Farmers’ Preferences Regarding the Design of Animal Welfare Programs: Insights from a Choice-Based Conjoint Study in Germany

Abstract

As more animal welfare is required in livestock farming, several approaches have been developed to improve the well-being of farmed animals on a voluntary basis. Since farmers’ acceptance is important for the success of these approaches, their preferences should be considered when developing farm animal welfare programs. We used choice based conjoint analysis to investigate the preferences of 242 German livestock farmers (147 cattle farmers; 95 pig farmers) regarding the design of farm animal welfare programs. The conditional logit regression models show that the measures serving as basis for remuneration and the compensation level were of decisive importance for the farmers’ choices. The most preferred measure for assessing animal welfare, and thus as the basis for remuneration, was animal health. As expected, a higher compensation level led to greater acceptance of an animal welfare approach. The commitment period was only of subordinate importance with the longer commitment period being preferred. Our study outlines aspects of farm animal welfare programs that might encourage farmers to participate in these programs. Future programs could consider our findings by emphasising health parameters and by creating planning security through longer commitment periods and sufficiently high compensations for farmers’ efforts to improve animal welfare.

Comparative study on consumers’ choice behaviors in selecting pork in rational and irrational scenarios

“…Only when the additional benefits of treating pigs humanely can compensate producers for the additional costs, will they be incentivized to effectively supply pork with high levels of animal welfare. The main benefit for producers to supply pork with high welfare standards are the price premiums paid by consumers ( Vissers et al, 2019 ; Schröter and Mergenthaler, 2021 ). Accordingly, whether favorable animal welfare systems for pigs have economic advantages for consumers, or in other words, whether it can meet the utility of consumers and have exchange values, is a key factor in motivating producers to adopt meat production systems with higher animal welfare standards ( Wang and Song, 2021 ).…”

Enhancing farm-level economics and animal welfare through sensor-based animal health management

“…Overall, the results from Chapter 5 show promising evidence that synergies between economic and animal welfare benefits exist 12 . This evidence is incredibly valuable to stimulate the implementation of animal welfare enhancing management strategies because farmers are sensitive to economic factors in the context of animal welfare enhancements (Balzani & Hanlon, 2020;Läpple & Osawe, 2022;Latacz-Lohmann & Schreiner, 2019;Schröter & Mergenthaler, 2021;Wimmer & Frick, 2021). This entails promising implications in encouraging more farmers to invest in animal welfare measures without feeling that they are compromising their economic viability (Balzani & Hanlon, 2020).…”