The Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply: A unique public-private partnership for conducting research on the sustainability of animal housing systems using a multistakeholder approach

The cage-free egg sector: perspectives of Indian poultry producers

India is ranked as the 2nd largest egg producer in the world. Despite the prevalence of backyard poultry (free range), a majority of the commercial egg-laying hens in the country are still housed in battery cages. There is a global shift toward cage-free eggs, due to regulations and increased demand from conscious consumers and food corporations. However, there are very few commercial cage-free facilities in India to meet this demand. The aim of this study was to undertake a needs-assessment survey of Indian egg producers on cage-free production, and understand what support is needed to build the capacities of the cage-free egg production sector to develop it into a viable and sustainable alternative to battery cage eggs. The results showed that nearly all producers agreed on the need for additional support in shifting to, and operating in, the cage-free sector. This included support in the form of financial assistance, technical training, and promotion of the cage-free sector. The results of this study highlight the pressing need for government and private support, in the absence of which cage-free producers are compelled to compete with battery cage poultry producers on prices, which will result in increased losses and failure of the sector, since they have not yet achieved economies of scale.

Animal welfare with Chinese characteristics: Chinese poultry producers' perceptions of, and attitudes towards, animal welfare

China's poultry industry faces challenges in adopting and sustaining cage-free systems for poultry production. Effective interventions are crucial to support producers transitioning from cages to alternative systems or maintaining cage-free systems to improve animal welfare. However, little is known about how Chinese poultry producers perceive animal welfare in relation to cage-free systems and the importance of animal welfare in poultry production. Through a qualitative interview study with 30 Chinese farm owners, managers and senior managers from large-scale egg and broiler farms using cages and non-cage systems (collectively referred to as "producers"), this paper explores Chinese poultry producers' attitudes and perceptions regarding animal welfare and welfare in different poultry housing systems. Template analysis was used to analyse the data from semi-structured interviews, which generated themes related to the participants' awareness and understanding of the concept of animal welfare, the factors that impacted their choices of different housing systems, and the perceived priorities in poultry production. The responses revealed that the participating producers had a strong awareness and knowledge of animal welfare. However, the participants' understanding of the term is heterogeneous: generally, egg producers emphasised natural behaviours, whereas broiler producers prioritised health and productivity. Nevertheless, profitability, leadership, and organisational policies primarily influenced housing system choices rather than animal welfare values. Economic motives drove egg producers towards cage-free systems, prompted by consumers' and companies' demand for cage-free eggs committed to transitioning away from cages by 2025. In conclusion, tailored interventions for different poultry sectors within China are necessary. While animal welfare values matter, economic incentives seem more promising for steering the shift towards and maintaining cage-free poultry production.

Sustainable Agri-Food Systems: Environment, Economy, Society, and Policy

Agri-food systems (AFS) have been central in the debate on sustainable development. Despite this growing interest in AFS, comprehensive analyses of the scholarly literature are hard to find. Therefore, the present systematic review delineated the contours of this growing research strand and analyzed how it relates to sustainability. A search performed on the Web of Science in January 2020 yielded 1389 documents, and 1289 were selected and underwent bibliometric and topical analyses. The topical analysis was informed by the SAFA (Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems) approach of FAO and structured along four dimensions viz. environment, economy, society and culture, and policy and governance. The review shows an increasing interest in AFS with an exponential increase in publications number. However, the study field is north-biased and dominated by researchers and organizations from developed countries. Moreover, the analysis suggests that while environmental aspects are sufficiently addressed, social, economic, and political ones are generally overlooked. The paper ends by providing directions for future research and listing some topics to be integrated into a comprehensive, multidisciplinary agenda addressing the multifaceted (un)sustainability of AFS. It makes the case for adopting a holistic, 4-P (planet, people, profit, policy) approach in agri-food system studies.

Sustainability and Quality Aspects of Different Table Egg Production Systems: A Literature Review

Eggs are of considerable importance in feeding the population, as they are a relatively inexpensive and complex food source of very high biological value. The daily animal protein requirement for the human body can be covered with eggs in the cheapest way and with the lowest environmental impact. As animal welfare, as well as environmental and health awareness issues, become increasingly prominent in developed countries, consumer demand for eggs has also changed significantly in recent years, with an increasing number of consumers buying eggs produced in non-cage housing systems. In recent years, cage housing has been more frequently debated in EU member states. An initiative was launched in 2018 to end cage housing technologies and the sale of eggs produced in this way. However, in addition to animal welfare, a number of other factors need to be considered in relation to sustainable production. For this reason, the aim of this research is to provide a comprehensive overview of the sustainability issues of various housing technologies, as well as quality factors affecting consumer health and egg consumption based on the relevant international references and databases. Although there is a growing demand for products produced in non-cage housing systems due to the increasing relevance of environmental protection, health awareness and animal welfare issues in Western societies, research has shown that non-caged production is not the best solution for environmentally, socially and economically sustainable egg production.

Indústria do Ovo: qual é o significado e uso dessa expressão?

Resumo No início dos anos 2000, ovos foram reabilitados como saudáveis, sendo alimento nutritivo e economicamente acessível, de uma rica fonte de proteína animal e uma alternativa à carne vermelha. O presente trabalho objetivou identificar se a expressão “Indústria do Ovo” é utilizada em publicações acadêmicas e, se confirmada sua utilização, a que produção se refere frequentemente, bem como em que contexto é utilizada quanto à temática dos artigos científicos. Para tanto, realizou-se uma revisão sistemática da literatura, considerando investigações publicadas nas bases de dados Scopus e Web of Science. Os resultados obtidos demonstraram que a utilização da expressão “Indústria do Ovo” em artigos científicos ocorre desde 1947, sendo empregada para designar, principalmente, a produção comercial de ovos de galinha, cujo uso apresenta linha de tendência crescente. Os artigos com foco em administração, economia, mercados e certificações foram predominantes no emprego da expressão “Indústria do Ovo” no decorrer do período analisado.

Determining Connections between the Daily Lives of Zoo Elephants and Their Welfare: An Epidemiological Approach

Concerns about animal welfare increasingly shape people’s views about the acceptability of keeping animals for food production, biomedical research, and in zoos. The field of animal welfare science has developed over the past 50 years as a method of investigating these concerns via research that assesses how living in human-controlled environments influences the behavior, health and affective states of animals. Initially, animal welfare research focused on animals in agricultural settings, but the field has expanded to zoos because good animal welfare is essential to zoos’ mission of promoting connections between animals and visitors and raising awareness of conservation issues. A particular challenge for zoos is ensuring good animal welfare for long-lived, highly social species like elephants. Our main goal in conducting an epidemiological study of African (Loxodonta africana) and Asian (Elephas maximus) elephant welfare in 68 accredited North American zoos was to understand the prevalence of welfare indicators in the population and determine the aspects of an elephant’s zoo environment, social life and management that are most important to prevent and reduce a variety of welfare problems. In this overview, we provide a summary of the findings of the nine papers in the collection titled: Epidemiological Investigations of North American Zoo Elephant Welfare with a focus on the life history, social, housing, and management factors found to be associated with particular aspects of elephant welfare, including the performance of abnormal behavior, foot and joint problems, recumbence, walking rates, and reproductive health issues. Social and management factors were found to be important for multiple indicators of welfare, while exhibit space was found to be less influential than expected. This body of work results from the largest prospective zoo-based animal welfare study conducted to date and sets in motion the process of using science-based welfare benchmarks to optimize care of zoo elephants.