Quality Management in Broiler and Pork Supply Chains Aimed at Reducing Risks of Antimicrobial Resistance: an Elicitation Workshop

Development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is considered to be one of the main human health problems. Livestock production, particularly hog and broiler production, are regarded as sources of human exposure to resistant pathogens. It is envisaged that the issue of AMR will be on the agenda of both policy makers at various levels (e.g. supra-national (EU), national and production organisations) and researchers. In the last decade a large range of (potential) exposure and/or risk reducing measures have become available or are envisaged. Examples are:− On-farm: reduction of usage of antimicrobial agents, more robust animals, therapeutic alternatives to antimicrobials and increased bio-security;− Beyond-farm: various cleansing and disinfection measures, cross-contamination reducing logistics within the entire chain, various types of meat processing ways which reduce the prevalence of pathogens and further contamination.Chain-wide implementation of (sets of these) measures is complex and involves simultaneous consideration of various issues, such as: the potential to reduce microbial exposure to humans, the (economic) impact on livestock production, (cost-)effectivity technology and acceptance by the general public, asymmetry of effects and costs between chain participants, the risk of counteracting risk-reduction downstream the chain, legal and institutional thresholds, compliance and governance. Quantitative risk-based economic analysis of (sets of) measures throughout the supply chain can support decision making in this regard. Such analysis should be comprehensive and focused on optimal (i.e. low risks and low additional costs) and coherent sets of measures.Given the complexity of the matters, a conceptual framework was developed to facilitate subsequent quantitative analysis. This framework describes qualitatively all possible factors and aspects that influence both human exposure to pathogens and economic performance. Two levels are considered: (1) the on-farm level and (2) the beyond-farm level up to consumer. Moreover, the issue of (economics of) (non-) compliance is included. Furthermore, the framework includes a rather complete list of risk reducing measures and their direct and indirect relations with human exposure and production costs.Because (1) the range of potential measures, and (2) the range of various criteria each (set of) measures can be characterized by and on which they can have positive or negative impacts on, analysing all options together is quite laborious. Therefore, it makes sense to elicit a set of promising measures for subsequent quantitative analysis

Animal welfare decisions in Dutch poultry and pig farms

Abstract The minimum level of animal welfare (AW) is guaranteed by EU and national legislation in most European countries. Within the current international economic and political environment further improvements in the welfare of farm animals predominantly rely on market initiatives. Market initiatives set requirements in terms of AW that exceed the legal minimum standards. Participation in a particular market initiative is a voluntary choice of the farmer. The overall objective of this dissertation was to analyze the factors that determine farmers’ decision-making with regard to the implementation of AW standards, and to identify barriers to the adoption of above-legal AW standards at farm level. In this dissertation farmers’ decision-making is conceptualized as a process in which farmers trade off financial and non-financial goals. Financial goals relate to monetary aspects, whereas non-financial goals appeals to farmers’ intrinsic motivation to improve AW. This dissertation suggests that broiler and fattening pig farmers do not have a strong intrinsic motivation to switch to a production system that provides higher level of AW than the minimum legal requirements. In this respect, at farm level certain financial preconditions have to be met to enable farmers to adopt higher AW standards. More specifically, farmers require a price premium that is at least sufficient to cover extra costs as a result of higher animal welfare standards. Furthermore, it is important to manage the (perceived) uncertainty of the market and price premiums. These imply that middle-market segment could be attractive for farmers due to its high cost-efficiency, i.e., realize the highest relative increase in AW at the lowest costs, which is also in the best interest of other stakeholders in the supply chain. Furthermore as switching to a middle-market system primarily affects variable costs farmers are given the flexibility to revert to the conventional system if their expectations are not met. Middle-market segment products, as they improve on many production attributes related to AW, may also offer alternatives for consumers that take many attributes into account to form an opinion of the animal friendliness of a production system. In the light of the foregoing, further development of the middle-market segment appears to be a reasonable direction in improving AW. In order to facilitate the further development of the middle-market segment a high involvement of all stakeholders in the supply chain, i.e., slaughterhouses, processors, retail, NGOs, and the government as well is required.</p

Income intervention quick scan: pricing arrangements : Farmer Income Lab Intervention Quick Scan

This quick scan, commissioned by the Farmer Income Lab, is part of a wider researcheffort looking at, “What are the most effective actions that lead buyers can take to enable smallholderfarmers in global supply chains to meaningfully increase their incomes?”. The quick scan provides anoverview of the publicly available evidence on the impact of pricing arrangements have had on raisingfarmer income. Such subsidies have had little positive effect on farmer income, are not notablybeneficial for women nor is this effect long-term. They have been applied at large scale. This quickscan is part of a series of 16, contributing to a synthesis report “What Works to Raise Farmer’sIncome: a Landscape Review”

