animals are essential in the world food enterprise and global economy of today. Farm animal production is valued at more than $93 billion for the United States. The public supports the agricultural use of animals, and generally believes animals are treated humanely. However, many people also support governmental regulation of animal production as a safeguard. Scientific insight is needed to support the assessment of well-being. Animal well-being research will benefit animals, producers, and ultimately consumers, by reducing animal health-care costs and by improving food production efficiencies. Lack of sensitivity to animal welfare issues may be used as an artificial trade barrier of animal products in world markets.

This national program will include research on: 1) responses of individual animals to the production environment; 2) stress; 3) social behavior and space requirements; 4) cognition, and 5) development of alternative production practices and systems.

Scientific measures of animal well-being can be reflected in the design of production environments and methodology and will give the public greater assurance related to animal well-being. Research will determine the patterns of behavior and physiological states indicative of well-being. The integration of scientific measures requires the creation of multi-factorial models of well-being, pertaining to different species. This is necessary to assess the interrelationships of research findings about behavior, genetics, immunology, management, neurobiology, nutrition, epidemiology, pathology, and physiology, including thermal regulation.

An animal's ability to process information combined with genetic and environmental factors influence the intensity and frequency of behavior in a production environment. These factors should be clearly understood because they relate to behaviors indicative of stress in the animal's environment. Tests of preference and motivation can provide valuable information about the importance of particular environmental features to food-producing animals. Research will determine if genetic selection for production traits contributes to changes in behavior, health, or physiology that might reduce well-being.

Scientific knowledge will be used to quantify the responses of animals to various management practices. This will provide a scientific database for designing production systems that ensure both animal well-being and production efficiency. The results will enable producers to evaluate, verify, and improve animal-management practices to enhance well-being, while maintaining a competitive and sustainable food animal industry.

Measures of well-being are needed to give producers and consumers the information they need to evaluate management practices and determine which techniques best assure the well-being of animals used for food production. Development of scientific measures of well-being and an enhanced ability to interpret such measures is crucial to the evaluation of current agriculture practices and development of improved alternatives. The research strategy will focus on indicators of animal well-being that can be refined and applied to the assessment of individual management conditions. Stress caused by social and environmental stressors and the interaction of social and environmental stressors need to be understood to limit negative impacts on production efficiency and well-being.