Strategies for Animal Welfare
Last changed: 09 March 2020
Helena Hansson and Carl Johan Lagerkvist have together with two researchers from the Department of Clinical Sciences been granted 3, 65 MSEK from Formas, for their multidisiplinary project dealing with strategies of improving animal welfare for dairy cows.
Using behavioural economics to study strategies for animal welfare
Behavioral economics contributes to traditional economic studies of human decision-making by introducing psychological explanatory models, which increase the relevance of the underlying economic theories. In the project, we will use behavioral economics to assess how and why dairy farmers work with animal welfare and how they use welfare indicators in decision-making. By so doing, behavioral economics would bridge the gap in the literature between animal-oriented and human-oriented research.
Multidisciplinary project
The project is multidisciplinary. Its primary scientific contribution is to develop knowledge of how farmers utilize welfare indicators in their decision-making. This will be achieved by studying which factors affect farmers’ decisions with respect to animal welfare and how they value and rank different measures when welfare indicators signal that animal welfare is impaired. In view of this, the project would contribute with new knowledge of importance to animal and veterinary sciences as well as economics. It would also imply interaction between these disciplines.