Research into positive emotions in pigs has transformed understanding of what good pig welfare means, moving beyond absence of suffering to provision of positive experiences.
The science of positive pig welfare has moved the conversation beyond preventing suffering to actively promoting positive experience. This is not a minor conceptual shift - it fundamentally changes what good pig farming looks like. A pig that is healthy, well-fed, and not in pain but living in a barren environment with nothing to do, no social enrichment, and no opportunity for natural behavior is welfare-compromised even if it meets basic negative-welfare standards. Pigs that play, explore, root, and engage positively with their environment are demonstrating that their welfare is genuinely good rather than merely absence of obvious suffering. Enrichment provision that promotes these positive states is a concrete, measurable welfare improvement achievable in commercial systems.