Abstract
Market-based promotion of animal welfare has become increasingly important in the EU. Retailers in several countries have implemented graded animal welfare labels for a variety of animal-based products. In this paper, we use labels for pork as a case study and investigate which aspects of animal welfare are promoted by pig welfare labels; we further discuss to what extent labels address the major welfare problems observed in European pig production. Consumers generally focus on aspects of animal welfare related to naturalness, such as outdoor access, straw, and duration of suckling period. Animal welfare labels often address these aspects in addition to other welfare aspects that are of interest to the consumer, such as space, mutilations, confinement, and access to roughage. Major welfare problems such as piglet mortality and weaner diarrhoea are not directly addressed by pig welfare labels. As pig welfare labels often require intact tails, it will also be relevant to address the risk of tail biting and tail lesions. Pig welfare labels, in general, do not use animal-based measures; rather, they are resource-based measures, while animal-based measures are more directly related to animal welfare. Animal-based measures are more difficult and expensive to use in a certification system than resource-based ones. In addition, animal-based measures may be more difficult to communicate to consumers. However, inclusion of animal-based measures would improve reproducibility of labels across production systems and provide documentation on actual levels of major animal welfare problems.
Highlights
Animal welfare in intensive livestock production is often confronted with skepticism and concern from the public
Free farrowing sows seem to have few animal welfare problems [15], which is similar to the case for out-door farrowing systems [16]; space in the farrowing pen affects sow movement even if the sow is not confined in a crate
To achieve level 4, the welfare of pigs has to be assessed on farms and the outcome has to be favourably comparable to all underlying levels for the same product type. Due to this special design for level 4, in the following study we focus only on levels 1, 2, and 3 of “The Animal Welfare Heart”
Summary
Animal welfare in intensive livestock production is often confronted with skepticism and concern from the public. Legislation only defines minimal standards, which do not ensure animal welfare, and minimal legal requirements may not meet public expectations with regard to animal welfare. Measures to improve animal welfare often increase production costs; the farm animal industry criticizes higher legal national standards as these reduce competitiveness against farmers in countries with lower legal requirements. Minimal legal requirements are a compromise between public expectations regarding animal welfare and the concerns of producers regarding production costs. Examples are Danish and German egg production, which have committed to stopping beak trimming of layers Consumers declare that they are willing to pay higher prices for animal products if these are produced under animal friendly conditions [3,4]. German, and Danish labels on pork are used as case examples
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