Farm Animal Welfare Is a Field of Interest in China: A Bibliometric Analysis Based on CiteSpace

Abstract

Farm animal welfare research conducted in China is not commonly accessed or known outside of China, which may lead to the assumption that farm animal welfare receives relatively little attention in China. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis was conducted on the existing Chinese farm animal welfare literature to provide robust evidence to refute this assumption. A total of 1312 peer-reviewed Chinese studies on farm animal welfare published between March 1992 and June 2023 were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database. CiteSpace software was used to analyze and visualize the number, species, authors, institutions, journals, and keywords of the papers. In China, farm animal welfare research has gone through the processes of an early stage (1992-2001), rapid-growth stage (2002-2007), and mature stage (2008-present), and the scale of research continues to grow. Notably, swine and chickens have received priority attention in this area. A Matthew effect was observed for authors and institutions, with relatively little collaboration among authors and institutions. Most of the papers were published in a small number of journals, with an apparent agglomeration characteristic. The research hotspots, summarized as "feed and diet", "environmental impacts and control", "integrated rearing management", "injury and disease", "behavior and technologies for behavior monitoring", "genetic analysis", "welfare during transport and slaughter", "welfare-friendly animal product consumption", "attitudes toward farm animal welfare", and "healthy breeding". The keywords "computer vision", "recognition", "temperature", "precision livestock farming", "laying hen", and "behavior", represent the major research frontiers in the field, which could indicate potential areas of significant future research. The findings of the present bibliometric analysis confirm the fact that farm animal welfare is a field of interest in China. Farm animal welfare research in China tends to be pragmatic, with a strong emphasis on enhancing growth and production performance, as well as product quality, rather than solely concentrating on improving farm animal welfare. This paper provides insightful references that researchers can use to identify and understand the current status and future direction of the farm animal welfare field in China.

Keywords: China; CiteSpace; bibliometric analysis; farm animal welfare; research frontiers; research hotspots; research trends.

Figure 1

The integrated analysis framework of the study.

Figure 2

Number of articles published in the field of farm animal welfare in China from 1992 to 2023 June. * The data displayed in the figure for 2023 only includes the number of papers published during the period from January to June 2023.

Figure 3

Distribution of species in the field of farm animal welfare in China.

Figure 4

Author collaboration network map of the field of farm animal welfare in China. (a) Author collaboration network map of the non-Chinese-language literature; (b) author collaboration network map of the Chinese-language literature.

Figure 5

Institution collaboration network map of the field of farm animal welfare in China. (a) Institution collaboration network map of the non-Chinese-language literature; (b) Institution collaboration network map of the Chinese-language literature.

Figure 6

Keyword co-occurrence network map of the field of farm animal welfare in China. (a) Keyword co-occurrence network map of the non-Chinese-language literature; (b) keyword co-occurrence network map of the Chinese-language literature.

Figure 7

Keyword cluster map of the field of farm animal welfare in China. (a) Keyword cluster map of the non-Chinese-language literature; (b) eyword cluster map of the Chinese-language literature.