The Importance of Farm Animal Health and Natural Behaviors to Livestock Farmers: Findings From a Factorial Survey Using Vignettes

Belinda Vigors,David A Ewing,Alistair B Lawrence

doi:10.3389/fanim.2021.638782

Abstract

There is increasing interest in enabling positive experiences, not just minimizing negative experiences, to improve the welfare of farmed animals. This has influenced the growth of private agri-food standards and supported arguments to integrate animal welfare into policy on sustainability and climate change. However, much research finds that farmers predominantly focus on the minimization of negatives (i.e., health issues). This may impact the positioning of farmers within these wider societal debates, affecting their social license to farm. It is thus important to better understand farmers' priorities relating to the minimization of negative factors (e.g., health issues) and the promotion of positive experiences (i.e., natural behaviors). A novel 2 × 2 factorial survey using vignettes, which experimentally manipulated health (health issues minimized/not minimized) and natural behavior (natural behaviors promoted/not promoted) provision, was completed by livestock farmers (n= 169), mostly with extensive systems, in the UK and Republic of Ireland. The majority (88%) considered “minimizing health issues” to be the most important factor for animal well-being. However, the overall welfare of animals was judged to be highest when both health and natural behaviors were supported. Several individual characteristics, including farming sector, production system, gender, belief in animal mind and business type influenced how participants judged the welfare of animals and the level of importance they gave to health and natural behaviors. Findings suggest that although farmers prioritize the minimization of health issues they want animals to be both healthy and able to express natural behaviors, and individual characteristics are important for understanding farmers' welfare-related judgements.

Highlights

There is growing awareness of and interest in the welfare benefits of promoting positive experiences in farm animals’ lives, both within science and society
There was an almost even split between genders (53% male, 47% female) for the total sample
The findings of this study provide a clearer understanding of the importance farmers give to health and natural behaviors and how different levels of their provision impact farmers’ judgements of welfare

Summary

Introduction

There is growing awareness of and interest in the welfare benefits of promoting positive experiences in farm animals’ lives, both within science and society. Private agri-food standards and welfare schemes have increasingly sought to include assessment criteria considered indicative of natural behavior expression (e.g., days spent at pasture, outdoor access) (Lundmark et al, 2018; Vogeler, 2019). This has contributed to an emerging gap between public standards—which provide a minimum standard of welfare—and private agri-food standards which seek to meet public expectations for higher welfare (Henson and Reardon, 2005; Lundmark et al, 2018). There is an awareness of a public desire for farm animals to experience positive lives (e.g., opportunities to express natural behaviors) and this is impacting both the development of and expectations for agri-food standards and related policy

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion