The attitudes of farmers in relation to the importance of different people as information and opinion sources (InfS) for different phases of the decision-making process were studied in 91 Costa Rican dairy farmers. The InfS studied were: Family members, Other farmers, Technical advisors, Farm staff and Commercial agents, while the phases were: Problem detection, Seeking for problem solutions, Seeking for new practices and Seeking for opinion. A Multidimensional Preference Analysis (MDPREF) was used to obtain a two-dimensional map of preference of the farmers. A factor analysis was used to define new variables representing the farmers' predilection towards the InfS. A canonical correlation analysis was performed to find-out simple and canonical correlation between farmers'/farms' characteristics and the InfS preferences. Informational profiles in the population were defined through a Cluster Analysis. The MDPREF suggests that Family members and Technical advisors were the most preferred InfS. However their relative importance changed throughout the phases. Farm staff were rated in third place and their role became more important in the 'Problem detection' phase. Other farmers and Commercial agents were, in general, the less preferred information sources. The former became slightly more important in the 'Seeking for new practices' phase. The canonical correlation analysis found three low-medium correlations between the farmers'/farms' characteristics and the InfS factors. These correlations showed that the farmers' age, educational level and dedication and the farms' characteristics of area, herd size and distance to population centres had significant influence on the preference of the farmers towards different information sources. The cluster analysis found nine groups of similar farmers according to their preferences towards informational sources. Some implications mainly for extension activities are also stated and discussed. The importance of different informational sources slightly change throughout the decision-making steps, the family and farm staff being the most preferred information sources. #

Family farming is still the main source of income for many people in the tropical regions of the world. At the same time, modern society is quickly becoming more aware of the welfare of animals for human consumption. The main objective of this study was to illustrate the need to modify certain aspects of the original Welfare Quality® (WQ) protocols developed by the EU-funded WQ project, under the conditions of small community farmers in the tropics. Thirty-four dual purpose farms in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, which had their main production focus on milk but for whom beef production was also of significant value, were evaluated utilising a merged version of the WQ protocols for dairy and beef cattle. Based on their average score, the farms obtained at least an acceptable level in each indicator of welfare. However, after merging indicators from the dairy and beef cattle protocols of WQ in order to adjust it to the prevailing conditions in the tropics, a number of sections are not applicable. This is particularly true of the section related to good housing, where most of the items do not apply due to the absence of infrastructure; the farms obtained a very high score in this section but further studies to verify whether this reflects an accurate assessment of the welfare status should be carried out. In general, the approach of the WQ protocol was useful, however certain aspects are quite different from the conventional intensive farming systems predominantly used in Europe and there is a need to implement a number of modifications.

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The objective of the present study was to evaluate the quality of bovine embryos cryopreserved in different years in Chiapas, Mexico. The embryos were obtained from a government institution (FIMEGEN) dedicated to promoting embryo transfer among dual-purpose cattle farmers. Forty-three embryos frozen in 1988, 1989, 2000 and 2002 were analysed with the Tunel technique to detect programmed cell death (apoptosis). Eleven fresh embryos were used as controls. Analysis of variance was used in embryos stored in the different years with averages tested using Tukey's test. Student's t-test was employed to compare fresh and frozen cells. Embryos with shorter storage time presented a lower number (p < 0.001) of Tunel-positive cells compared with embryos stored for longer time. On the contrary, when comparing the number of apoptotic cells between frozen and fresh embryos a higher number of positive cells (p < 0.05) were found in the former. The present results suggest that the cryopreservation per se caused damage that compromises the viability of the embryo. Another explanation for the lower pregnancy rate found in the tropics could be irreversible damage caused by poor storage technique in these large operations.