By Bruce Cochrane.
A Professor with the University of Melbourne says consumers are becoming more involved in animal welfare issues and that involvement is starting to have a greater impact on their behaviour.
"How Public Attitudes Predict Community Behaviours" was discussed earlier this month as part of the 2017 Manitoba Swine Seminar.
Professor Grahame Coleman, a Professor in the Animal Welfare Science Centre at the University of Melbourne, observes the kinds of things people do with respect to animal welfare in the community have increased over the past ten years.
Professor Grahame Coleman-University of Melbourne:
People are more likely to call talkback radio, to talk to friends and family about animal welfare issues and this probably reflects a tendency for them to have a greater influence in the community about animal welfare matters and so that increases the likelihood that governments and that other bodies are going to respond in a way to address what they see to be the changes in community values.
The distribution of attitudes express much more concern about animal welfare but those concerns tend to correlate more with some of the things that people do.
For example, in pork purchasing generally speaking, concerns about animal welfare are not a major consideration but, if we look at the extent to which peoples' attitudes toward animal welfare are associated with pork purchasing behaviour, that's increased substantially over this last 10 years.
In some the attitudes probably reflect greater concern but, more importantly, those attitudes are now translating a little bit more into outcomes and the same applies to other community behaviours like calling talk back radio or talking amongst their friends or what ever.
Professor Coleman says any changes made by industry in response to changing public attitudes need to be government by both changing values and good science and in a way that makes sense rather than just as a knee jerk reaction to public opinion.
Source: Farmscape