Voluntary survey for pig owners/farmers who keep their animals outdoors in the island of Ireland |
Aim of the study and participants consent
Faced with societal demands for higher quality pig production, outdoor pig farms offer several benefits. Although these systems are numerous, they do not represent a big part of the pigmeat industry and little is known about them. The OneWelPig project aims to better understand outdoor pig production systems on the island of Ireland with the ultimate aim of helping this industry to expand and develop. This survey represents the first step and it will be followed by fieldwork and workshops to better understand stakeholders' needs. We aim to characterize the current state of the industry and to achieve this we need as many pig producers/owners as possible to participate.
This survey is appropriate for anyone that raises at least one domestic pig outside.
This survey should take approximately 15 minutes to complete.
Participation in this survey is completely voluntary. Should you choose to get involved you can refuse to answer specific questions or decide to withdraw from the study prior to completing the survey and until the final submission of your answers. At this point, your data will be collected with that of other participants and can no longer be retracted.
All information you provide will be confidential. Due to the potentially low number of outdoor farms in Ireland, information will be considered pseudonymous (i.e. some answers could be unique to a particular respondent and mean they are identifiable). Thus if you feel uncomfortable answering any question that could identify you, feel free to leave it blank. If you want to be part of the next stage of the OneWelPig project, you are invited to share your personal contact details at the end of the survey. Personal contact details we collect (email address and phone number), will be kept in separate files. An anonymous identifier in the main dataset will be used to link the details across files. All information will be protected throughout the study. The data will be stored on the Network drive of Teagasc. The data will be stored for ten years, and the contact details for the duration of the project. The information you provide may contribute to research publications and/or conference presentations, and the selection of participants for next stages of the OneWelPig project. We do not anticipate any negative outcomes from participating in this study.
This project is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s competitive research programme. This study obtained ethical approval from the UCC Social Research Ethics Committee.
Please answer all the questions to the best of your ability. Please select the box that best suits you or fill out the blanks when needed. Further instructions will be given at each question if appropriate.
If you have any queries about this research, you can contact Ophélie Menant at ophelie.menant@teagasc.ie or Fidelma Butler at f.butler@ucc.ie.