HABRI Central

A questionnaire survey was performed among Swedish organic livestock farmers to determine their view of animal welfare and other ethical issues in animal production. The questionnaire was sent to 56.5% of the target group and the response rate was 75.6% (435 responses). A principal components analysis (exploratory factor analysis) was performed to get a more manageable data set. A matrix of intercorrelations between all pairs of factors was computed. The factors were then entered into a series of multiple regression models to explain five dependent variables. Respondents were well educated and had long experience of farming. 81% were full-time farmers. They generally had a very positive attitude towards organic animal husbandry. They considered allowing animals their natural behaviour a central aim, which is in accordance with organic philosophy. Farmers tended to be less approving of concepts like animal rights, dignity, and intrinsic value. When analysing correlations between the factors, two groups of farmers emerged that were only partially correlated, representing different attitudes and behavioural dispositions. These may be interpreted as two subpopulations of organic livestock farmers in Sweden: those who saw organic farming as a lifestyle ("pioneer attitude"); and entrepreneurs, who considered making money and new challenges more important. Their view of animal welfare differed. While the pioneers considered natural behaviour a key issue, this was less important to the entrepreneurs, who also had a more approving attitude towards invasive operations such as castration and were more critical of the organic standards.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

1. Agriculture
2. Animal behavior
3. Animal husbandry
4. Animal rights
5. Animal welfare
6. Behavior and behavior mechanisms
7. Developed countries
8. Ecological agriculture
9. Ethics
10. Europe
11. Farms
12. Livestock farming
13. OECD countries
14. organic culture
15. organic farming
16. peer-reviewed
17. Scandinavia
18. Social psychology and social anthropology
19. surveys
20. Sweden