You Xiaolin, Li Yibo, Zhang Min, Yan Huoqi, Zhao Ruqian
History of Science, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, P.R. China.
Department of Sociology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, P.R. China.
PLoS One. 2014 Oct 14;9(10):e109177. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0109177. eCollection 2014.
Farm animal welfare has been gradually recognized as an important issue in most parts of the world. In China, domestic animals were traditionally raised in backyard and treated as an important component of family wealth. Industrialization of animal production brings forth the farm animal welfare concerns recently in China, yet the modern concept of animal welfare has not been publicized and a comprehensive recognition on how consumers and farmers perceive animal welfare is lacking. Therefore, we conducted a survey on public opinions toward farm animal welfare in China, based on pigs (including sows, piglets, and fattening pigs), domestic fowls (including layers and broilers) and their products. From 6,006 effective questionnaires approximately two thirds of the respondents had never heard of 'animal welfare'; 72.9% of the respondents claimed that, for the sake of animal derived food safety, human beings should improve the rearing conditions for pigs and domestic fowls; 65.8% of the respondents totally or partly agreed on establishing laws to improve animal welfare; more than half of the respondents were willing, or to some extent willing, to pay more for high-welfare animal products, whereas 45.5% of the respondents were not willing or reluctant to pay more. In summary, farm animal welfare is still in its early stage of development and more efforts are needed to improve the public conception to animal welfare in the process of establishing farm animal welfare standards and legislations in China.
在世界大部分地区，农场动物福利已逐渐被视为一个重要问题。在中国，家畜传统上是在后院饲养，并被视为家庭财富的重要组成部分。动物生产的工业化最近在中国引发了对农场动物福利的关注，但动物福利的现代概念尚未得到宣传，并且缺乏对消费者和农民如何看待动物福利的全面认识。因此，我们基于猪（包括母猪、仔猪和育肥猪）、家禽（包括蛋鸡和肉鸡）及其产品，对中国公众对农场动物福利的看法进行了一项调查。在6006份有效问卷中，约三分之二的受访者从未听说过“动物福利”；72.9%的受访者声称，为了动物源性食品安全，人类应该改善猪和家禽的饲养条件；65.8%的受访者完全或部分同意制定法律以改善动物福利；超过一半的受访者愿意或在一定程度上愿意为高福利动物产品支付更多费用，而45.5%的受访者不愿意或不情愿支付更多费用。总之，农场动物福利仍处于发展初期，在中国制定农场动物福利标准和立法的过程中，需要做出更多努力来提高公众对动物福利的认知。
