The process of minimising medicine use through dialogue based animal health and welfare planning, Workshop report FIBL. In: CORE Organic project no. 1903 - ANIPLAN

The process of minimising medicine use through dialogue based animal health and welfare planning. Livestock are important in many organic farming systems, and it is an explicit goal to ensure high levels of animal health and welfare (AHW) through good management. In two previous EU network projects, NAHWOA & SAFO, it was concluded that this is not guaranteed merely by following organic standards. Both networks recommended implementation of individual animal health plans to stimulate organic farmers to improve AHW. These plans should include a systematic evaluation of AHW and be implemented through dialogue with each farmer in order to identify goals and plan improvements. 11 research institutions in 7 European countries have been involved in the ANIPLAN project with the main objective to minimise medicine use in organic dairy herds through active and well planned AHW promotion and disease prevention. The project consisted of 5 work packages, 4 of which comprised research activities building on current research projects, new applications across borders, exchange of knowledge, results and conclusions between participating countries, and adopting them to widely different contexts. International and national workshops have facilitated this exchange. In the project, animal health and welfare planning principles for organic dairy farms under diverse conditions were developed. Animal health and welfare assessments, based on the WelfareQuality parameters, were conducted in different types of organic dairy herds across Europe. Finally, guidelines for communication about animal health and welfare promotion in different settings were also developed relevant to both existing animal health advisory services or farmer groups such as the Danish Stable School system and the Dutch network program. These proceedings contain the presentations at the final workshop, which also included invited external guests. The proceedings also contain three reports which are deliverables of the project. They are focused on the process of planning for better animal health and welfare, and how farmers and facilitators manage this situation. The focus areas are animal health planning, AHW assessment using animal based parameters and development of advisory systems and farmer groups

Improving student uptake and understanding of feedback through a dialogue model of assessment

Through the use of questionnaires, focus groups and a pilot study, this research examines student perception of assessment feedback and whether a dialogue model of assessment can aid in improving this perception. The findings of the study are that the dialogue model did improve student perception. It also identified the following recommendations for consideration: Recommendation 1: While a QE approach could be taken where a minimum standard of feedback is determined at University level, the researchers feel this might be restrictive and is better left to subject groups to determine. This minimum level can then be used as a QA check by internal moderators and at Quality Review events. It will be important to ensure that if feedback falls below this subject-determined minimum level that action is taken within the group to bring feedback up to the standard required. Recommendation 2: It should be written into the feedback policy that students have a right to a meeting to discuss feedback. This needs to be clearly expressed to ensure students recognize that this is not an opportunity to negotiate grades (as the researchers have personally experienced) and given in the spirit of helping the student develop. The researchers believe that as educators we should see the value in such meetings and make time for them. If good, constructive, clear feedback is given at the time of the assessment then there will be very few students who need to take up this opportunity. Recommendation 3: Within programme documentation when generic transferable skills are discussed there should be a requirement to show where the team are developing student understanding of the assessment process. Recommendation 4: Staff should be encouraged to include their marking scheme with the assessment brief. Recommendation 5: Monitor the result of the new assessment strategy in terms of student attainment and perception about the fairness of assessment. In particular identify how many modules have gone to single units of assessment and where this happens how students are supported with feedforward. Recommendation 6: Identify is there is a University standard expectation for particular types of assessment instrument at each level. This would help us to communicate lecturer expectations to students

DOs and DON'Ts for using climate change information for water resource planning and management: guidelines for study design

Water managers are actively incorporating climate change information into their long- and short-term planning processes. This is generally seen as a step in the right direction because it supplements traditional methods, providing new insights that can help in planning for a non-stationary climate. However, the continuous evolution of climate change information can make it challenging to use available information appropriately. Advice on how to use the information is not always straightforward and typically requires extended dialogue between information producers and users, which is not always feasible. To help navigate better the ever-changing climate science landscape, this review is organized as a set of nine guidelines for water managers and planners that highlight better practices for incorporating climate change information into water resource planning and management. Each DOs and DON'Ts recommendation is given with context on why certain strategies are preferable and addresses frequently asked questions by exploring past studies and documents that provide guidance, including real-world examples mainly, though not exclusively, from the United States. This paper is intended to provide a foundation that can expand through continued dialogue within and between the climate science and application communities worldwide, a two-way information sharing that can increase the actionable nature of the information produced and promote greater utility and appropriate use

