ANIMAL WELFARE PERCEPTIONS OF THE U.S. PUBLIC AND COW-CALF PRODUCERS

AbstractThe U.S. livestock industry is increasingly faced with pressure to adjust practices in response to societal concerns—specifically related to farm animal welfare. Using best-worst scaling, we determine which practices the U.S. public and cow-calf producers view as the most effective and most practical practices to improve beef cattle welfare. Latent class models are used to understand heterogeneity within and across the public and producers. Fresh, clean feed and water was viewed by most groups as both effective and practical. Furthermore, castrate with pain control and dehorn with pain control were seen as the least effective and practical practices.

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Use and non-use values to explain farmers’ motivation for the provision of animal welfare

European Review of Agricultural Economics ◽

10.1093/erae/jbab012 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Enoch Owusu-Sekyere ◽

Helena Hansson ◽

Evgenij Telezhenko

Keyword(s):

Animal Welfare ◽

Latent Class ◽

Latent Class Models ◽

Customer Relationships ◽

Farm Animal Welfare ◽

Dairy Farmers ◽

Motivational Constructs ◽

External Pressures ◽

Swedish Dairy ◽

Use Values

Abstract This paper examines how differences in motivation in terms of use and non-use values affect the choice of animal welfare improvement practices. The application is focused on Swedish dairy farmers’ preferences for different flooring systems’ attributes. Using multiple indicators and multiple causes and hybrid latent class models, the findings demonstrate that dairy farmers who favour flooring solutions that enhance farm animal welfare are motivated by a complex set of both use values relating to internal and external pressures and non-use values linked to animal freedom, ethical codes of farmers and building business-to-customer relationships. The findings imply that measures to stimulate more uptake of animal welfare improvement practices can be better targeted by using insights into motivational constructs of farmers and by adopting policy communication that captures the whole breadth of use and non-use motivational constructs held by farmers.

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Assessing Animal Welfare and Farm Profitability in Cow-Calf Operations with Stochastic Partial Budgeting

Animals ◽

10.3390/ani11020382 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 382

Author(s):

Haseeb Ahmed ◽

Karin Alvåsen ◽

Charlotte Berg ◽

Helena Hansson ◽

Jan Hultgren ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Animal Welfare ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Disease Incidence ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

Herd Size ◽

Economic Consequences ◽

Government Support ◽

Farm Animal Welfare ◽

Partial Budgeting ◽

Cow Calf

The societal demand for good farm animal welfare (FAW) has increased over time. Yet, very little is known about the economic consequences of improvements in FAW in cow–calf operations. This study investigates on-farm economic consequences of improved FAW measures in cow–calf operations. It uses a stochastic partial budgeting approach to examine the relationship between contribution margins and improvements in FAW in terms of increased space allowance for a typical Swedish cow-calf operation, as compared to current practices. In the current practice, a cow should be given at least 5 m2 and the calf 2.2 m2. We found that a 0.5 m2 increase in space allowance per calf (achieved by a corresponding reduction of herd size) was associated with a 6.9 to 18.7% reduction in contribution margins in the short term. Our analysis does not include possible indirect gains like decrease in disease incidence and enhanced non-use or ‘soft’ values associated with increased FAW. However, our analysis indicates that high FAW standards can be costly and careful cost–benefit analysis should be a part of decision-making processes regarding FAW standards. Our results also suggest a need for government support payments and/or the development of market mechanisms to stimulate farmers to continue producing livestock-based foods with high FAW.

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