Attitudes of Serbian food technology students towards surgical and immunocastration of boars and their sensitivity to androstenone and skatole

59th International Meat Industry Conference

Tomasevic, I.^1 ; Deki, I.^1 ; Font-I-Furnols, M.^2 ; Aluwé, M.^3 ; andek-Potokar, M.^4 ; Bonneau, M.^5 ; Weiler, U.^6

Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, Nemanjina 6, Belgrade

11080, Serbia^1

IRTA-Product Quality, Finca Camps i Armet, Monells, Catalonia, Girona

17121, Spain^2

Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO), Animal Sciences Unit, Scheldeweg 68, Melle

9090, Belgium^3

Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, Hacquetova ulica 17, Ljubljana

1000, Slovenia^4

IFIP, French Pork and Pig Institute, Le Rheu, France^5

Universitat Hohenheim, PO Box 700562, Stuttgart

70593, Germany^6

关键词: Animal welfare;    Average sensitivities;    European union;    Knowledge gaps;    Road-maps;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/85/1/012087/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1755-1315/85/1/012087

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Various European Union pork chain actors and stakeholders agreed in 2010 on a road map to voluntarily abandon piglet castration by 1 January 2018. Because currently in Serbia, male piglets are surgically castrated and consumers are not used to the boar taint odour and flavour, the introduction of boar meat may modify the acceptability of pork. The objective of the study was to investigate the attitudes, awareness and opinions of future Serbian food technologist towards surgical castration of boars and its alternatives, and to test their sensitivity to androstenone and skatole. We found that they were concerned about the animal welfare issues and that they were willing to pay a little more for meat from animals treated with dignity. This was more so if they were females and less so if they had had a rural upbringing. They strongly believed that surgical castration is painful for the animals, but at the same time agreed that meat from castrated pigs is of better quality. Their ambiguous attitudes regarding efficacy and quality of alternatives to surgical castration clearly indicated the knowledge gap that must be filled by appropriate modifications of the curriculum. Students demonstrated average sensitivity to both androstenone and skatole. Females exhibited higher intensities of difference in both cases.