The Nordic model for animal welfare and sustainability: Is it competitive?

For many years, health and other functional traits have been included as pa rt of the Nordic breeding goal, mainly due to their cost-effectiveness but also for their ethical worth, although this has never been expressed in ter ms of economics. The main problem in improving animal welfare is the progre ssively rising costs of higher desirable levels of additional animal welfar e. The Nordic breeding goal is examined in the light of sustainability and welfare criteria, and milk production is evaluated in terms of these criter ia. The genetic response in Finnish dairy cattle is reviewed and compared t o other breeding populations. Increased cooperation between countries would minimize the risk and maximize the genetic response in the Nordic breeding programmes. By improving the economic efficiency of Scandinavian red cattl e populations, the possibility of economic production in the northern areas of Europe is improved.