat Free Monday which advocates giving up meat for one day a week, and of course there’s the exploding popularity of plant-based milk.
One of the most interesting initiatives we’ve come across is the Voiceless Animal Cruelty Index, also known as VACI, produced by the animal protection institute, Voiceless.
The VACI is an interactive index that evaluates and ranks countries based on the nature, extent and intensity of cruelty associated with farmed animal production and consumption in a sample of 50 countries that together account for almost 80% of the world’s farmed animal population.
The methodology
The VACI ranks countries using three indices:
Producing Cruelty assesses the number of farmed animals slaughtered for food every year (on a per capita basis), whilst taking explicit account of the fact that animals are treated and protected differently in each country.
Consuming Cruelty assesses the consumption of farmed animals using the ratio of plant-based protein to farmed-animal protein consumed and the number of animals consumed in each country (on a per capita basis).
Sanctioning Cruelty assesses societal and cultural attitudes to farmed animals, as reflected in the quality of the regulatory frameworks that protect, or fail to protect, farmed animals.
Animal Cruelty Index: ranking
The table below lists the 50 countries in alphabetical order. Sort by Overall Cruelty, Producing Cruelty, Consuming Cruelty, or Sanctioning Cruelty below. The higher a country scores, the crueler it is to its animals.
Based on Overall Cruelty, Australia and Belarus are the cruelest countries to animals. Conversely, India and Tanzania are the least cruel.
Rank | Country | Overall | Producing | Consuming | Sanctioning |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
14 | Algeria | 61 | 7.39 | 20 | 21 |
46 | Argentina | 116 | 15.17 | 96 | 18.2 |
49 | Australia | 128 | 22.45 | 99 | 20 |
7 | Austria | 42 | 5.76 | 66 | 6.1 |
28 | Azerbaijan | 81 | 9.97 | 30 | 26.1 |
49 | Belarus | 128 | 37.69 | 69 | 24.2 |
43 | Brazil | 111 | 21.59 | 87 | 15.4 |
39 | Canada | 97 | 15.21 | 74 | 15.3 |
41 | Chile | 101 | 15.12 | 73 | 17.1 |
29 | China | 83 | 10.19 | 34 | 26 |
30 | Colombia | 85 | 12.79 | 69 | 16 |
26 | Denmark | 76 | 12.77 | 82 | 7 |
22 | Egypt | 72 | 9.34 | 18 | 25.1 |
8 | Ethiopia | 45 | 1.07 | 3 | 24 |
22 | France | 72 | 11.06 | 74 | 12.1 |
12 | Germany | 56 | 6.67 | 70 | 10 |
1 | India | 25 | 1.58 | 13 | 14 |
16 | Indonesia | 62 | 10.25 | 13 | 20.1 |
45 | Iran | 115 | 23.37 | 42 | 28 |
11 | Italy | 49 | 6.87 | 55 | 12 |
24 | Japan | 74 | 6.41 | 49 | 23.1 |
3 | Kenya | 33 | 0.68 | 11 | 17 |
40 | Malaysia | 99 | 25.92 | 70 | 14.2 |
19 | Mexico | 68 | 10.32 | 67 | 14.1 |
42 | Morocco | 104 | 16.49 | 35 | 27 |
46 | Myanmar | 116 | 27.92 | 52 | 24.1 |
36 | Netherlands | 90 | 22.32 | 76 | 8.1 |
38 | New Zealand | 94 | 19.08 | 81 | 10.1 |
8 | Niger | 45 | 1.17 | 7 | 23 |
4 | Nigeria | 37 | 1.26 | 5 | 18.1 |
14 | Pakistan | 61 | 5.73 | 30 | 22 |
32 | Peru | 86 | 25.66 | 27 | 17.2 |
10 | Philippines | 48 | 8.89 | 28 | 15.1 |
27 | Poland | 77 | 13.75 | 68 | 13.1 |
34 | Romania | 87 | 13.61 | 55 | 18 |
44 | Russia | 112 | 18.17 | 74 | 19 |
34 | South Africa | 87 | 14.04 | 63 | 16.3 |
20 | South Korea | 69 | 14.34 | 38 | 14.4 |
30 | Spain | 85 | 13.06 | 78 | 13 |
5 | Sweden | 39 | 5.32 | 66 | 6 |
5 | Switzerland | 39 | 5.25 | 63 | 8 |
1 | Tanzania | 25 | 1.32 | 8 | 14.3 |
20 | Thailand | 69 | 17.07 | 27 | 15.2 |
17 | Turkey | 67 | 12.31 | 41 | 16.1 |
32 | Ukraine | 86 | 12.57 | 52 | 20.2 |
24 | United Kingdom | 74 | 12.46 | 77 | 9 |
48 | United States | 120 | 23.45 | 98 | 16.2 |
13 | Uruguay | 57 | 8.96 | 46 | 15 |
37 | Venezuela | 91 | 12.99 | 44 | 23.2 |
17 | Vietnam | 67 | 6.49 | 27 | 25 |