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Animals
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Transition of the Food Animal Production towards More Sustainability and...
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Transition of the Food Animal Production towards More Sustainability and Animal Wellbeing

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Welfare".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2023) | Viewed by 4563

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Thomas Blaha

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Director of the Field Station for Epidemiology of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation, Hannover, Germany, Büscheler Straße 9, 49456 Bakum, Germany (Until 2015)
2. Vice-President of the German Veterinary Association for Animal Welfare, Wiesenweg 11, 49456 Bakum, Germany
Interests: epidemiology of food animal health; one health; antimicrobial resistance; MRSA; zoonoses; animal welfare in food animals
Dr. Barbara Grabkowsky

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Director of the Centre for Sustainability Transformation in Areas of Intensive Agriculture, Centre for Sustainability Transformation in Areas of Intensive Agriculture, University of Vechta, 49377 Vechta, Germany
Interests: sustainability transformation; livestock production; biosecurity; agrifood systems; circular and bioeconomy; participation; multi-actor dialogue processes

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The global community’s understanding that our resources are limited and that climate change may threaten the existence of humankind has led to the concept of an active sustainability transformation. For livestock husbandry, this development has resulted in an increasing demand for more ecologically and animal-friendly production systems. If the transition is not actively shaped and moderated, too many farmers will be “lost in transition”. This Special Issue of Animals will focus on pathways to scientifically support the transition procedures so that the majority of farmers and other actors on the value chain can gradually adapt to the needs for a societally accepted agriculture. This Special Issue will address the philosophical basics of transformation and report about several national approaches to master the transformation process.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Blaha
Dr. Barbara Grabkowsky
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainability transformation
  • resilient livestock systems
  • alternative housing systems
  • consumer citizen gap
  • education
  • new business models

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 1625 KiB  
Article
Automatic Detection of Group Recumbency in Pigs via AI-Supported Camera Systems
by Alexander Kühnemund, Sven Götz and Guido Recke
Animals 2023, 13(13), 2205; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13132205 - 5 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1113
Abstract
The resting behavior of rearing pigs provides information about their perception of the current temperature. A pen that is too cold or too warm can impact the well-being of the animals as well as their physical development. Previous studies that have automatically recorded [...] Read more.
The resting behavior of rearing pigs provides information about their perception of the current temperature. A pen that is too cold or too warm can impact the well-being of the animals as well as their physical development. Previous studies that have automatically recorded animal behavior often utilized body posture. However, this method is error-prone because hidden animals (so-called false positives) strongly influence the results. In the present study, a method was developed for the automated identification of time periods in which all pigs are lying down using video recordings (an AI-supported camera system). We used velocity data (measured by the camera) of pigs in the pen to identify these periods. To determine the threshold value for images with the highest probability of containing only recumbent pigs, a dataset with 9634 images and velocity values was used. The resulting velocity threshold (0.0006020622 m/s) yielded an accuracy of 94.1%. Analysis of the testing dataset revealed that recumbent pigs were correctly identified based on velocity values derived from video recordings. This represents an advance toward automated detection from the previous manual detection method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transition of the Food Animal Production towards More Sustainability and Animal Wellbeing)
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13 pages, 327 KiB  
Review
Transforming Intensive Animal Production: Challenges and Opportunities for Farm Animal Welfare in the European Union
by Mariann Molnár
Animals 2022, 12(16), 2086; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12162086 - 15 Aug 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2764
Abstract
Since the 1960s, the European Union (EU) has made efforts to ensure the welfare of farm animals. The system of EU minimum standards has contributed to improved conditions; however, it has not been able to address the deeper factors that lead to the [...] Read more.
Since the 1960s, the European Union (EU) has made efforts to ensure the welfare of farm animals. The system of EU minimum standards has contributed to improved conditions; however, it has not been able to address the deeper factors that lead to the intensification of animal farming and the consolidation of the processing sector. These issues, along with major competitive pressures and imbalances in economic power, have led to a conflict of interest between animal industries, reformers, and regulators. While the priorities of the European Green Deal and the End the Cage Age initiatives are to induce a rapid phasing out of large-scale cage-based farming systems, the industry faces the need to operate on a highly competitive global market. Animal farmers are also under pressure to decrease input costs, severely limiting their ability to put positive animal-care values into practice. To ensure a truly effective transition, efforts need to go beyond new regulations on farm animal welfare and address drivers that push production toward a level of confinement and cost-cutting. Given the right socio-economic and policy incentives, a transition away from intensive farming methods could be facilitated by incentives supporting farm diversification, alternative technologies, and marketing strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transition of the Food Animal Production towards More Sustainability and Animal Wellbeing)
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