Challenges to promote (positive) welfare and sustainable farming for pigs: developing production systems to allow behaviour performance (free farrowing, outdoor access, non tail-docking)

The concept of animal welfare has fluctuated over time, following changes in values and beliefs, together with advances in the scientific understanding of animals. A relevant driver in the new definitions of animal welfare has been the higher interest in including affective states, especially positive ones, under a new approach known as Positive Animal Welfare (PAW). Under PAW approach promoting animal welfare goes beyond minimizing suffering or the avoidance of negative states, because an absence of suffering does not mean that all the proclivities of an animal are being fulfilled; particularly, it can overlook the potential benefits of providing environments that enable animals to express their whole behavioural repertoire. The sustainability of animal production systems is often defined by their economic and/or environmental impact. However, the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems outlines two additional pillars of sustainability: governance and social. The social pillar covers the quality of life for both humans and animals involved in the system, and the promotion of positive animal welfare (PAW) is, therefore, also inherent to making a system more sustainable. Under the framework of the European Partnership of Animal Health and Welfare (EUPAHW), the trade-offs and synergies between systems promoting animal welfare with the other sustainability pillars have been explored. Three examples of best practices identified in the EUPAHW that promote PAW or help prevent negative welfare outcomes in pig production will be presented, along with their links to sustainability: non tail-docking, free-farrowing and provision of outdoor access. Tail docking is a common practice in European intensive production systems, although routine tail docking is not allowed by legislation; being considered a painful procedure not tackling the underlying causes of tail biting. At present, European farmers are conducting trials to develop strategies to prevent tail biting in undocked pigs, which have direct consequences on the sustainability of the production system. Besides, the European Citizens’ Initiative “End the cage age” was brought to the EU commission, who initiated plans to prohibit cages and improve animal welfare in multiple farmed animal species. In farrowing and lactating sows, crating has been recognized as severely restricting postural movements, nest building and maternal behaviours and, thus, inducing stress and frustration. The new housing designs under zero or semi confinement for sows will be presented, with regards to its possibilities to promote PAW and its potential impacts in sustainability. Finally, the conventional keeping of growing pigs in an indoor, climate-controlled building with fully or partly slatted floors and minimum space allowance has been said to limit the fulfilment of ethological and physiological needs, such as foraging, and will be presented as an example of best practice promoting PAW, together with its sustainability trade-offs.