Emerging animal welfare science emphasizes positive welfare states, not just the absence of suffering. Pigs are capable of play, joy, and optimistic cognition — states worth actively promoting in farming.
For too long, farm animal welfare has been framed primarily around the prevention of suffering. Emerging evidence supports a richer view: animals like pigs can experience positive emotional states — play, curiosity, social joy — that are intrinsically valuable and should be actively promoted. Play behaviour is a sensitive indicator of welfare quality; pigs that play are healthy, socially secure, and cognitively engaged. Enriched environments that enable rooting, foraging, object play, and stable social bonds produce pigs with measurably better welfare across multiple indicators. Higher-welfare farming systems that incorporate positive welfare considerations are not only more ethical but often more productive, with lower injury rates and better growth outcomes.