The relative importance of pig welfare in seven European Countries

Animal welfare is becoming a prominent politically sensitive matter because of the continuous societal pressure for more humane production systems. The European society is demanding products with high animal welfare standards and requiring animals to be raised as closely as possible to their natural conditions. However, people are still considered uninformed and unfamiliar with the different farm production systems. In this context, the pig welfare has received special attention from the European authorities by approving unceasingly different regulations changes. The aim of this study is: a) To identify the relative importance of pig welfare within the different animal production systems, b) to understand the animal welfare concept and to identify the level of information of three Mediterranean societies, c) to analyse the different aspect regulated by the animal welfare rules. Data were collected in three Mediterranean countries (Spain, Italy and Greece) using different face to face questionnaires that were carried out for 4 groups of participants: Consumers (250 by country), citizens (250 by country), university students (250 by country) and secondary school students (250 by country). The preliminary results showed that society is most concerned with pig welfare in comparison of other animal production systems. Furthermore, the most society would prefer to have more information on animal welfare showing a high level of heterogeneous information source by participants groups. The results also suggest the need for a better understanding of societal preferences for food produced under varying conditions with respect to animal well-being