Tackling the future challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry - vTI

! Agriculture and Forestry Research, Special Issue No 362 (Braunschweig, 2012) ISSN 0376-0723
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avoidance of boar taint. Average willingness-to-pay for fattening of boars was only slightly lower
(2.12 €) and the share of zero bids a bit higher. Here, particularly uncertainty about taste may have
influenced bidding behavior. For immunocastration, the share of zero-bids was with almost 50 %
the highest of all methods, while at the same time average willingness-to-pay was lower than for the
other alternatives but still higher than for the standard procedure of castration without pain relief.
This suggests a polarization of opinions towards immunocastration. On the one hand, some participants
placed relatively high bids for this alternative, maybe due to animal welfare considerations.
On the other hand, some participants did not want to buy the product at all, which may be due to the
intensive discussion on food safety issues. Castration without pain relief resulted in the lowest average
WTP (1.19 €) with a high share of zero-bids which reflects the clear rejection of this castration
method expressed in the focus group discussions.
Table 1. Average willingness-to-pay for the 80 g packages of salami and share of zero-bids
(n=88)
Method Average willingness-to-pay
(Euro)
Share of zero bids (%)
Castration with anesthesia and analgesia 2.17 13.6
Fattening of boars 2.12 20.7
Immunocastration 1.33 47.7
Castration without pain relief 1.19 40.9
Discussion
The results suggest that for organic farming castration with pain relief and fattening of boars may
be acceptable alternatives to consumers while opinions towards immunocastration were rather ambivalent.
In other studies attitudes towards immunocastration were rather positive (e.g. Hofer and
Kupper 2008; Vanhonacker et al. 2009). This discrepancy may be explained by the fact that our
sample consisted of organic food consumers, who are particularly sensitive to health and food safety
issues (Hughner et al. 2007).
Consumers used different criteria to evaluate the alternatives. Hereby, they were aware of the need
to trade-off these criteria, e.g. animal welfare and taste, and individual preferences depended on the
weight given to a certain criterion. The relevance of the criteria differed between the alternatives,
which should be considered in communication efforts regarding the implementation of the alternatives.
Suggestions to tackle the future challenges of organic animal husbandry
Animal welfare is one of the most important reasons for buying organic products in Germany
(fischerAppelt relations 2012; Pleon 2010). Organic consumers have high expectations regarding
animal welfare standards, even though they often do not know much about specific animal husbandry
practices. Therefore, it is crucial for the organic sector to balance consumer expectations and
reality of animal husbandry in order to avoid great discrepancies which could disappoint and appall
consumers.
References
Burns, AC & Bush, RF (2010): Marketing Research. 6th edition. Pearson Education: Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey.
Commission Regulation (EC) No 889/2008 (2008): Commission Regulation (EC) No 889/2008 of 5 September
2008 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007
on organic production and labelling of organic products with regard to organic production, labelling and
control.
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