Grassland Management–The PROGRAZE™ Approach

Three courses PROGRAZE™, PROGRAZE™ Plus and STOCKPLAN® have been developed to provide a complete package to assist farmers manage their variable grassland grazing systems. As each package is separate the farmer can use the relevant tool to help them work through major issues they are dealing with at any point in time. All courses are based on the same principle, they do not give answers but rather provide training in skills development, provide key background knowledge and a framework to assist farmers plan and if needed to work through their problems to reach a solution they are comfortable with

Public Health Aspects of the Daugherty Water for Food Institute Strategic Plan

The University of Nebraska College of Public Health is committed to contributing to the research, service and education programs of the Daugherty Water for Food Institute. The College can offer a wide variety of expertise that can contribute to programs related to water, food and health. This document has been written to highlight the areas in which College faculty have particular interests, knowledge and experience to contribute.https://digitalcommons.unmc.edu/coph_reports/1000/thumbnail.jp

Stockplan- exploring management options before dry spells and in drought: 1. development and description

StockPlan is an accredited workshop that assists cattle, sheep meat, and wool producers improve drought management decisions and develop drought plans during dry spells and drought. The objectives of this article are to (1) describe the development of the StockPlan workshop; and (2) describe the equations used in the StockPlan decision support tools (DST). The StockPlan workshop provides training to producers in how to use four DST: (1) Drought Pack based on metabolizable energy (ME) requirements for maintenance and weight gain, calculates the break-even price for different classes of sheep and cattle [e.g., weaners (not suckling), dry, lactating or pregnant stock] for a specified planning period (1–12 months); (2) Feed Sell Agist (FSA) Pack provides an economic analysis of the decision to either: keep and feed, sell, or agist (i.e., moving stock to leased pasture) livestock across different time periods with an option to enter the probability of a drought occurring. FSA Pack calculates an expected value for feed, sell, or agist options across economic variables: costs, cash flow, and bottom line; (3) ImPack assesses the future structure of a herd or flock during a 5- or 10-year planning period; and (4) PlanPack is an interactive word document designed to help producers develop a drought plan. The equations behind the DST Drought Pack, FSA Pack, and ImPack are reported.The StockPlan workshop provides producers with the information and confidence to assist in making better decisions when faced with a prolonged dry spell or impending drought

A workshop and software package to reduce environmental and financial impacts – StockPlan

StockPlan is a computer software package that is distributed to participants at a workshop that assists cattle, sheep meat, and wool producers make management decisions either before and during seasonal dry spells or in the early stages of drought. The StockPlan software includes 4 decision support tools (DST): Drought Pack; Feed Sell Agist Pack; ImPack; and PlanPack. The StockPlan workshop encourages a pro-active approach to reduce environmental and financial impacts

StockPlan®: Improving drought decisions

StockPlan is a computer program for cattle and sheep producers to explore management options relating to drought. It is designed to be an extension tool to assist producers make management decisions that minimise the environmental and financial impacts of a drought. This paper aims to provide an overview of the 3 StockPlan decision support tools: Drought Pack (exploring feeding options), FSA Pack (exploring Feed, Sell or Agist decisions) and Im Pack (exploring herd or flock dynamics)

Understanding quality improvement at scale in general practice: a qualitative evaluation of a COPD improvement programme

BACKGROUND: A growing body of knowledge exists to guide efforts to improve the organisation and delivery of health care, most of which is based on work carried out in hospitals. It is uncertain how transferable this knowledge is to primary care. AIM: To understand the enablers and constraints to implementing a large-scale quality improvement programme in general practice, designed to improve care for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. DESIGN AND SETTING: A qualitative study of 189 general practices in a socioeconomically and ethnically-mixed, urban area in east London, UK. METHOD: Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with people leading the programme and 17 in-depth interviews with those participating in it. Participants were local health system leaders, clinicians, and managers. A theoretical framework derived from evidence-based guidance for improvement programmes was used to interpret the findings. A complex improvement intervention took place with social and technical elements including training and mentorship, guidance, analytical tools, and data feedback. RESULTS: Practice staff wanted to participate in and learn from well-designed collaborative improvement projects. Nevertheless, there were limitations in the capacities and capabilities of the workforce to undertake systematic improvement, significant problems with access to and the quality of data, and tensions between the narrative-based generalist orientation of many primary care clinicians and the quantitative single-disease orientation that has characterised much of the quality improvement movement to date. CONCLUSION: Improvement guidance derived largely from hospital-based studies is, for the most part, applicable to improvement efforts in primary care settings, although large-scale change in general practice presents some particular challenges. These need to be better understood and addressed if improvement initiatives are to be effective