BENEFISH: A European project to put a cost on fish welfare actions

BENEFISH is a research project funded under the European Commission Sixth Framework initiative. It aims to develop bio-economic models that establish the effects of welfare actions (i.e. measures taken to safeguard welfare) on value chains within the European aquaculture industry, including both production related elements such as growth and feed efficiency, and societal elements such as consumer added value. The project includes wide and integrated scientific competence, which incorporates biological knowledge about fish welfare, industrial knowledge about practical farming, societal knowledge about consumer perception and economical knowledge about bio-economical development. This paper provides an overview of BENEFISH and explains how the project is structured to address its complex multidisciplinary aims. It also outlines how the project consortium plans to achieve its goal of developing bio-economic models relating to fish welfare