Approximating the University: The Information Literacy Practices of Novice Researchers

In a seminal essay, David Bartholomae asserts that novice writers need to “invent the university by assembling and mimicking its language.” Instructors and librarians who work with beginning academic writers confirm Bartholomae’s assertion. Our research asks how, precisely, novice writer-researchers go about inventing the university before they have an understanding of the disciplines in which they are asked to work. We suggest that novice writers in the first steps of knowledge construction tend to mimic the structures of knowledge, rather than to create coherent narratives of understanding. This finding has implications not only for how we understand student learning, but also for how we teach students to find, make sense of, and compose knowledge

Pig farmers’ willingness to pay for management strategies to reduce aggression between pigs

When deciding whether to invest in an improvement to animal welfare, farmers must trade-off the relative costs and benefits. Despite the existence of effective solutions to many animal welfare issues, farmers’ willingness to pay for them is largely unknown. This study modelled pig farmers’ decisions to improve animal welfare using a discrete choice experiment focused on alleviating aggression between growing/finishing pigs at regrouping. Eighty-two UK and Irish pig farm owners and managers were asked to choose between hypothetical aggression control strategies described in terms of four attributes; installation cost, on-going cost, impact on skin lesions from aggression and impact on growth rate. If they did not like any of the strategies they could opt to keep their current farm practice. Systematic variations in product attributes allowed farmers’ preferences and willingness to pay to be estimated and latent class modelling accounted for heterogeneity in responses. The overall willingness to pay to reduce lesions was low at £0.06 per pig place (installation cost) and £0.01 per pig produced (running cost) for each 1% reduction in lesions. Results revealed three independent classes of farmers. Farmers in Class 1 were unlikely to regroup unfamiliar growing/finishing pigs, and thus were unwilling to adopt measures to reduce aggression at regrouping. Farmers in Classes 2 and 3 were willing to adopt measures providing certain pre-conditions were met. Farmers in Class 2 were motivated mainly by business goals, whilst farmers in Class 3 were motivated by both business and animal welfare goals, and were willing to pay the most to reduce aggression; £0.11 per pig place and £0.03 per pig produced for each 1% reduction in lesions. Farmers should not be considered a homogeneous group regarding the adoption of animal welfare innovations. Instead, campaigns should be targeted at subgroups according to their independent preferences and willingness to pay

The expeted effects of new EU legislation on commodity and biofuel trade flows

Az Európai Unió 2009-ben új szabályozást léptetett érvénybe a globális klímaváltozás mérséklése és a megújuló energiaforrásból előállított energia támogatása érdekében. Az Európai Parlament és a Tanács jóváhagyta a megújuló energiaforrásból előállított energia támogatásáról (2009/28/EK irányelv) és a benzin, a dízelolaj, és a gázolaj minőségére vonatkozó követelmények módosításáról szóló direktívákat (2009/30/EK irányelv), amelyek valószínűleg jelentős hatást gyakorolnak az EU bio-üzemanyag termelésére. A tagállamoknak 2010 júniusáig egyértelművé kell tenni, hogyan kívánják elérni az irányelvekben foglalt célokat. Kutatásom célja volt, meghatározni a fent említett új EU-s szabályozás várható hatásait egyes mezőgazdasági árucikkek és bio-üzemanyagok kereskedelmi forgalmára.régi képzésGazdasági Agrármérnö

Income intervention quick scan: agricultural input subsidies : Farmer Income Lab Intervention Quick Scan

This quick scan, commissioned by the Farmer Income Lab, is part of a wider research effort looking at, “What are the most effective actions that lead buyers can take to enable smallholder farmers in global supply chains to meaningfully increase their incomes?”. The quick scan provides an overview of the publicly available evidence on the impact of agricultural input subsidies have had on raising farmer income. Such subsidies have had little positive effect on farmer income, are not notably beneficial for women nor is this effect long-term. They have been applied at large scale. This quick scan is part of a series of 16, contributing to a synthesis report “What Works to Raise Farmer’s Income: a Landscape Review”

Student Success through (Structured) Failure: The Power of the Wiki Tool to Promote Student (Un)Learning

This presentation demonstrates how the Blackboard wiki tool was used by a group of teacher-researchers 1) to determine how novice international writers construct knowledge on topics they know nothing about, and 2) to move novices to abandon unsuccessful composing practices in favor of more successful ones