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Concern about the welfare of production animals is growing among various stakeholders, including the general public. Citizens can influence the market for premium welfare products by expressing public concerns, and consumers-the actors who actually purchase products-can do so through their purchasing behavior. However, current market shares for premium welfare products are small in Europe. To better align purchase behavior with public and individuals' concerns, insight is needed into determinants that influence the intention to purchase premium welfare products. A cross-sectional online survey of 787 Flemish milk consumers was conducted to investigate attitudes toward and intention to purchase animal-friendly milk. More than half of the sample (52.5%) expressed the intention to purchase animal-friendly milk. Linear regression modeling indicated that intention was positively influenced by (1) higher perceived product benefits from animal-friendly milk (milk with more health benefits and higher quality); (2) higher personal importance of extrinsic product attributes such as local production and country of origin; (3) higher personal importance of animal welfare; (4) a more natural living oriented attitude toward cows; and (5) a more positive general attitude toward milk. Intention was negatively influenced by (1) a stronger business-oriented attitude toward cows; and (2) by a higher personal importance attached to price. These insights in key components of purchase intention can assist producers, the dairy industry, and retailers to position and market animal-friendly milk.

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Soil organic matter (SOM) is an important resource base for arable farming. For policies on SOM to be effective, insight is needed on why and under which conditions farmers are willing to increase SOM content. This study used the theory of planned behaviour to analyse what prevents or encourages Dutch farmers to increase the SOM content of their fields. In an online survey, 435 arable farmers were asked questions to understand their attitude (perceived benefits), subjective norm (social pressure) and perceived behavioural control (anticipated impediments and obstacles) related to management of SOM. Farmers' answers were related to their intention to increase SOM content, use of organic materials and perceived increase in SOM content. Our results showed that Dutch farmers are well aware of the possible benefits of SOM content for crop productivity. Farmers' attitude, subjective norm and perceived decrease in SOM content were significantly related to their intention to increase SOM content. In our farm survey, this intention was very strong: 90% of the farmers stated a high or very high intention to increase the SOM content of their fields. A higher intention to increase SOM content was correlated with the use of organic materials as expressed as total and effective C (P = 0.003 and P = 0.002, respectively), but this did not lead to a perceived increase in SOM content. From a farmer's point of view, this indicates that increasing SOM content is to a large degree beyond their direct influence. The Dutch Manure and Fertiliser Act, costs of organic inputs and the need to cultivate profitable crops (such as potatoes or sugar beet) were indicated as important impeding factors for increasing SOM content.

The Welfare Quality (WQ) protocol for on-farm dairy cattle welfare assessment describes 27 measures and a stepwise method for integrating values for these measures into 11 criteria scores, grouped further into 4 principle scores and finally into an overall welfare categorization with 4 levels. We conducted an online survey to examine whether trained users' opinions of the WQ protocol for dairy cattle correspond with the integrated scores (criteria, principles, and overall categorization) calculated according to the WQ protocol. First, the trained users' scores (n = 8-15) for reliability and validity and their ranking of the importance of all measures for herd welfare were compared with the degree of actual effect of these measures on the WQ integrated scores. Logistic regression was applied to identify the measures that affected the WQ overall welfare categorization into the "not classified" or "enhanced" categories for a database of 491 European herds. The smallest multivariate model maintaining the highest percentage of both sensitivity and specificity for the "enhanced" category contained 6 measures, whereas the model for "not classified" contained 4 measures. Some of the measures that were ranked as least important by trained users (e.g., measures relating to drinkers) had the highest influence on the WQ overall welfare categorization. Conversely, measures rated as most important by the trained users (e.g., lameness and mortality) had a lower effect on the WQ overall category. In addition, trained users were asked to allocate criterion and overall welfare scores to 7 focal herds selected from the database (n = 491 herds). Data on all WQ measures for these focal herds relative to all other herds in the database were provided. The degree to which expert scores corresponded to each other, the systematic difference, and the correspondence between median trained-user opinion and the WQ criterion scores were then tested. The level of correspondence between expert scoring and WQ scoring for 6 of the 12 criteria and for the overall welfare score was low. The WQ scores of the protocol for dairy cattle thus lacked correspondence with trained users on the importance of several welfare measures.