Analysis of animal welfare economy in dairy cattle and evaluation in terms of agricultural policies: İzmir province example

The aims of this research are fivefold: to determine technical and economical efficiency of dairy farms in İzmir province, to reveal the relationship between farms whose efficiency level were determined and animal welfare, to generate animal need indices for farms and to associate indices with economic efficiency, besides, to reveal dairy cattle breeders' awareness of animal welfare. Within this scope, face-to-face interviews were conducted with totally one hundred dairy cattle breeders determined by proportional sampling method. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used to analyze the technical and economic efficiency of the farms. The relationship between animal welfare and these farms were investigated by using the Tobit model. The Animal Needs Index (ANI) was calculated separately for 100 farms and compared with farms' efficiency. Furthermore, socioeconomic factors that affect the level of awareness of breeders about animal welfare were determined by using Multinomial Logistic Regression. According to DEA results, 27% of farms in the input-oriented model, while 25% of them in the output-oriented model were fully efficient. Moreover, according to Tobit Analysis, the variables that statistically significantly affect farms' efficiency are the number of milked cows and the age of the breeders. Within animal welfare variables, significant factors are feeding method, milk yield, frequency of the mastitis, conception rate, having knowledge about the reasons for the effects of poor animal welfare. The score of ANI and level of efficiency was highest for large-scale farms. The results of Multinomial Analysis showed that education, age and experience affected the probability of awareness (knowledge level) for animal welfare. The fact that the breeders' ages are 40 years or older negatively affects the probability of animal welfare awareness by 0.83. As a result of the research, we recommend that to give subsidies to breeders who are younger and adapt animal welfare conditions, to impose legal obligations about adapting animal welfare, to conduct simultaneously regional and micro-level research about animal welfare.