Daiana de Oliveira

Happy animals are a competitive advantage for Sweden

MAY 2025 | When consumers in Europe are asked what matters most to them when buying meat, animal welfare tops the list in every country. That the animal has been well cared for, for example, is more important than the meat being organic or locally produced. But what is a happy animal? And how do we combine that with sustainable livestock farming?

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Daiana de Oliveira

Professor of farm animal welfare

Daiana de Oliveira’s research covers everything from the behaviour of individual animals to the organisation of our multinational food production systems. She has been named by Forbes Brazil as one of the country’s 50 most influential women in the agricultural sector.

GRANTED FUNDING SINCE 2024

SEK 18.9 million

Funders: the Marie-Claire Cronstedt Foundation, the European Commission

Sweden’s world-leading position in animal welfare was one of the reasons Daiana de Oliveira moved here from Brazil twelve years ago to conduct research on farm animals.

– Sweden is a role model for the rest of the world when it comes to animal rights and builds on strong EU legislation. Swedish law guarantees that cows are allowed to graze outdoors in summer, and that sows can move freely and interact with their piglets, and it prohibits tail docking in pigs. Outside Europe, it is mainly the market that regulates the situation for farm animals, says Daiana.

Since spring 2024, she has been professor of farm animal welfare at Linnaeus University. The professorship, made possible thanks to support from the Marie-Claire Cronstedt Foundation, is an investment in research on animal health and welfare in one of the country’s most livestock-dense regions, with extensive egg production, cattle farming, and equestrian industries.

– Research can solve many of the challenges farmers face today, and having so many farms close to the university helps us both to create new knowledge and to apply it. It may involve changes in animal husbandry, environmental conditions, and management practices that improve operations, or interactions between people and animals that reduce stress and prevent accidents.

Combining animal welfare and profitability

When it comes to animal welfare, everything is interconnected, from the individual animal to the farm and the livestock sector as a whole. The challenge for farmers is to provide better conditions for the animals while keeping their operations profitable.

Daiana’s research is about finding solutions that combine our ethical responsibility for animal welfare with the demands of the market. The starting point is that animals are sentient beings capable of experiencing a wide range of emotions, from sadness and anxiety to joy and happiness.

– One of the most important changes in research over the past few decades is the growing understanding that animals have different personalities and motivations, which is reflected in how each individual adapts to the farm environment.

Daiana de Oliveira

My entire career has been driven by a fascination with understanding the individual animal.

Daiana de Oliveira

There is no such thing as an average cow

Cows show significant variation both physiologically and behaviourally. Some are bolder, others more reserved; they have different risks of disease and respond differently to situations. In agriculture, dairy cows are often treated as if they were identical, but “the average cow” does not exist.

One of Daiana’s areas of research focuses specifically on understanding individual differences in farm animals, in order to improve both farm environments and animal husbandry. The goal is to create an environment where all animals can regularly experience positive emotions and develop their skills.

– Positive emotional states arise when animals have the freedom to make choices and can set and achieve their own goals. When animals are able to explore their environment, make decisions, and play, they develop their behavioural, cognitive, and emotional skills. This leads to the animals becoming physically stronger and having a better immune system, which further improves their health, says Daiana, and continues:

– My entire career has been driven by a fascination with understanding the individual animal. If we get better at understanding the variation between individuals, we can avoid many health-related problems and unwanted behaviours.

Pathways – for sustainable food

Daiana de Oliveira is one of the leaders of the Pathways project, which aims to develop the European livestock sector, from farms through the entire production chain to the consumer. The project has over 30 partners and a budget of SEK 100 million to investigate how different measures affect the climate, profitability, animal welfare, and access to food. By creating various future scenarios, Pathways helps decision-makers and the industry understand the consequences of different choices.

– In the project, I’m responsible for interaction with stakeholders across Europe. In addition to researchers, the project also includes representatives from industry and individual producers – the people who will implement the methods we develop, which is very important.

Re-Livestock – preparing for climate change

In the Re-Livestock project, Daiana is collaborating with researchers in Europe and Australia to prepare the livestock sector for climate change. It involves both finding methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to the industry and mitigating the effects of rising temperatures. Her goal is to assess the impact of climate change on animals and to develop strategies to reduce these effects.

– We need to adapt our production systems to reduce animal suffering while ensuring there is enough food. And the solutions for this need to be adaptable to different regions of Europe, as rainfall, warm nights, and feed production will be affected differently.

Investing in wellbeing

The big question is how farmers can improve animal welfare while maintaining profitability. Today’s legal requirements mainly focus on reducing suffering and stress for animals, rather than promoting positive experiences. Any measures that go beyond that must be economically justifiable.

What is a happy cow?

Happy cows stay healthier and are also more productive. There are several things that can be done to promote animal welfare, explains Daiana de Oliveira.

– A happy cow has choices. It can move freely and follow its instincts. It is also important that the cow is well equipped for its environment: that it has built up enough skills and resilience to cope with both physical and mental challenges, has meaningful relationships with other individuals, and lives in an environment that provides nutritious food and meets the animal’s needs. A happy cow has the opportunity to regularly experience positive emotions.

But investing in animal welfare can pay off in the long run. One example is Daiana’s research on calves’ early life, a crucial period for their future behaviour and health. At present, they are separated from their mothers shortly after birth so that the cows can return to milk production, which is stressful for the animals. In nature, calves would stay close to their mothers for much longer, which has many advantages.

– In the short term, it’s an economic loss due to reduced milk production, but in the long term it can benefit the farm, as these calves grow more quickly into stronger heifers with better social skills and greater ability to cope with new situations.

One of Daiana’s upcoming projects will investigate how important it is for dairy cows to be allowed outdoors in summer. By law, Swedish cows must be given access to pasture, but this has recently been called into question. Critics argue that abolishing the law would reduce costs and make Swedish farms more competitive.

– The fact is that we can never push prices down to the level of the international market. There will always be someone who can produce milk and meat more cheaply elsewhere. However, we can compete on animal welfare. In that respect, Sweden is still among the best in the world, and I hope it will stay that way.

Cow