IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i3p1095-d727680.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental Quality and Compliance with Animal Welfare Legislation at Swedish Cattle and Sheep Farms

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Hultgren

    (Department of Animal Environment and Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 234, 53223 Skara, Sweden)

  • Matthew Hiron

    (Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7044, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden)

  • Anders Glimskär

    (Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7044, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden)

  • Eddie A. M. Bokkers

    (Animal Production Systems Group, Department of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University and Research, P.O. Box 338, 6700 AH Wageningen, The Netherlands)

  • Linda J. Keeling

    (Department of Animal Environment and Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7068, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden)

Abstract

Conflicts between different goals can obstruct progress in sustainability, but interests may also coincide. We evaluated relationships between environmental quality and animal welfare on Swedish farms with grazing livestock, using publicly available databases. Data were collected from 8700 official animal welfare inspections on 5808 cattle farms and 2823 inspections on 2280 sheep farms in 2012–2017. Compliance with three animal-based checkpoints was modeled using logistic regression, including a random farm effect to account for repeated inspections. Compliance was regressed on semi-natural grassland area, participation in the National Meadow and Pasture Inventory, Agri-Environmental Scheme (AES) grassland payments, presence of indicator plant species, and the presence of Natura 2000 habitats. Cattle farms complied more often if they received AES payments for grasslands of special values compared with if they did not apply for them (OR = 1.55–1.65; p ≤ 0.0001) and there was a similar tendency for cattle farms that applied for but were denied such payments (OR = 1.29; p = 0.074). There was also a strong tendency for Natura 2000 habitats on cattle farms to be associated with higher compliance (OR = 1.36; p = 0.059). These results suggest a direct or indirect causal effect of biodiversity on cattle welfare. The same associations could not be shown in sheep.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Hultgren & Matthew Hiron & Anders Glimskär & Eddie A. M. Bokkers & Linda J. Keeling, 2022. "Environmental Quality and Compliance with Animal Welfare Legislation at Swedish Cattle and Sheep Farms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-14, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:1095-:d:727680
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1095/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1095/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karlsson, Johan O. & Robling, Helena & Cederberg, Christel & Spörndly, Rolf & Lindberg, Mikaela & Martiin, Carin & Ardfors, Elsa & Tidåker, Pernilla, 2023. "What can we learn from the past? Tracking sustainability indicators for the Swedish dairy sector over 30 years," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:1095-:d:727680. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.