Doctoral School Sustainable Development II - Implementation and evaluation of measures for integrating aspects of sustainability into pig fattening

The aim of this project is to develop, implement and evaluate a list of measures to increase sustainability on pig fattening farms. For this purpose a definition of “sustainable pig fattening” will be deduced using scientific literature. According to this definition concrete measures will be developed based on literature research and the involvement of pig farmers. The measures should optimise the animal welfare situation on the farms by e.g. increasing the space allowance for the animals, by providing straw as manipulable material and by minimising mutilations (e.g. tail docking). Furthermore GMO-free feedstuffs of regional origin should be used to reduce ecologic impacts. In terms of quality assurance and animal health monitoring a database for documenting animal related (performance) data and medication use should be created. This database should also include slaughterhouse findings. In the next step these measures will be implemented on various pig fattening farms in Austria. Finally the implementation of these measures will be evaluated. The evaluation will happen for different areas (e.g. animal welfare, economics and the farmer’s experiences with the implementation) according to established evaluation concepts. The following research questions will be answered: How can “sustainable pig fattening” be defined and how can this definition be used for this project? How can the measures be evaluated? How is the implementation of these measures perceived by the farmers? What conclusions for further development and establishment of this concept can be drawn from this investigation?