Communication in animal health and welfare planning

The project ‘Minimising medicine use in organic dairy herds through animal health and welfare promotion’ is focused on animal welfare assessment and its role in the active use of animal health plans in order to improve animal health and welfare on organic farms. To be active, a health plan requires dialogue between the farmer and those who are able to view the farm from the outside e.g. vets and advisors. The importance of this communication is the focus of this paper. Across Europe we see highly diverse farming systems and similarly diversity in advisory systems and their approaches to communicating with farmers. One of the objectives of the AniPlan project is to develop approaches to health planning that are robust yet sufficiently adaptable to be applied across these various conditions. This will involve utilising knowledge of current approaches to communication between farmer and advisor, but also the opportunity for new ways of communication that contribute to the process of animal health and welfare promotion. Relevance to the farmer is paramount. In this paper, three current approaches are summarised, focusing on the dialogue between farmer and ‘external persons’. These are the Danish Stable Schools, the Dutch farmer study groups (where farmers participate in doing animal welfare assessment in a fellow-farmer’s herd) and the Swiss pro-Q project, where there is a very active dialogue between advisors and farmers in a continuous feed-back system. Further to these descriptions, the paper summarises the results of discussions between participants at the first AniPlan workshop in Hellevad, Denmark on the subject of communication in the animal health planning process

Leading careers education information advice and guidance (CEIAG) in secondary schools

This report summarises the findings of a set of six case studies, undertaken during November 2010, which explored the effective leadership of careers education information advice and guidance (CEIAG) in a small sample of secondary schools in England. The findings indicate that effective CEIAG is an extremely important component of school provision as it impacts upon students’ aspirations, achievement and therefore potentially their life chances and social mobility. The report describes different curriculum models, with the integration of CEIAG across the curriculum as the preferred approach allied to a strong emphasis on partnership working. The leadership and management of CEIAG follow a distributed model with staff operating at a variety of levels to secure its development and implementation. There is significant evidence of this model combining the skills of both teaching and non-teaching staff. The importance of strategic vision, continuing professional development and monitoring and evaluation is highlighted as substantial. The report concludes with a set of key message for both school leaders and policymakers

The dialogue with farmers

This report covers the project outcome Deliverable 4.2 ‘Analysis completed after a joint effort to identify possibilities in each country as how to facilitate the best possible dialogue regarding animal health and welfare’ as part of the European CORE Organic project ‘Minimising medicine use in organic dairy herds through animal health and welfare planning.’ The work was intended to understand the processes and was analysed from the perspective of the key animal health and welfare (AHW) planning principles developed as part of the project. The analysis was completed on transcripts of interviews of facilitators and advisors who had participated in the ANIPLAN project, some of them as partners in the project group. If animal health and welfare planning is to gain widespread use among organic farmers, communication between farmers and between farmers and advisors and other actors in the organic farming environment is crucial. Whilst other forms of communication regarding the role and benefits of AHW assessment systems, such as benchmarking, may be the motivational catalyst needed to encourage engagement in the process, a creative dialogue with the individual farmer is necessary when identifying goals and planning means to reach the desired goals. In order to understand how this dialogue works in practice, and what issues arise, a series of interviews were conducted in all of the ANIPLAN participating countries, involving persons directly involved and those with other experiences. The analysis of the interviews was based on a theoretical framework concerning learning, knowledge and empowerment and a functional framework based on the animal health and welfare principles developed as an output from the ANIPLAN project

Education and advisor systems related to dairy organic farming in the participating ANIPLAN countries

This chapter is the report of ANIPLAN’s deliverable 4.1 titled: ‘Evaluation report on the state of the art regarding advisor systems, education of farmers and advisors and farmer groups in the participating countries’. The seven participating countries (UK, Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, Norway, Germany and Denmark) had widely different approaches to advisory systems and education. This is important to consider when integrating the outcomes of the ANIPLAN project into the various systems in different countries