Volume 95, Issue 2, October 2013, Pages 203–211
Animal welfare versus food quality: Factors influencing organic consumers' preferences for alternatives to piglet castration without anaesthesia
Highlights
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- Organic consumers' preferences for alternatives to piglet castration were examined.
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- Results from focus group discussions and Vickrey auctions were combined.
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- Animal welfare, food safety, taste influenced willingness-to-pay for alternatives.
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- Importance of these aspects varied between the alternatives.
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- Trade-offs between animal welfare and food safety could be observed.
Abstract
Surgical
piglet castration without pain relief has been banned in organic
farming in the EU since the beginning of 2012. Alternative methods
therefore need to be implemented that improve animal welfare and solve
the underlying problem of boar taint. This paper explores German organic
consumers' preferences for piglet castration without pain relief and
three alternative methods. In an innovative approach using a
multi-criteria decision making procedure, qualitative data from focus
group discussions were compared with quantitative results from Vickrey
auctions. Overall, participants preferred all alternatives to castration
without pain relief. Different aspects influenced willingness-to-pay
for the methods. Animal welfare was important for the evaluation of
castration without pain relief and castration with anaesthesia. Food
safety played a major role for willingness-to-pay for immunocastration,
while taste and, to some extent, animal welfare were dominant factors
for fattening of boars. These differences should be considered when
communicating the alternatives.
Keywords
- Piglet castration;
- Animal welfare;
- Vickrey auction;
- Focus group discussions;
- Willingness-to-pay;
- Organic farming
- Corresponding author. Tel.:
+ 49 5542 98 1285; fax: + 49 5542 98 1286.
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