Consumer Perception of Animal Welfare and Livestock Production in the Araucania Region , Chile

Abstract

A B S T R A C TGiven the importance of animal welfare (AW) in developed countries, a survey was carried out among 384 consumers in Temuco, Chile, to establish their knowledge and perceptions about animals handling during production, to detect preferences for meat produced under AW principles, their willingness to pay a higher price for this and to distinguish different consumer segments. Approximately 60% of people surveyed knew about livestock management practices, half of them considered that these practices had a negative effect on the animals, but only 32.1% have changed their meat consumption habits due to this. Seventy percent of the people surveyed had over 50% of knowledge about AW aspects. There is a strong preference and willingness to pay a higher price for meat produced under AW principles. Consumers have a positive perception of the fact that the meat that they consume comes from pasture-fed animals, raised in the open, and raised, transported and slaughtered following humane principles. Three segments were identified by using cluster analysis: the most numerous (58.6%) considers confinement and feeding with concentrates as positive; the second group (25.5%) showed a strong rejection of the use of hormones, feeding with broiler litter and concentrates, and places a positive value on raising animals in the open. The smallest segment (15.4%) placed the highest value on humane treatment of the animals, plus a positive value on concentrates use and rejected confined raising. The conclusion is that a large part of the population perceives AW as a desirable condition when purchasing beef.

Nutritional Quality of Beef Produced in Chile from Different Production Systems

“…Additionally, consumers positively value beef from animals fed on pasture and raised outdoors (Schnettler et al, 2008). The beef industry plays an important role in the economy of the southern regions of Chile where more than one million hectares of pastures are available for animal production and the country relies on an exceptional sanitary status.…”

Chilled boneless beef international trade: a cluster analysis

“…Chilean consumers also seem to value extrinsic factors, such as animal welfare and graze-feeding production. Mostly, these consumers consider these factors to be desirable and accept having to pay more for a product with such characteristics (Schnettler et al, 2008b). Thus, although prices within this cluster are below the market average, there is a clear preference by its main clients for acquiring beef from suppliers that have adopted OIE sanitary guidelines.…”

“…The same can be said with regard to the additional demands of some countries regarding issues such as animal welfare, environmental preservation and the determination of origin (Bernues et al, 2003; Schnettler et al, 2008a;Schnettler et al, 2008b). Moreover, aspects such as consumer preferences regarding the quality of food, habits, cultural and socio-demographic factors (Barcellos, 2007) and sanitary issues can also limit access to new markets (Sasaki & Mitsumoto, 2004;Loureiro & Umberger, 2007).…”

Public Understanding and Attitudes towards Meat Chicken Production and Relations to Consumption

“…Socio-demographic questions were also included, which were used to further explain consumer behaviour and identify potential market segments. The questionnaire was designed taking into account the literature on public knowledge and attitudes towards chicken production systems [18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. We defined knowledge as "facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject" and attitude as a "relatively stable favourable or unfavourable feeling or belief about a concept, person, or object" [25].…”

“…This suggests that consumers are using accreditation as a means of ensuring products are of high welfare, replacing their limited knowledge, even though accredited labels exhibit no information regarding the conditions where birds were raised or processed and no reference to animal welfare [35]. Consumers have put pressure on retailers to properly label products and producers, manufacturers and supermarkets to have an animal welfare labelling system [23] as well as the country of origin, production techniques [36] and conditions of rearing [19]. Fifty-six percent of respondents were prepared to contribute to the cost of setting up animal welfare ratings by paying extra for the products, particularly females, and the most common increase in cost that would be accepted was 2.5%.…”