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The adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a critical component in the transition to a more sustainable food system. However, the transition calls for significant changes in the food production system, in which stakeholders in the supply chain should work collaboratively. So far, most studies have focused on the perceptions of one actor, the farmer, on implementation of CSA practices. This study aims to include also other stakeholders’ perceptions on drivers and barriers to CSA implementation in the primary production for five European food supply chains. Data were collected from stakeholders using a semi-structured interview guide, including farmers, producers and manufacturers, advisory service providers, advocacy institutions, policy officers, researchers, and consultants. The top three drivers to foster the adoption of CSA practices within the five food supply chains touched on economic, institutional and policy, as well as personal and psychological factors. Similarly, the top three barriers limiting adoption of CSA practices were seen to be economic, technology-related aspects, and institutional and policy factors. According to the stakeholders, addressing these barriers requires financial support, policy changes, and capacity-building efforts to make these practices attractive especially to farmers. They also emphasized that improved coordination among stakeholders, incentives for sustainable practices and customized strategies for communicating and disseminating CSA information can help catalyse effective understanding and implementation of CSA practices.

This chapter describes the development and nature of public and consumer concerns about pig welfare and the various initiatives by which people try to improve pig welfare. First, the origins of the modern idea of animal welfare are traced. The chapter then looks at the use of national and international law to raise farm animal welfare standards. After this, various market-driven initiatives to move welfare above the legally required minimum are described. Using the so-called ‘Benchmark method’ the relative importance of legislation and market-driven initiatives for enhancing animal welfare is assessed. Finally, the ways in which consumers in different parts of the world perceive pig welfare and how much they are willing to pay for it are then reviewed.

The only common European Union (EU) legislation set up specifically to ensure the welfare of dairy cattle is for calves. As a consequence, there is wide diversity in how dairy cattle welfare is ensured in EU countries. A few countries have legal requirements for dairy cattle welfare, while in others, it is left to industry standards or niche production requirements, typically linked to various premium labels. In this paper, we compared animal welfare provisions in dairy cattle production across five countries with different combinations of legislative and other approaches: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Firstly, we aimed to map the diversity of animal welfare initiatives. Secondly, we used the Benchmark method of expert valuations and weightings of the relative importance of individual welfare provisions. We found that Denmark and Sweden have the highest level of dairy cattle welfare provisions as measured by the Benchmark method, partly due to high legislative welfare requirements, followed by the United Kingdom, which has an extensive industry standard with very high uptake. Germany and the Netherlands, on the other hand, have lower levels of documented welfare provisions, and correspondingly a Benchmark score closer to a baseline defined by legal requirements at EU level. We also found differences in what elements of animal welfare were focussed on. Some initiatives emphasised fulfilling the social needs of cattle, while others focused more on space and freedom to move. Also, the countries with the highest Benchmark score had a relatively high level of production of organic and other specialty dairy products. We found the effect of national legislation or ambitious industry standards on dairy cattle welfare to be much larger than previous studies have found in either pigs or poultry. At a time when the EU is considering stepping up its efforts to improve animal welfare in terms of common minimum standards, the results of this s

There is growing societal concern about the impact of animal production on climate and other dimensions of sustainability. Continuing development of production in response to this will require the industry to know how much consumers are willing to pay for more sustainable pork, and how they prioritize different sustainability dimensions. In this 2022 questionnaire-based study, we investigated willingness-to-pay for more sustainable pork among consumers in Denmark, Germany, the UK and Shanghai, China. We examined how respondents prioritised lower climate impact in comparison with four other dimensions of sustainability: improved animal welfare, decreased use of antibiotics, freedom from Salmonella and other harmful bacteria, and the avoidance of rain forest depletion in the production of pig-feed. While many respondents were found to be willing to pay a price premium for more sustainable pork, only 10% (approx.) were prepared to pay more than a 20% premium. In all four countries, lower climate impact was among the least important reasons for paying a price premium. In the Western countries animal welfare was the most important reason while food safety was the most important reason in China. The most frequently stated reason for prioritizing animal welfare over climate impact was the belief that paying a price premium is necessary to make a difference for the animals while climate impacts can be handled by other means. An important insight gained is that the current focus on reducing climate impacts of pig production should not blind the relevant stakeholders to the importance of better animal welfare and food safety. If they lose sight of the latter, stakeholders will fall out of step with the priorities that many consumers currently have.

