Bailey Norwood

author of Compassion by the Pound: The Economics of Farm Animal Welfare

February 4, 2012

Bailey Norwood is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University, where he researches farm animal welfare issues, survey methods, and teaching effectiveness. He teaches the introductory agricultural economics course, as well as a senior-level course on data analysis. In addition to authoring over 35 journal articles (some in the most prestigious agricultural and environmental economics journals) he coauthored the textbook Agricultural Marketing and Price Analysis and with Prentice-Hall and Compassion by the Pound: The Economics of Farm Animal Welfare with Oxford Publishing.

For much of human history, most of the population lived and worked on a farm, but today people's information about farm animal is more likely to come from children's books than hands-on experience. When romanticized notions of an agrarian lifestyle meet with the realities of the modern industrial farm, the result is often a plea for a return to antiquated production methods. The result is a brewing controversy between animal activist groups, farmers, and consumers that is currently being played out in ballot boxes, courtrooms, and in the grocery store. Where is one to turn for advice when deciding whether to pay double the price for cage free eggs or in determining how to vote on ballot initiates appearing across the U.S. seeking to ban practices such as the use of gestation crates in pork production? At present, there is no clear answer. What is missing from the animal welfare debate is an objective approach that can integrate the writings of biologists and philosophers, while providing a sound and logical basis for determining the consequences of farm animal welfare policies. What is missing in the debate? Economics. This book journeys back to the earliest days of animal domestication and then forward into modern industrial farms. Delving into questions of ethics and animal sentience, the authors use data from ingenious consumers experiments conducted with real food, real money, and real animals to compare the costs of improving animal care to the benefits. They show how the economic approach to animal welfare raises new questions and ethical conundrums as well as providing unique and counterintuitive results.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2012-honorees/bailey-norwood

Last Updated: 12 January 2022