Research : Animal and Environmental Ethics

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What is natural behaviour in a domestic animal? Philosophical analysis of a central concept in organic agriculture

Format

Completed project

Time table

2004-2007

Financial support

The project was funded by a grant from the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, Formas (Forskningsrådet för miljö, areella näringar och samhällsbyggande) (www.formas.se).

More information

In field studies of animal behaviour, ethologists often hide in order not to disturb the animals’ natural behaviour. Should ecological farmers who want to support natural behaviour minimize the contacts with their animals? In fact, when farmers change to ecological production they tend to intensify interaction with their animals. Does that imply that ecological animal husbandry is unnatural?

The aim of this project is to formulate a new view on natural behaviour that enables ecological farmers to see their caretaking routines as part of domestic animals’ natural behaviour. Since ecological farmers often associate welfare with natural behaviour, this new outlook makes it possible to connect animal welfare in ecological production to the caretaker’s presence rather than to his absence.

Three ideas from the project:

1. In domestic animals, interaction with the caretaker is a hub in their adaptation to the environment: When piglets learn to suckle they are guided by hearing the sow’s grunts. The caretaker’s relation to the animals on the farm often resembles the sow’s relation to her piglets! The caretaker helps the cow adapt to the milking equipment by speaking reassuringly, by patting and encouraging her: a ‘grunting’ that supports the cow’s behaviour on the farm.

2. Do not overcompensate for industrial animal husbandry: Humans are responsible when animals live unnaturally in industrial production systems. What is ‘unnatural’ is not human presence as such, however, but rather production conditions under which the caretaker lacks opportunities to support the animals’ adaptation. To minimize contacts with the animals would be to overcompensate for this mistake. When ecological farmers instead develop their caretaking routines, they make animal husbandry truly natural for domestic animals.

3. Domestic animals’ unique behaviours belong to the agricultural landscape: Domestic animals’ behaviour in agricultural environments is to some extent shaped via interplay with humans. When ecological farmers develop this interplay, they maintain an often neglected aspect of the agricultural landscape: domestic animals’ unique forms of interplay with humans.

Conclusion:

By intensifying the care of their animals, eco-logical farmers make animal husbandry more natural for domestic animals.

Publications

Segerdahl P, Djuren i kulturen, Daidalos, Göteborg, 2009. ISBN: 978-91-7173-303-0

Segerdahl P, Can Natural Behaviour be Cultivated? The Farm as Local Human/Animal Culture, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2007;20:167-193.

More information

• Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor
  
  

Project Group

• Associate Professor Pär Segerdahl
  Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)
  
• Professor Linda Keeling
  Animal Welfare Unit,
  Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
  
• Anne Larsen, Technician
  Animal Welfare Unit,
  Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
  
  

Network

• Professor Bo Algers
  Department of Animal Hygiene
  Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
  
• Professor Kerstin Olsson
  Department of Anatomy and Physiology
  Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
  
• Professor Mats G. Hansson
  Centre for Research Ethics and Bioethics, Uppsala University
  
• Professor Bengt Meyerson
  Department of Neurosciences, Pharmacology
  Uppsala University

• More information

  Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor
  Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics