Standpunkte, Praktiken und Kenntnisstand zur Ferkelkastration in Europa (PIGCAS)

Ziele:
1. Erfassung der Standpunkte verschiedener Interessenvertreter zur chirurgischen Ferkelkastration ohne Betäubung und zu möglichen Alternativen.
2. Verbesserung des Kenntnisstandes zum Ausmass der Kastrationspraktiken und der Art ihrer Durchführung in Europa.
3. Auswertung von Forschungsergebnissen und anderer Informationen und Ableitung von Prioritäten für die Forschung und Entwicklung.
4. Erarbeitung von Empfehlungen zur Unterstützung für EU-Politik.

The overall objective of the project is to provide information on pig castration that will support EU policy. The specific

objectives are:

- to collect information on the attitudes of relevant stakeholders;

- to collect information on the practice of pig castration;

- to evaluate research work and other information, in order to examine the various alternatives to surgical castration

without anaesthesia and derive research priorities;

- to integrate the collected information and evaluation in a report providing support for EU policy.

The consortium comprises 10 participant organisations. Participant persons will be distributed into a core group of

participant persons, a stakeholder platform and an extended circle of participant persons.

The support activities will be broken down into 4 working packages corresponding to the 4 specific objectives (WP1:

Attitudes; WP2: Practice; WP3: Evaluation; WP4: Recommendations). WP1 and WP2 will be conducted in parallel during

the first year of the programme. Under the supervision of regional co-ordinators, national contact people will conduct

interviews of stakeholders. The collected information will be integrated at the international level to derive common trends

and regional variations in attitudes and practice, as well as potential clashes of interest between the categories of

stakeholders. The collected information will be used as an input for WP3, together with other available resources. WP3 will

evaluate the available information on alternatives to surgical castration from various perspectives (attitudes, practice,

welfare, pork quality, resource efficiency and economy). Within WP4, the information obtained from WP1, WP2 and WP3

will be integrated in a report containing support for EU policy.

The most important deliverables will be the reports on practice of castration (month 10), attitudes of stakeholders (month

12), evaluation of research (month 18) and recommendations for research and policy support (month 24).