Abstract
The multidimensional concept of animal welfare includes physical health, good emotional state, and appropriate behavior of the animals. The most recent methods for its assessment are inspired by the Welfare Quality, a project compiling animal-, resource-, and management-based measures. Recently, animal welfare assessment has also considered the human factor in a so-called “One Welfare” approach. The One Welfare framework highlights the interconnections between animal welfare, human well-being, and the environment. The concept seems to fit particularly well to mountain areas where the relationship between human, animals, and the environment is stronger. In such disadvantaged areas, farmers' well-being plays a key role in maintaining livestock farming profitably and sustainably. This study aims to investigate the relationship between farmers' satisfaction, animal welfare outcomes, and overall farm performance in 69 small-scale dairy farms in the Eastern Alps. Animal welfare assessment consisted of animal-based measures and was performed using the methodology proposed by the European Food Safety Authority for this type of farm. Moreover, the farmers were interviewed to retrieve data on farm characteristics and on their level of satisfaction toward workload, land organization, relationship with the agricultural/non-agricultural community, and the future of local agriculture. The results show that good animal welfare can be obtained in a mountain farming system. Clinical indicators show a low prevalence of diseases and of very lean cows as opposed to integument alterations. The workload is not perceived as a problem in traditional farms (i.e., tie-stall and with no participation in quality-certification schemes). Animal welfare is higher in those farms where farmers have a positive engagement with both the agricultural and non-agricultural community and where farmers are satisfied with their land organization. A One Welfare approach could be applied on a larger scale to fully understand the links between animal and human well-being in mountain areas.
Highlights
Farm animal welfare is an ever-evolving, multidimensional concept—not easy to define and evaluate [1]
One Welfare is a recent theoretical approach aiming at mapping the interconnections between animal welfare, human well-being, and environmental health
A limited number of studies have explored the relationship between dairy cattle welfare and human well-being
Summary
Farm animal welfare is an ever-evolving, multidimensional concept—not easy to define and evaluate [1]. Animal welfare as a “formal discipline” started with the publication of the “five freedoms” proposed by the [3]. A very large amount of research has been carried out about animal welfare, focusing on the development of welfare-assessment methods in different environments [7]. Many of these research findings contributed to the assessment protocols produced by the Welfare Quality project [8], the largest study carried out in the EU to develop scientifically based measures for farm animal welfare and to convert these into accessible and understandable information [9]. The Welfare Quality assessment protocol combines animal, resource-, and management-based measures to distinguish four principles—good feeding, good housing, good health, and appropriate behavior—and identify an overall degree of welfare
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