Context: Intensive livestock production is challenged by frequent occurrence of contagious livestock diseases. Advanced diagnostic tools, such as quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), have been found to improve the precision and speed of veterinary diagnostics. Aims: This study develops and applies an analytical quantitative framework to investigate the potential farm economic benefits of introducing an advanced and rapid diagnostic tool that allows veterinarians accurately and fast to detect the load and composition of pathogens in production animals, compared with a scenario where decision-making is based on aggregate prevalence data. Methods: A probabilistic budget simulation model for livestock production was developed, on the basis of farm-accounts data, epidemiological prevalence, mortality and morbidity data from official statistics, veterinary practice and literature findings, as well as experimental data regarding sensitivity and specificity of the specific diagnostic tool. Key results: The framework was used to assess the expected economic gains of qPCR diagnostics for calf pneumonia and weaner pig diarrhoea. In both cases, positive economic gains were found, namely, 7.8% and 3.1% of gross margin in Danish calf production and weaner production respectively. Conclusions and Implications: Use of rapid advanced diagnostic tools to diagnose calf pneumonia or weaner pig diarrhoea can lead to economic gains for farmers and improve the efficiency in use of resources in livestock production.

Velfærd for slagtekyllinger – hvordan går det i Danmark sammenlignet med i andre europæiske lande? Der er store forskelle. Målet må være at have både et stært erhverv og fremme dyrevelfærd løbende.

Pig production systems vary in their ability to meet key sustainability goals such as lowered environmental impact, lowered climate impact, reduced land use, economic viability, and improved animal welfare. These goals are not fully aligned and may require trade-offs to be made. The aim of the paper is to quantify these potential trade-offs. Using Denmark as the study case, we assess the standard pig production system and four existing alternative systems, and in addition the impact of a range of manure handling technologies. Drawing on farm data from an almost industry-wide certification scheme, environmental and climate impact are estimated per kg live weight using the life-cycle approach. Antibiotic use is assessed by calculating weighted average doses consumed within the herd, and animal welfare is assessed with a recently developed benchmarking tool. Finally, productions costs are estimated using herd-level production data combined with farm-level cost estimates. We find that the five pig production systems perform differently in the sustainability dimensions at herd level. We also find that there is a trade-off between the sustainability dimensions, as no one production system dominates the others in all dimensions. Across the systems analysed, reduced climate impact goes to some extent hand-in-hand with cost effectiveness. However, there are negative correlations between animal welfare and production costs and, especially, animal welfare and the environment. These dilemmas affect both regulatory and market-driven schemes, and where the production and marketing of niche products is concerned difficult decisions will need to be made. Improvements in environmental impact will reduce performance in animal welfare or vice versa – and it will do so regardless of cost.

Fødevareministeren bør genstarte arbejdet med at fremme markedsdrevet grisevelfærd rettet mod det danske hjemmemarked og lade sig inspirere af Nederlandene.

It has repeatedly been shown that consumers consider the higher price of organic produce to be a barrier to buying organic food products. The present paper therefore asks whether organic consumption affects consumers’ actual total food expenditures. Food purchase data for a panel of Danish households during 2006–2014 were used to compare the total food expenditures of different organic household segments. A fixed effects model and a cross-section model both indicated that although food expenditures rose slightly with organic consumption, the increase was considerably less than had been suggested by organic price premiums at product level.

