Understanding sociocultural aspects of cattle farming

Animal welfare is central to the social sustainability of cattle farming. Research on cattle welfare increasingly recognizes that animal care practices are shaped by biological, technical, economic, social, and cultural factors. Building on this work, the aim of my thesis was to examine how sociocultural factors shape farmers’ understandings of cattle welfare. In Chapter 1, I introduce theoretical foundations of sociocultural sustainability in farm animal welfare and review public perspectives on dairy production systems through a social-license-to-operate lens. In this chapter, I show how value-based concerns about animal welfare contribute to ongoing challenges to the dairy sector’s sociocultural sustainability. In Chapter 2, I describe a study using semi-structured interviews with Western Canadian beef farmers to explore their perspectives on dairy-beef production, with particular attention to beef-on-dairy breeding. Participants recognized potential benefits of this practice but also raised concerns about differences between dairy and beef production systems, animal welfare and market impacts, and potential threats to the beef sector traditions. In Chapter 3, I used a narrative inquiry approach to examine how dairy and beef farmers morally reason about calf care. Farmers described calf care as a relational practice, shaped by responsibility, affection, practical constraints, and the perceived needs of calves. In Chapter 4, I describe a rapid systematic review examining gender bias in research on dairy farmers’ perspectives of animal welfare. I found that gender was inconsistently reported, rarely analyzed, and often insufficiently contextualized in relation to farm roles, care responsibilities, and decision-making authority. Collectively, this thesis shows that cattle welfare debates are shaped by sociocultural dynamics operating across multiple levels: public expectations of dairy farming, relationships between the dairy and beef sectors, farmers’ moral relationships with calves, and the research practices that determine whose perspectives are represented. These findings contribute to animal welfare science by showing that efforts to improve cattle welfare require attention to the social relationships, values, structural conditions, management practices, and animal welfare outcomes that together shape how animal care is understood and enacted.