People’s Perception, Attitude In Relation To Animal Welfare And Constraint Of Livestock

Animal farming has gone through considerable changes during last decades. Average farm size has been increased, resulting in farmers spending less time with individual animals and making it more difficult to detect abnormal behaviour and illnesses in livestock (Fraser 2001). On the other hand, farming has become increasingly mechanized, further reducing everyday interactions between farmers and animals and increasing animals’ fear of humans (Raussi 2003). The quality of the management system has thus become an ever more important factor in good animal husbandry practices. Now-a-days, farm animal welfare has been a vital topic in social discussion in the media and among citizens. Consumers are concerned about the welfare of animals on farms. However, farmers’ voices and their representations of animal welfare are seldom heard. Austin et al.[1] noted that research on farmers’ traditions of conceptualizing animal welfare has been lacking until relatively recently. Especially from the perspective of improving animal welfare as an action, few studies have been published elsewhere [2, 3]. It is debatable whether farmers, consumers and other stakeholders are talking about the same issue when discussing improving animal welfare. Understanding how different actors perceive animal welfare is a precondition for the successful improvement of welfare. Animal welfare is a complex and multidimensional concept and there are a number of definitions associated with it [4]. Therefore, the emphasis of this study lies in how farmers perceive improving animal welfare, what it means to them, and how is it constructed in their speech. The interpretation of Appleby [5], who represents animal welfare as a state of well-being brought about by meeting the physical, environmental, nutritional, behavioral and social needs of the animals under the care or influence of people.

Animal welfare is scientifically proven to impact animal productivity [6], a fact that seems to be appreciated by farmers. The quality of stockmanship naturally impacts animal welfare. Farmers’ attitudes are reflected in their behaviour towards animals, which, in turn, affects animal behaviour, welfare and productivity. Eagly and Chaiken [7] has been defined attitude as “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour”. Attitudes can, in principle, be studied qualitatively and quantitatively. The methods might strengthen and supplement each other by suggesting various views on a topic, or they might point out respective flaws [8]. Kauppinen et al.[9] stated that the welfare of production animals provokes wide social discussion among the public, yet, despite this, farmers’ voices and their representations of animal welfare are rarely heard, even though farmers are the ones actually able to improve animal welfare. Aierqing et al. [10] stated in his experiment that the temperament is one of the factors when handling livestock. It is essential to improve work condi-tions as well as productivity and animal welfare in farm. It is necessary to improve work conditions as well as productivity and animal welfare in farm . Farmers’ perceptions of what constitutes animal welfare and how it may be improved can differ from those of consumers and other stakeholders, and therefore it is crucial to understand what farmers mean when they talk about improving animal welfare. Attitudes can affect the way farmers treat their animals, the environment they provide the animals and even their own job satisfaction through the feedback received from the animals. However, to our knowledge, there is no published research in Bangladesh aspect regarding the people’s perception and attitude for animal welfare. Therefore, the objective of our study was to analysis of farmer’s attitudes and perceptions towards animal welfare in relation of educational status as well as the constraint of livestock rearing in Bangladesh.

Materials And Methods

Study area and period

The study was conducted randomly different part of Bangladesh during the period from July to September, 2019.

Collection of data

A total of 551 livestock farmer’s data were collected randomly by using a pre-tested interview schedule. All of the farmers were classified according to their educational status i.e Illiterate, up to secondary school certificate (SSC) and higher secondary school certificate (HSC) and above.

In the questionnaire, we had asked the farmer how importance’s do you perceive? And how easy do you perceive? Of these two questions, we mentioned four statements that were provide the animals with favorable environment, taking care of the animals’ health, treating the animals humanely and investing in your own motivation and well being at work. The answer of first questions were categorized as very important, important, poorly important, not important, not important at all. The answer of second question were categorized as very easy, easy, average easy, not easy, not easy at all.

In case of assessment of general attitude, we have mentioned eight statements that were animal welfare is the most important issue in my work, I always do my best to improve the welfare of my animals, Improving animal welfare is economically profitable, it is mentally rewarding to improve animal welfare, a farmer is obligated to treat her/his animals well, a high yield is evidence of good animal welfare Animal welfare should not cost too much money, a farmer must not become attached to her/his animals, talking to the animals is unimportant. The answer of these statements were categorized as strongly agreed, agreed, average, disagreed and strongly disagreed.

Statistical analysis

The data were classified in to different categories and subjected to calculation of percentage by using excel spread sheet.

The constrains are shown in Table 5. The constraint of livestock farming is degradation of common grazing resources. credit for inputs, feed and fodder scarcity, inadequate housing, knowledge gap, vehicle not available for transportation and inadequate veterinary services. Lack of availability of high-breed animals and also the lack of knowledge and technological know-how of maintaining the high-breed varieties; Animal diseases are also among the most important constraints to livestock development in Bangladesh. The overall livestock production constraints were feed shortages, livestock diseases, low genetic potential of indigenous, livestock diseases, low genetic potential of indigenous livestock, lack of marketing infrastructure and water shortages [17]. Different factors or constraints limit the full exploitation of the agricultural sector in general and the livestock sub sector in particular in the country. Moreover, such

constraints are pronounced in the mixed crop- livestock dominated highland parts where the human population growth and natural resource degradation are critical. However, the type of constrain and the extent it affects both the agricultural and the livestock sub-sector would vary depending on the context of the farming system. According to LakewDesta et al. [18] inadequate feed both in quantity and quality, widespread diseases and poor health, poor genetic potential foe production traits and land equate or inappropriate livestock politics with respect to credit, extension, marketing and infrastructure have been listed as major constraints affecting the performance of the livestock sub-section in most highland parts of the country. The first constraints of livestock farming are degradation of common grazing resources. The causes are poverty, land shortage and increasing population [19].

Conclusion

Farmer makes actual decisions about what farm animal welfare efforts to provide, so they play a critical role in determining the living conditions of production animals. This study was designed to establish how farmers understand improving animal welfare and how they perceive relationships among their own attitudes, animal welfare and production. Farmer’s affirmative perceptions of the importance of their own attitudes to animal welfare and productivity support the formulation of my qualitative study questions and represent an encouraging finding that should be studied further. Their views also support the idea that farmers think animal welfare affects production. The second focus of this study was to explore farmer attitudes related to animal welfare and production. Farmer’s attitudes as well as other psycho-socio factors, proved to be significant; treating animals humanely, perceiving it is easy to provide the animals with a favorable environment and others. Farmer’s intentions to take care of their own well-being were associated with high total welfare for farms. These results show that farmer’s attitudes are important when it comes to animal productivity. The third focus of this study was to find out the constraints of livestock farming in Bangladesh. Gradually decreasing of common grazing resources is the major constraints that the results showed. However, farmers attitudes may be linked to animal housing management and productivity, but welfare and productivity are determined by multiple factors, some of which are related to attitudes, some were not.