Cattle assessment © Butterworth
After external consultation and internal discussion, considerable changes were made in the original plans of our fourth Sub-project. The relevance of several topics were reconsidered and activities were more focused towards fine-tuning of our assessment systems to the expectations of consumers and industry. Activities towards improving the knowledge needed for successful implementation were also strengthened. In general, the work is more focused on the applicability and thus feasibility of our results.
The coming activities include implementation studies on pig, poultry and cattle farms across Europe – where the assessment measures are used to provide farmers with feedback on how the welfare of their animals relates to their systems and practices. This information can then be used by the farmers in a voluntary way to make targeted changes to their system or management to tackle problems. Welfare Quality® aims to maximise the value of animal welfare assessment through the use of ‘benchmarking’, i.e. by letting farmers know how they compare to other farms around them, and by assisting them to access resources (information, treatments, approaches and farming support agencies) to help with problem solving. In the case of cattle lameness, the problem can be both an economic cost (lost productivity) and a cost to the animals in terms of disability or discomfort. Targeted improvement may be able to help both farmers and animals. Two tasks follow up this theme to look at the economic impact of alterations in animal welfare for farmers and consumers.

Elsewhere, we will create information resources linking to the farmer-support role described. These resources are being created in the form of a web-based library of information of improvement strategies, which will enable farmers, advisors, researchers and policy-makers to easily identify practical strategies to improve farm animal welfare. These resources should cover the viable strategies identified in Welfare Quality®, together with additional information on other methods generated externally that may be of interest to the end-users mentioned.
Simultaneously, three parallel tasks will look at the attitudes of consumers, farmers and certification bodies to the possible uses of animal welfare information. We will assess consumers’ acceptability of the outcomes and grading of on-farm assessment and assessment schemes through different farming systems classified as acceptable, enhanced and excellent. In a similar task, we will assess farmers’ acceptability of the outcomes and grading of on-farm assessment and assessment schemes classified in the same way. In a third new task, we will examine the mechanisms by which evaluation criteria and requirements are used and negotiated within food certification and assurance procedures.
Andy Butterworth, Andy.Butterworth@bristol.ac.uk