Previous studies have shown that belief in the healthiness of organic food is a strong motive for buying organic. Typically, a positive relation between a nutritionally balanced diet (with respect to fruit, vegetables and meat) and organic consumption is also found. As market shares of organic food are much smaller than those of conventional food, consumers may face a trade-off between buying organic and choosing the nutritional composition they prefer. Using data from a survey of around 1300 Danish consumers, we found that almost all respondents believed that organic food contains fewer unwanted substances than non-organic food, and that around a third considered organic food to be nutritionally superior. Respondents with high organic consumption and who believe in the nutritious superiority of organic food products were more likely to belong to a small group of respondents who prioritized buying organic. However, the vast majority, particularly those with low levels of organic consumption, prioritized dietary flexibility over organic produce. Our findings suggest that to motivate those in this large consumer segment to increase their organic consumption, it will be necessary to offer a broader, more nutritionally differentiated, range of organic products.

In the present study, we investigated consumer behaviour in connection with a transition to a more climate friendly diet. In particular, we focussed on consumers’ interest in reducing beef consumption, identified important drivers of reduced beef consumption and examined which types of food that are likely to replace beef. Moreover, we identified to what extend Loyal organic consumers, who belong to the fifth of the responders with the highest organic consumption, differ from Other consumers. The study is based on analysis of data from an online survey in 2021 among 1000 Danish consumers. The results show that the vast majority of the respondents in the survey were aware that their actions affect the climate, but they did not necessarily associate their carbon footprint with food consumption. Overall, almost half of the surveyed consumers wanted to reduce their consumption of beef, mainly consumers belonging to the Loyal organic segment. The reductions in beef consumption across both consumer groups were driven by concerns about the climate, own health and animal welfare. The favourite replacement for beef was chicken followed by vegetables and fish. The results also show that at least half of the respondents did not intend to reduce their beef consumption. Hence, if a significant reduction in beef consumption is a societal goal, then we need to implement initiatives that are targeted towards increasing consumer awareness of the climate impact of their food choices and that make it easier – and cheaper – to choose a more climate friendly diet.

I disse tider er det op ad bakke at få forbrugere til at betale tre gange så meget for økologisk svinekød. Den markedsdrevne dyrevelfærd taber terræn.

Hvis der skal skabes varig forandring i forbrugernes madvaner, er der behov for en koordineret indsats mellem offentlige og private samt investering i samfundsvidenskabelig forskning.

We ranked seven foodborne pathogens in Denmark on the basis of their health and economic impact on society in 2019. We estimated burden of disease of infections with Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp., Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), Yersinia enterocolitica, Listeria monocytogenes, norovirus, and hepatitis A virus in terms of incidence, mortality, disability-adjusted life years (DALY), and economic burden in terms of direct and indirect health costs. These seven pathogens accounted for 268,372 cases, 98 deaths, and 3121 DALYs, and led to a total expenditure of 434 million Euro in 1 year in a country with 5.8 million citizens. Foodborne infections by Campylobacter, Salmonella, and norovirus caused the most DALYs, whereas Campylobacter, and norovirus and STEC had the higher costs. A combination of disease burden and cost of illness estimates is useful to inform policymaking and establish food safety priorities at the national level.

The thesis is a study of the Danish veterinary contingency plan for African Swine Fever. The thesis deals with an investigation of the activities to keep the disease out of Denmark. Based on existing literature, a cost estimation of the most important activities is made. Finally, an investigation of possible improvements to the future Danish veterinary contingency plan for African Swine Fever is made. The results show that the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration and the industry are aware of the routes of infection from which African swine fever is most likely to enter Denmark. The routes of infection are identified as wild boars and trucks transporting pigs. The cost estimation shows that activities related to these exact two areas - the wild boar fence and car washes - also account for the largest expenses for the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration and the industry. In addition, the results show that work has begun of improving the veterinary contingency plan for African Swine Fever from 2023 and onwards. The future veterinary contingency plan for ASF is based on current activities and seeks to eliminate possible challenges. The thesis concludes that Denmark takes the threat of African Swine Fever seriously, and cooperation between the government and the industry seems to prepare the veterinary contingency plan for the increasing risk of African Swine Fever.

