Abstract:

Societal and ethical issues addressed in animal breeding studies from 1990 onwards were examined by means of a bibliometric analysis. Using a specific set of search terms in Scopus, 673 publications of potential interest for societal aspects of animal breeding were found. Subsequent manual selection resulted in 270 relevant studies. Across the period from 1990 to the present, the number of publications addressing societal or ethical aspects of animal breeding, mainly focussing on animal welfare and behaviour or genetic modification, increased from the year 2000 and peaked around 2010. Of the 270 publications, 24% explicitly mentioned ethics, mainly in relation to genetic modification, biotechnology or animal welfare/behaviour. The minority of the publications (32%) were experimental studies. To conclude, only a minor part of publications on animal breeding explicitly address societal issues and, of these, the minority explicitly addresses ethics.