A group of British scientists have developed a system of measuring animal welfare that allows reliable comparisons between different types of pig farms. Therefore, animal welfare can be well assessed along with other livestock impacts to identify which is the best breeding system.

This is important information for improving animal welfare in livestock production, at a time when the demand for meat is increasing globally and ways of raising animals are changing, with concern for animal welfare in both intensive and extensive systems. Animal welfare assessments also allow consumers to be better informed when selecting products.

The UK has various labeling schemes for meat products to assure consumers that certain standards have been met. The team used their new system to test how different the labels are compared in terms of animal welfare.

“We have shown that it is possible to reliably assess animal welfare on farms. This means decisions about which type of farming is better or worse for animal welfare can be based on precise calculations, not assumptionsas is currently the case”, explained the study authors.

“Now, animal welfare can be included in overall agricultural sustainability assessments along with other measures such as carbon emissions and biodiversity impacts we can make better decisions about how we choose to farm and what we choose to eat“.

However, they comment that it is difficult to arrive at a general measure of animal welfare due to disagreements about which factors are most important. For example, “Are health problems more important than behavior problems? What level of well-being is good enough?

He new system assess the quality of life of animals through a wide range of measures. This will allow exploration between animal welfare and other topics of interest to consumers, such as the impact of livestock farming on the environment.

Pig evaluation seeing from various aspects, ranging from health problems such as coughing, sneezing and limping, to the way they interact: biting its ear or tail, or interacting with its environment, for example.

A variety of assessment methods, giving more or less weight to different aspects of animal welfare, were tested in 74 UK pig farming systems.

“Despite the ongoing debate about how to measure animal welfare, we found it we can identify which types of farming we may want to encourage and which we may not with reasonable consistency“.

Jobs, as they explain, are open possibility for better welfare assessment on labeling food, even in other species, also in pigs. “Until now, available methods made this impractical.”

Food production accounts for more than a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Making agricultural systems more sustainable in the face of growing global demand for meat “is a major challenge for farmers and governments.”