Attitudes and expectations of beef farmers in Austria, Germany and Italy towards the Welfare Quality s assessment system Marlene K. Kirchner a,n , Heike Schulze Westerath-Niklaus c,1 , Ute Knierim c , Elena Tessitore b , Giulio Cozzi b , Christian Vogl a , Christoph Winckler a a Department of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Gregor-Mendelstrasse 33, A-1180 Vienna, Austria b Department of Animal Science, University of Padova, Agripolis – Viale dell'Università 16, I-35020 Legnaro (PD), Italy c Department of Farm Animal Behaviour and Husbandry, University of Kassel/Witzenhausen, Nordbahnhofstrasse 1a, D-37213 Witzenhausen, Germany article info Article history: Received 15 February 2012 Received in revised form 14 October 2013 Accepted 4 December 2013 Keywords: Animal welfare Beef cattle On-farm welfare assessment Perception Attitudes abstract Farmers' attitudes and expectations towards mainly animal-based welfare assessment tools such as the Welfare Quality s protocol are regarded important for successful implementation. The objectives of this study with beef farmers in Austria, Germany and Italy were to investigate farmers' willingness to join such a comprehensive assessment system and their expectations towards expected benefits, practicalities of the assessment procedure and respective feedback mechanisms. For this purpose, questionnaire-guided interviews were carried out with in total 90 beef farmers with alternative housing conditions for beef production, i.e. straw bedding or soft rubber mats at least in the lying area. 65% of the beef farmers were motivated to join a system such as WQ on a regular basis. About three quarters of all farmers considered as important, that the system is able to detect deficiencies in housing and management. Further benefits were expected in terms of profitability, state of animal welfare as well as personal job satisfaction. Regarding the willingness to implement measures to improve the welfare state, 92% of farmers agreed to change management routines and 67% would invest more labour. Only few objections were raised which mainly addressed the fear of new regulations, higher production costs and the reliability of the results. Nevertheless farmers agreed to a large extent to the practicalities of the protocol and would be willing to contribute to data provision. In conclusion, apart from the use for labelling purposes, beef farmers in this study regard a welfare assessment system such as Welfare Quality s as a valid basis for advice. Beyond assessing animals' state, information needed for improvement strategies may therefore be considered. Farmers' trust in the assessment system may be increased by further research with regard to reliability aspects. & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The European research project Welfare Quality s (WQ), aimed at developing a European standard for product infor- mation on animal welfare in order to address consu- mers' concerns for welfare friendly animal products (Blokhuis Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/livsci Livestock Science 1871-1413/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2013.12.004 n Correspondence to: University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Division of Livestock Sciences, Gregor-Mendelstrasse 33, A-1180 Vienna, Austria. Tel.: þ43 1 47654 3266; fax: þ43 1 47654 3254. E-mail address: marlene.kirchner@boku.ac.at (M.K. Kirchner). 1 Current address: Animal Behaviour, Health and Welfare Unit, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zürich, Universitätsstr. 2, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland. Livestock Science 160 (2014) 102–112