Do Animal Welfare Schemes Promote Better Animal Health? An Empirical Investigation of German Pork Production
Introduction
Farm animal welfare represents one aspect of sustainable livestock production, which includes moral acceptance by consumers (see Gunnarsson et al., 2020 for an overview). Consumers are increasingly concerned about animal welfare and the sustainability of livestock farming (Grunert et al., 2018), with opposition to standard pig husbandry systems (Weible et al., 2016) and growing consumption of animal friendly products (Alonso et al., 2020; Risius and Hamm, 2017). Motivated by this increased societal demand for more sustainable livestock systems, regulatory changes to husbandry standards (Nalon and Briyne, 2019) and numerous farm animal welfare labels have emerged across Europe (Sørensen and Schrader, 2019). Labels initiated by the retail sector, such as “Beter Leven” (the Netherlands) or “Initiative Tierwohl” (Germany), the example of our study, have gained considerable market share: in 2020 about 25% of finishing pigs in Germany have been kept under the standards of this retailer initiative (Initiative Tierwohl, 2020b).
In these programs, farms are usually compensated for costly implementation of enrichment measures, such as the provision of additional space, roughage and playing material. The positive effects of environmental enrichment include improved immune function (e.g., Luo et al., 2020) and species-typical activities. The latter can reduce adverse behavior, e.g. aggression (Brandt et al., 2020), that would otherwise result in production losses (Harley et al., 2014), costs from sickness (Jensen et al., 2008) and tail biting (van de Weerd and Ison, 2019). Healthier animals can also improve growth rates (e.g., Carroll et al., 2018), carcass weight and backfat thickness (e.g., Faucitano et al., 2020). Following the conceptualization of animal welfare as a multidimensional construct (FAWC, 2009), environmental enrichment concerns freedom from discomfort and injuries, and the ability to display natural behavior. Successfully implemented environmental enrichment could thus increase animal welfare, economic sustainability of farms and by creating additional value for animals and consumers, increase social sustainability (Buijs and Muns, 2019).
Implementation of environmental enrichment requires process management reorganization. Besides increased production costs, enrichments can reduce turnover rates and farm output (e.g. Godyń et al., 2019). Also, implementing enrichment provides no guarantee for improved animal welfare (Johnsen et al., 2001; Sørensen and Schrader, 2019), and the contribution to improving animal welfare depends on the farmers’ production process management (e.g. Peden et al., 2019a). Likewise, skills, knowledge and motivation of stockpeople to care for the animals determine how animals experience welfare. That is, the housing system design provides the base, but the key to success is how well it operates (Hemsworth, 2018). Success of environmental enrichment will thus depend on whether farms can resolve the conflict between animal welfare and efficient farming (Dawkins, 2017). However, in this regard, the empirical evidence for successful enrichment in hog finishing is limited, with conflicting results (e.g., Henningsen et al., 2018).
This study aims to address this gap, first, by empirically investigating the relationship between hog finishing farms’ economic performance and animal health an important dimension of animal welfare. Given the uncertainties in cost savings and productivity gains from improved animal health, and the lower turnover rates, process reorganization and investment costs associated with implementing environmental enrichment, we hypothesize that, particularly for farms not enrolled in a funded-program, improved animal health is associated with lower economic performance (hypothesis 1). Second, taking the example of the German “Initiative Tierwohl”, this study investigates whether animal welfare programs can increase sustainability of hog finishing by creating additional value through improving animal health and economic performance: We hypothesize that “Initiative Tierwohl” participation is associated with improved animal health (hypothesis 2). Taking up the idea that environmental enrichment, as supported by the program, can increase animal health and increased health is associated with productivity gains in the hog finishing process, participants could further benefit from the program support to reorganize the production process and improve their economic performance. We thus hypothesize “Initiative Tierwohl” participation is associated with improved economic performance (hypothesis 3).
To test these hypotheses, we utilized a comprehensive data set, comprising cost accounting and production economic data, and abattoir inspection data from 483 commercial hog finishing farms, including 82 participants of the “Initiative Tierwohl”. The data cover a region in north-western Germany that is characterized by intense livestock farming. We measure farm performance by technical and cost efficiency using non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and animal health by standardized health scores based on mandatory carcass inspections at the abattoir.
Section snippets
Research area and theoretical concepts
Animal welfare can be defined as a concept that frames how an animal perceives its situation (Broom, 1991). Most farm animal welfare regulations and programs conceptualize farm animal welfare as a multidimensional construct, with animals being free from 1) hunger and thirst; 2) discomfort; 3) pain, injury and disease; 4) an inability to express their natural behavior; and 5) fear and distress (FAWC, 2009). The interrelation between these dimensions make animal welfare complex and challenge
Study region, sampling and data sources
This analysis is based on a sample of farms participating in a professional advisory service for pork production, located in northern counties (Westfalen-Lippe2) of the German Federal State of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW). The sampling period is the budget period of 2016 and 2017. The region is characterized by intensive livestock farming, and by hog finishing in particular. In 2017, about 28% of the German finishing pigs were kept in NRW (
Empirical approach
To measure farm performance, a nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to obtain estimates of technical and cost efficiency. To analyze the relationship between efficiency and animal health indicators (hypothesis 1), we start by illustrating the relations using nonparametric locally estimated scatterplot smoothing (LOESS) by participation status. For testing purposes, a statistical (parametric) correlation analysis was used, including truncated bootstrapped regression analysis.
Results
Table 3 presents the results of the DEA analysis, showing technical and cost efficiency scores for all sampled farms. Since we use output orientation, the technical efficiency scores indicate the degree to which the maximum potential output for a given input level has been achieved. Cost efficiency is based on input orientation and indicates a farms’ cost saving potential, relative to a cost minimizing point with an identical output level.
With respect to technical efficiency, we observed an
Discussion
No clear and statistically significant relationship was found between animal respiratory system and inner organ health and farm performance, in terms of technical and cost efficiency. Related to hypothesis 1, we cannot find evidence for a trade-off; that is, farms, especially non-participants, can achieve high economic performance at a comparably large range of animal health levels, including high economic performance at comparably low levels of animal health and vice versa. The range in animal
Conclusion
In this study, we demonstrate that the combination of abattoir inspection data with farms’ cost accounting and production economic data provides a suitable basis for assessing animal welfare programs. This assessment can serve as a basis for large scale and long-term monitoring of animal welfare measures. Using animal-based health scores, we conclude that farms that participate in a low-threshold animal welfare program achieve better respiratory health, at comparatively high levels of farm
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Reinhard Uehleke: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curtion, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Project administration. Stefan Seifert: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Formal analysis, Software, Data curation, Validation, Visualization. Silke Hüttel: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Supervision, Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgements
This research was partially funded within the BioSC FocusLab "Transform2Bio". The scientific activities of the Bioeconomy Science Center were financially supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science within the framework of the NRW Strategieprojekt BioSc (No. 313/323-400-002 13). We thank QS, ITW and a farmer association in North-West Germany for providing the data. We also thank participants at the 2019 Reecap conference, the Economics Seminar Series at SLU, the CPP Seminar at Loughborough
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