Guest editorial

Citation

Adjallah, K.H. (2007), "Guest editorial", British Food Journal, Vol. 109 No. 11. https://doi.org/10.1108/bfj.2007.070109kaa.001

Guest editorial

Michael BourlakisSenior Lecturer at Brunel Business School, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK. He can be contacted at: michael.bourlakis@brunel.ac.uk

The numerous epidemics occurring in the European livestock sector such as Foot and Mouth Disease, Avian Influenza and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and the subsequent culling of animals has resulted in consumers becoming increasingly concerned with the animal welfare issue. Consumers also seem to acknowledge that improving the welfare of animals can help in heightening product quality.

In terms of academic research, the animal welfare issue has been scrutinised widely from many scientific disciplines including work by veterinarians, animal scientists and social scientists, to name a few, as will be discussed extensively in this Special Issue. All these studies have examined animal welfare issues within their relative research fields and scientific boundaries without necessarily providing an overarching scientific dialogue and interaction with other relevant scientific disciplines.

This research gap is addressed via the Welfare Quality^® project that is funded by the European Union’s Framework VI Programme and aims to develop standards, systems and strategies for increasing animal welfare at farm level. The project’s approach is interdisciplinary bringing together natural and social scientists (see further at: www.welfarequality.net). This Integrated Project examines three main species: pigs, cattle and poultry, following a “fork to farm approach” as the animal welfare standards and systems will be scientifically validated after taking into account consumers’ views and retailers’ requirements.

This Special Issue analyses animal welfare for European pig farming and contains six papers for each of the six project members involved (France, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) and one synthesis paper; the six papers follow the same qualitative research methodology. All papers examine the farmers’ views and attitudes in relation to a range of animal welfare issues such as farmers’ understanding of good farming and production, farmers’ participation in different types of schemes and the resultant impact on farmers’ views and the alternative definitions and practices of animal welfare. They also illustrate fully the similarities and differences of opinions amongst national farmers and the interesting national variations in terms of animal welfare. In total, 360 farmers from six nations have participated in the empirical work. The synthesis paper is written by the Dutch coordinating team of the Integrated Project’s Work Package and sheds further light on the above matters.

It is anticipated that this Special Issue will provide new insights for numerous stakeholders of the food supply chain including policy makers, academic researchers, industry managers and relevant bodies and associations.

Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to the Editor of the British Food Journal (Professor Chris Griffith) who has been very supportive and the reviewers for their prompt and constructive feedback.

Special note: the papers of this special issue emanate from the Welfare Quality^® research project which has been co-financed by the European Commission, within the 6th Framework Programme, contract no. FOOD-CT-2004-506508. The papers represent the authors’ views and do not necessarily represent a position of the Commission, which will not be liable for the use made of such information.

Michael BourlakisGuest Editor