Low Meat Consumption als Vorstufe zum Vegetarismus? Eine qualitative Studie zu den Motivstrukturen geringen Fleischkonsums

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Conflicts between agriculture and society: the role of lobby groups in the animal welfare discussion and their impact on meat consumption

Conflicts between agriculture and society are growing in industrialized countries, especially with respect to animal husbandry. Against this background, the present study has the aims to analyze the level of agreement of German citizens with the positions of animal rights, consumer protection, and farmer lobby groups and how this agreement or disagreement affects citizens’ future meat consumption. To achieve these goals, reference is made to the Framing Theory and to the Theory of Planned Behavior. The original contribution of the approach presented here is the integration of both theories in one empirical study, which gives the opportunity to put the impact of public relations activities of different lobby groups into perspective. As can be shown based on a survey among 498 consumers, the intention to reduce meat consumption is only indirectly influenced by media frames generated by lobby groups. Behavioral control and subjective norm represent the most important direct influencing factors. However, the frames, namely the moral and the economic pressure frame, have a strong impact on attitude towards meat consumption

Animal Welfare: eine empirische Analyse landwirtschaftlicher Frames

Nach den aktuellen Erkenntnissen der nutztierwissenschaftlichen Forschung rekurriert das Verständnis von Animal Welfare auf vier Kriterien: Haltungssystem, Management, Tiergesundheit und Tierverhalten (KEELING und KJÆRNES, 2009). Es ist jedoch unklar, inwieweit sich dieses Verständnis auch in der landwirtschaftlichen Praxis wiederfindet. In der vorliegenden empirischen Studie wird erstmals mit Hilfe einer Faktorenanalyse das Animal-Welfare-Verständnis konventioneller deutscher Schweinemäster untersucht. Hierzu wird auf das theoretische Konzept des Framing zurückgegriffen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass bei den Befragten zwei Frames von Animal Welfare existieren : Während Kriterien des (natürlichen) Tierverhaltens im Verständnis der befragten Landwirte eine untergeordnete Rolle spielen, findet eine biologisch-technische Definition von Animal Welfare deutliche Zustimmung. According to the current state of livestock sciences the assessment of animal welfare nowadays is based on four dimensions, i. e. good housing, good feeding, good health and appropriate behaviour (KEELING and KJÆRNES, 2009). However, it remains unclear to what extent this understanding of animal welfare is shared by farmers. The aim of the present study is thus to estimate the concerns of conventional German pig farmers about animal welfare by means of a factor analysis. For this purpose the theoretical concept of framing is applied. The results show that two animal welfare frames exist among respondents. While an animal welfare understanding that focuses on biological and technical aspects is highly approved, criteria based on (natural) animal behaviour play only a minor role