7-State-Evaluation: Effects on animal welfare

Background and Objective

Various measures under the RDP such as the farm investment support, farm advisory services or animal welfare payments, aim at improving animal welfare. We assess if they achieve this goal. To this aim, the following questions are crucial:

• Are the measures in principle suitable to achieve improvements in animal welfare?
• Which effects do the measures unfold on the supported holdings?
• What is the contribution of the measures to improve animal welfare in livestock farming?

Evaluation of the effects on animal welfare takes place within evaluation of the whole Rural Development Programs.

Approach

To evaluate the effects of the various support measures, we use different methods. For the animal welfare payments, we collected animal- and resource-oriented indicators on 120 dairy farms to assess the state of welfare on the supported farms. The extension measure is evaluated by using a written survey which assesses the behavioral changes of the supported farmers.

Data and Methods

For the analysis, we evaluate funding data (for example, animal numbers, funding amounts) but also self-collected data and information from statistical surveys. In addition to quantitative statistical methods (descriptive statistics, multivariate analyses), we use qualitative methods (focus groups, content analysis).

Results

Publications on RDP-Evaluation: www.eler-evaluierung.de/publikationen/projektberichte/7-laender-bewertung-foerderperiode-2007-bis-2013

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