Know more

In organic farming, farmers, who are limited in the use of medicines to treat their animals, rely on health prevention and early identification of sick animals. In order to make progress on these good practices, the accompaniment of farmers by a health advisor, usually their veterinarian, is often practiced in conventional farming. Researchers at UMR BIOEPAR have designed a herd health monitoring tool adapted to organic farming that formalizes the frequency and content of interactions between the farmer and his adviser.

Evaluating the impact of this tool, and more broadly of advisory systems, is difficult because multiple elements interact and influence its results. Consequently, measuring changes in the frequency of production diseases (mastitis, lameness, etc.) alone is not enough: the entire process, from its implementation to its use, needs to be evaluated. To this end, an innovative evaluation method has been designed and tested in France and Sweden, where health monitoring of herds is already well developed.

40 organic dairy farmers and their advisors have implemented the advisory approach. The evaluation method confirms that, even if no impact on animal health could be demonstrated, the advisory tool makes it possible to set up prerequisites for effective advice. Thus, farmer and adviser shared their vision of animal husbandry to better understand each other and gain mutual trust. In addition, the system has strengthened the monitoring and implementation of health prevention in the herds.

The methodological difficulties encountered in measuring an effect on animal health in this type of study demonstrate the need to develop and implement rigorous methods for evaluating the impact of counselling on the knowledge, perceptions and practices of farmers.

Partners: this study was carried out in collaboration with epidemiologists from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences as part of the European IMPRO project (http://www.impro-dairy.eu/), the Organic Agriculture Groups 44 and 56, the Chamber of Agriculture of Moselle, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse and Vosges and practising veterinarians. It has also received funding from the Pays de La Loire Region.

Associated publication : Duval, J. E., Bareille, N., Madouasse, A., de Joybert, M., Sjöström, K., Emanuelson, U., Bonnet-Beaugrand, F., & Fourichon, C. (2017). Evaluation of the impact of a Herd Health and Production Management programme in organic dairy cattle farms: a process evaluation approach. Animal: an international journal of animal bioscience, 1-9. http://doi.org/10.1017/s1751731117002841

Contacts

Scientific contact :

•  Julie Duval UMR BIOEPAR

Associated Department : Santé animale

Associated Centre : Pays de la Loire