Consumer expectations towards slaughtering: Are there different expectations towards the slaughter of conventional and organic animals?

Measuring the quality of life of an animal in a production system is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. We tested the ability of both NIR and MIR spectroscopy, each combined with machine learning, to predict the prior exposure of pigs to long- and short-term life challenges when they are raised in an intensive system. Samples were obtained post-mortem from two locations in the prefrontal cortex. The analysis showed a clear separation between the gray and white matter from the prefrontal cortex with MIR spectroscopy. Exposure to long-term challenge was poorly predicted by the MIR or NIR spectra (< 45% correct classifications). By contrast, the correct classification of samples according to the exposure to a short-tern challenge before death was higher than 65%. These rates of classification, considering the complexity of the stimulus and the small sample size, support that vibrational spectroscopy could be used to assess the exposure to challenging events of an animal on post-mortem brain tissue.

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What lies ahead? Consumer expectations and wishes for organic animal farming: analyzing improvements to boost confidence in organic livestock farming

Bayer,

Kühl

2024

Front. Anim. Sci.

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IntroductionTo meet the policy target of increasing the share of organic farming in the EU to 25% by 2030, it is also essential to increase consumer demand for organic products. For many consumers, animal welfare is one of the main reasons to buy organics. Trust is inherently important when purchasing organic food, as most of the standards on which organic farming relies, such as more space, cannot be verified by the consumer. Consumer trust in organic animal farming is therefore an important factor in the expansion of the market share of organic products. The aim of this study is to identify specific trust-building “changes” in organic livestock husbandry to strengthen consumer trust in the long term.MethodA total of eight regulations or practices, e.g. early cow-calf separation or regulations on the use of antibiotics, were assessed in terms of consumer awareness. Further described changes to these practices or regulations were ranked regarding their potential to improve trust in organic animal husbandry.ResultsThe results show that most of the regulations and practices mentioned were not known to consumers, confirming a low level of consumer knowledge about specific aspects of organic farming. All eight possible changes would increase consumer trust, at least somewhat.DiscussionThe ranking shows that, in particular, the practice of dam rearing and an even stronger limitation of flock sizes for poultry have the highest potential to increase consumer trust in organic animal husbandry and can therefore be recommended as important strategies to meet consumer demands in the future.

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Consumer expectations towards slaughtering: Are there different expectations towards the slaughter of conventional and organic animals?

Cited by 3 publications

References 22 publications

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Who cares about agriculture? Analyzing German parliamentary debates on agriculture and food with structural topic modeling

Near or mid-infra-red spectroscopy of the prefrontal cortex to identify previous stressful experience in an animal

What lies ahead? Consumer expectations and wishes for organic animal farming: analyzing improvements to boost confidence in organic livestock farming

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