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• We study people's perceptions of agricultural policy goals. • We conduct a survey in Switzerland on the importance of eight policy goals. • Animal welfare is perceived as the most important goal. • Differences between the Swiss language regions indicate cultural differences. • Policy needs to take into account cultural differences within the population. Agricultural policy goals should be legitimised by the population, as agriculture is an important recipient of governmental support in Europe. Questions arise as to how people assess these policy goals, which factors affect the perception of agricultural policy goals and to what extent cultural differences influence this assessment. We address these questions by conducting an online survey among 1,542 respondents in the German-, French- and Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland. We find that the multifunctional role of agriculture is strongly anchored in the population's perception of agricultural policy. The stated preferences of the participants show that increasing animal welfare is clearly the most important agricultural policy goal for Swiss citizens. Controlling for a range of sociodemographic characteristics and personal attitudes, we find evidence of differences between language regions and thus of cultural differences in the assessment of individual agricultural policy goals. For example, compared to respondents in the other two language regions, German-speaking respondents found increasing domestic food production significantly more important, whereas reducing food prices for consumers, increasing farmers' income, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions were perceived as significantly less important goals. Environmental attitudes were closely related to the perceived importance of agricultural policy goals; thus, we can expect heated discussions in the future, especially if environmental objectives continue to be missed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Meat commitment is a negative and significant predictor for the importance of animal welfare. • Committed meat eaters are less likely to endorse universalistic values (i.e. animal welfare). • Animal welfare remains important when it is in direct conflict with three different policy goals. • Animal welfare appeals directly to personal values. • Agricultural policy needs to evolve together with personal values. Animal welfare is one of the key agricultural policy goals and is considered extremely important by consumers. With the increasing urgency for a sustainable and healthy dietary shift, it could be one of the key motivators for behaviour change. Therefore, we investigate how consumers perceive the importance of animal welfare not only as an agricultural policy goal but also in comparison to conflicting goals, such as domestic food production, farmers' income, and consumer prices. We investigate how the weighing of animal welfare as an agricultural policy goal is related to individual behaviour (i.e. meat consumption), values and attitudes, such as meat commitment, the perceptions of farmers and the Ecological Welfare scale (which includes animal welfare and environment protection). Thus, we conducted an online survey in October 2022, recruiting a sample of 1542 participants (51.5% women) in equal parts from the German-, French-, and Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland. Participants were asked to evaluate the importance of increased animal welfare in three situations with the following conflicting policy goals: (1) increasing domestic food production, (2) reducing consumer food prices, and (3) increasing farm incomes. Regression analysis revealed that the influential predictors in all three models were similar. Being a woman, politically left leaning, and less committed to meat eating, having a more negative perception of farmers, and assigning more importance to ethical food consumption increased the probability of putting more weight on animal welfare in all three goal conflicts described above. The finding that participants who were more committed to meat eating tended to assign less importance to animal welfare when weighing the three conflicting agricultural policy goals is well-aligned with the current literature. Implications for agricultural policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]