Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WelFarmers (EU Farmers’ Pig Welfare Innovation Network)
Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30
WelFarmers addresses the pressing challenge of making pig farming more sustainable while ensuring high standards of animal welfare. Across Europe, pig producers face increasing societal demands, environmental concerns, and stricter regulations. Yet, practical solutions that balance animal health, welfare, farm economics, and environmental sustainability remain fragmented.
The project brings together scientists, farmers, policymakers, and industry to collect, evaluate, and share Good Practices (GPs) that improve pig welfare while also contributing to environmental and economic sustainability. By building a network across multiple European regions, WelFarmers ensures that local realities and cultural contexts are considered when selecting and promoting practices.
The overall objectives are:
• To identify challenges which the sector has to deal with in relation the 4 themes. Members in the different regional networks were responsible of sharing the challenges faced.
• To identify, assess, and validate Good Practices for pig welfare and sustainability, which are already implemented and in practice. These are evaluated based on based on scientific evidence and stakeholder input.
• To strengthen knowledge exchange among farmers, advisors, scientists, and policymakers.
• To provide practical recommendations that will support policy development, farm adoption, wider societal acceptance and ultimately improve pig welfare.
The expected impact is a stronger European knowledge base on sustainable pig farming, increased adoption of pig welfare practices, and contributions to EU policy targets for animal welfare, climate action, and sustainable food systems.
The project brings together scientists, farmers, policymakers, and industry to collect, evaluate, and share Good Practices (GPs) that improve pig welfare while also contributing to environmental and economic sustainability. By building a network across multiple European regions, WelFarmers ensures that local realities and cultural contexts are considered when selecting and promoting practices.
The overall objectives are:
• To identify challenges which the sector has to deal with in relation the 4 themes. Members in the different regional networks were responsible of sharing the challenges faced.
• To identify, assess, and validate Good Practices for pig welfare and sustainability, which are already implemented and in practice. These are evaluated based on based on scientific evidence and stakeholder input.
• To strengthen knowledge exchange among farmers, advisors, scientists, and policymakers.
• To provide practical recommendations that will support policy development, farm adoption, wider societal acceptance and ultimately improve pig welfare.
The expected impact is a stronger European knowledge base on sustainable pig farming, increased adoption of pig welfare practices, and contributions to EU policy targets for animal welfare, climate action, and sustainable food systems.
In the first reporting period, the project has made significant progress according to the plan:
• Stakeholder engagement: Regional networks were established in partner countries, ensuring farmers, advisors, and industry actors actively contribute to the project. Their feedback allowed to identify challenges and make the final selection for the winning practices.
• Collection of Good Practices (GPs): Over 90 practices were collected from across Europe through national and regional networks. These practices cover the main topics of space allowance & flooring, avoiding pain in castration, ban of cages, and pigs with undocked tails.
• Evaluation framework: A multi-criteria assessment methodology was developed, combining scientific evidence, expert knowledge, and stakeholder input. This ensures practices are assessed for welfare, environmental impact, economic feasibility, and social acceptance.
• Practices selection: Experts from across Europe have preselected the best 5 practices per theme based on the criteria set up. These have now been passed to the regional networks to select the top 3 per theme, focusing on those with the highest potential for uptake and impact.
• Knowledge sharing: Thematic reports have been published, highlighting insights from literature, challenges identified by networks, and the evaluation methodology applied.
These activities have laid a solid foundation for the following phase of sharing and disseminating the results after the winners for the first round have been identified. The same process will also be repeated after the second round.
• Stakeholder engagement: Regional networks were established in partner countries, ensuring farmers, advisors, and industry actors actively contribute to the project. Their feedback allowed to identify challenges and make the final selection for the winning practices.
• Collection of Good Practices (GPs): Over 90 practices were collected from across Europe through national and regional networks. These practices cover the main topics of space allowance & flooring, avoiding pain in castration, ban of cages, and pigs with undocked tails.
• Evaluation framework: A multi-criteria assessment methodology was developed, combining scientific evidence, expert knowledge, and stakeholder input. This ensures practices are assessed for welfare, environmental impact, economic feasibility, and social acceptance.
• Practices selection: Experts from across Europe have preselected the best 5 practices per theme based on the criteria set up. These have now been passed to the regional networks to select the top 3 per theme, focusing on those with the highest potential for uptake and impact.
• Knowledge sharing: Thematic reports have been published, highlighting insights from literature, challenges identified by networks, and the evaluation methodology applied.
These activities have laid a solid foundation for the following phase of sharing and disseminating the results after the winners for the first round have been identified. The same process will also be repeated after the second round.
WelFarmers advances the state of the art by moving beyond individual farm-level or regional innovations to a coordinated European approach. Its main innovations include:
• Integrated evaluation: Practices with an impact on pig welfare are systematically assessed against welfare, environmental, economic, and social dimensions, offering a holistic view. The evaluation process is in itself a deliverable from the project because currently there is not such methodology available.
• Regional contextualisation: Rather than “one-size-fits-all” recommendations based on one region, the project provides the opportunity to all regions involved to share their feedback about the preselected practices based on the implementation within their regional farming systems and societal expectations.
• Stakeholder-driven process: By embedding farmers, advisors, and policymakers from the start, the project ensures practices are both scientifically sound and practically feasible. This is especially important for the validity and acceptance of the results as a co-creation process rather than a top-down one.
Potential impacts include improved pig welfare standards across Europe, reduced environmental footprints of farms, and stronger consumer trust in sustainable livestock products.
The project includes 2 rounds of GPs collection and evaluation. In the second round, the focus should be in those countries not represented in the consortium (like The Netherlands, Germany or Austria) and on exploiting the contacts with other groups already identified like OGs, EU projects, or other Thematic Networks and COST actions.
• Integrated evaluation: Practices with an impact on pig welfare are systematically assessed against welfare, environmental, economic, and social dimensions, offering a holistic view. The evaluation process is in itself a deliverable from the project because currently there is not such methodology available.
• Regional contextualisation: Rather than “one-size-fits-all” recommendations based on one region, the project provides the opportunity to all regions involved to share their feedback about the preselected practices based on the implementation within their regional farming systems and societal expectations.
• Stakeholder-driven process: By embedding farmers, advisors, and policymakers from the start, the project ensures practices are both scientifically sound and practically feasible. This is especially important for the validity and acceptance of the results as a co-creation process rather than a top-down one.
Potential impacts include improved pig welfare standards across Europe, reduced environmental footprints of farms, and stronger consumer trust in sustainable livestock products.
The project includes 2 rounds of GPs collection and evaluation. In the second round, the focus should be in those countries not represented in the consortium (like The Netherlands, Germany or Austria) and on exploiting the contacts with other groups already identified like OGs, EU projects, or other Thematic Networks and COST actions.