Climate change impacts on livestock and resulting effects on animal health: current challenges in food safety, consumer protection, and animal welfare

In 2024, catastrophic floods swept through Italy’s EmiliaRomagna region, devastating communities and agricultural lands. These floods were just one of many extreme climate events in recent years- alongside record-breaking wildfires in Canada and the United States in 2023–2024 and Australia’s infamous'Black Summer' of 2019–2020. As these events escalate in frequency and intensity, the link between human-driven climate change and its devastating effects becomes undeniable. Among the industries contributing significantly to this crisis, the food supply chain - particularly intensive livestock farming, which exacerbates greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and biodiversity loss - plays a significant role, raising urgent questions about how we produce and consume food in a warming world. Furthermore, we must also consider that a warming and polluted world represent a danger to all forms of live, including humans and animals. In fact, the impact of these changes on animals and their welfare is profound, with significant implications for consumer protection. In intensive farming systems, extreme weather events such as floods, heatwaves, and wildfires often leave animals trapped in unsafe conditions, suffering from dehydration, starvation, or death. Additionally, the stress and overcrowding of animals in factory farms increase the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks, threatening both public health and food safety. Consumers increasingly demand humane and sustainable practices in the food industry, recognizing the link between animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and their own well-being. In this scenario, to protect consumers and mitigate climate-induced risks, systemic changes are needed to reduce the environmental impact of human’s activities, with a particular focus on the food supply chain. In this way it could be possible to achieve both a lower environmental impact and improved food quality and safety simultaneously.