Project description
A closer look at the challenges of European livestock farming
Livestock farming poses pressing challenges to the wellbeing of people, animals and the environment. The European Union affords veterinarians important roles in safeguarding public goods such as food safety, animal welfare and public health within the industry. The ERC-funded VetValues project studies how different values are enacted and negotiated in everyday veterinary care. Comparative research in three European countries, The Netherlands, Sweden and Italy, will reveal how next to farmers, vets, and animals themselves, regulatory and economic contexts shape the ‘value-scape’ of animal husbandry. By learning from differences and improvements within the livestock industry, the project will contribute theoretical insights into human-animal relations. This study will also improve our understanding of the dilemmas associated with the innovating food systems.
Objective
VetValues is a comparative ethnographic study of how European livestock farming juggles food security and economic viability with mounting concerns about biodiversity loss and global warming, the development of antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic diseases, and the compromised welfare needs of farm animals. It approaches the wicked problems of livestock production as questions of valuation and valuingof what to value, when, and how. Specifically, it explores how the values of economic production, food safety, public health, animal welfare and ecology come together and are negotiated in animal husbandry, both in assessments and in practices of feeding, housing, and treating animals.
We focus on veterinarians, professionals at the heart of the institutional and regulatory arrangements that shape the politics and governance of human and farm animal life. Previous studies have focused on the ethical dilemmas of veterinarians. VetValues decentres individual deliberations, foregrounding instead how farmings socio-material contexts shape ways of negotiating values. We develop the concept of value-scapes to explore how values are enacted in care practices and embedded in regulatory frameworks, veterinary knowledge, landscapes, animal bodies, barns and farming traditions.
Ethnographic research will compare veterinary care on farms in the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy. Contrasting different national, industrial and regulatory contexts will allow us to discern variations in the value-scapes of farm animal care in Europe. VetValues will thus advance our understanding of how the broader tensions within European food production are comprisedand sometimes resolvedin situated ways. It will provide a nuanced picture of the industrys troublesome biopolitical projects that will inform theorizing on contentious multi-species relations in a world facing myriad pressing challenges to the health and well-being of humans, animals and the planet.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology governance
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy planetary sciences planets
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
- agricultural sciences animal and dairy science domestic animals animal husbandry
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1012WX Amsterdam
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.