Don’t Focus On Animal Welfare Programs — Upskill Farmers Instead

Animal welfare is a pressing concern for consumers, industry, and governments. In an effort to improve welfare conditions for farmed animals, governments may implement regulations that financially and legally penalize farmers for failure to comply or incentivize them through increased subsidies and incomes. But which motivates a farmer more: external pressures or a personal inclination to improve animal welfare?

This study investigated the impact of intrinsic motivation and desire for continuous improvement on farmers’ intention to implement animal welfare practices on their farms. The researchers surveyed 682 German dairy farmers to understand the role of different motivating factors, including:

• Performance expectancy: the social and economic benefits that come from improving welfare
• Effort expectancy: the additional time and costs of implementation
• Facilitating conditions: perceptions of available support and resources to make changes
• Social influence: perceptions of social pressure to improve welfare
• Hedonic motivation: the pleasure that comes from improving welfare
• Price value: the ratio between the perceived costs and benefits of implementation
• Mastery approach goal: the desire to become more skilled and knowledgeable in implementation

The researchers also looked at the role of continuous enhancement, a mediating factor in their model that represents farmers’ commitment to improving animal welfare on an ongoing basis.

The results show that continuous enhancement has a highly significant influence on behavioral intention, meaning that farmers with a stronger commitment to improving animal welfare express a greater intention to make changes on their farms. Continuous enhancement itself is influenced by the mastery approach goal, hedonic motivation, and facilitating conditions factors in particular. Basically, farmers are more likely to be committed to improving animal welfare when they enjoy it, want to master it, and find it feasible.

Strikingly, while these three factors have a significant influence on farmers’ commitment to improving animal welfare, this influence doesn’t directly carry over to their intention to actually implement the changes. Rather, mastery approach goal, hedonic motivation, and facilitating conditions act on behavioral intention indirectly through their influence on continuous enhancement. The combined effect of mastery approach goal, hedonic motivation, and continuous enhancement is particularly strong. This suggests that intrinsic rewards are crucial to forming a habit around improving animal welfare.

The study also found that farmers’ commitment to improving animal welfare isn’t influenced by the expected effort or economics of doing it, or by the social pressure to do it.

The researchers faced practical constraints in recruiting participants and, as a result, their sampling approach was likely to be biased towards farmers already prioritizing animal welfare. This bias could lead to the results appearing stronger than they actually would be in a more representative sample. Moreover, the study only investigated farmers’ intentions rather than their actual behaviors, leaving room for the intention-behavior gap. Previous research suggests that around half of farmers’ behaviors align with their intentions.

Based on their findings, the researchers suggest that policies should aim to improve farmers’ intrinsic motivation, such as through individualized training programs that address their specific needs and challenges. Moreover, education on what opportunities exist to continuously improve welfare conditions could also lead to improved welfare practices on farms.

Finally, the researchers note that it’s important to have measurable and reliable criteria for farmers taking part in animal welfare programs, while still allowing for flexibility to suit different farming systems. These policies should also focus on continuous enhancement, encouraging farmers to exceed minimum standards rather than just meeting them.

Animal advocates can use these findings to lobby for more impactful welfare policies, whether that’s writing to assurance schemes, to local government figures, or to food retailers. Animal welfare should never be a static measure, and we can keep striving for a world that treats animals with dignity and respect.