Two kinds of initiatives exist to ensure welfare in broiler production: welfare legislation, where all broiler production in a country or region must comply with legally defined welfare standards; and market driven initiatives, where part of the production must meet specific welfare standards and is sold with a particular label, typically at a price premium, or as part of minimum welfare standards defined by a retailer, a fast-food chain or the like. While the effects of national legislation may be undermined by price competition from lower-welfare imported products, the effects of market driven initiatives may be limited by lack of willingness from consumers to pay the extra cost. To investigate how this works out in practice, we compared broiler welfare requirements in five European countries, Denmark, Germany, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden, in 2018, by means of the Benchmark method. A number of welfare dimensions, covering the input features typically modified in broiler welfare initiatives, were defined. A total of 27 academic welfare experts (response rate 75%) valued the different levels within each dimension on a 0-10 scale, and then weighted the relative contribution of each dimension to overall welfare on a 1-5 scale. By combining these values and weights with an inventory of existing welfare initiatives, the additional welfare generated by each initiative was calculated. Together with information on national coverage of each initiative, the Benchmark score for each country's production and consumption of chicken meat was calculated. Sweden achieved a much higher Benchmark for national production due to higher legal standards than any of the four other countries. The Netherlands, on the other hand, achieved a Benchmark for national consumption of chicken at the same level as that found in Sweden, because market driven initiatives complemented more welfare-limited Dutch legislation. So, despite some uncertainties in the Benchmark method, it app

Two kinds of initiatives exist to ensure welfare in broiler production: welfare legislation, where all broiler production in a country or region must comply with legally defined welfare standards; and market driven initiatives, where part of the production must meet specific welfare standards and is sold with a particular label, typically at a price premium, or as part of minimum welfare standards defined by a retailer, a fast-food chain or the like. While the effects of national legislation may be undermined by price competition from lower welfare imported products, the effects of market driven initiatives may be limited by lack of willingness from consumers to pay the extra cost. To investigate how this works out in practice, we compared broiler welfare requirements in 5 European countries, Denmark, Germany, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden, in 2018, by means of the Benchmark method. A number of welfare dimensions, covering the input features typically modified in broiler welfare initiatives, were defined. A total of 27 academic welfare experts (response rate 75%) valued the different levels within each dimension on a 0 to 10 scale, and then weighted the relative contribution of each dimension to overall welfare on a 1 to 5 scale. By combining these values and weights with an inventory of existing welfare initiatives, the additional welfare generated by each initiative was calculated. Together with information on national coverage of each initiative, the Benchmark score for each country's production and consumption of chicken meat was calculated. Sweden achieved a much higher Benchmark for national production due to higher legal standards than any of the four other countries. The Netherlands, on the other hand, achieved a Benchmark for national consumption of chicken at the same level as that found in Sweden, because market driven initiatives complemented more welfare-limited Dutch legislation. So, despite some uncertainties in the Benchmark method, it

This cross-country study investigates the potential to improve pig welfare by exploiting consumer demand, domestically and in export markets, for welfare pork produced in indoor production systems. The analysis is based on questionnaire data collected in 2019 focusing on demand for Danish welfare pork both in Denmark and in two nearby export markets, Sweden and Germany. To reduce hypothetical bias, a willingness-to-pay indicator is combined with an indicator of positive interest in buying a fictive Danish welfare labelled pork. We find that the market potential is relatively weak. Our findings indicate that there is some, albeit limited, potential in Denmark and Germany while demand is practically non-existing in Sweden, probably because the pig welfare guaranteed by Swedish legislation is similar to what is provided by the fictive welfare label employed in the study. Hence, consumer demand alone cannot secure enhanced pig welfare. Moreover, we found national differences in the characteristics of consumers who are interested in Danish welfare pork.