Challenging the myth of the irrational dairy farmer; understanding decision-making related to herd health

Abstract

Veterinarians working with dairy cows are suggested to refocus their efforts from being task-oriented providers of single-cow therapy and develop themselves into advice-oriented herd health management advisors. The practising cattle veterinarian's ability to translate knowledge into on-farm application requires a profound understanding of the dairy farm as an integrated system. Consequently, educating and motivating farmers are key issues. To achieve such insight the veterinarian needs to work with several scientific disciplines, especially epidemiology and (behavioural) economics. This trans-disciplinary approach offers new methodological possibilities and challenges to students of dairy herd health management. Advisors working with dairy herd health management may sometimes experience that farmers do not follow their advice. Potentially, this could lead to the interpretation that such farmers are behaving irrationally. However, farmers who are confronted with advice suggesting a change of behaviour are placed in a state of cognitive dissonance. To solve such dissonance they may either comply with the advice or reduce the dissonance by convincing themselves that the suggested change in management is impossible to implement. Consequently, herd health management advisors must understand the fundamental and instrumental relationships between individual farmers' values, behaviour and perception of risk, to stimulate and qualify the farmer's decision-making in a way that will increase the farmer's satisfaction and subjective well-being. Traditionally, studies on herd health economics have focussed on financial methods to measure the value of technical outcomes from suggested changes in management, following the basic assumption that farmers strive to maximise profit. Farmers, however, may be motivated by very different activities, e.g. animal health and welfare or other farmers' recognition, making it impossible to provide 'one-size-fts-all' consultancy because the best decision depends heavily on the internal logic and context-bound reality on each dairy farm. Relevant information may be available, but to be implemented at farm level it has to be communicated effectively. This requires a trustworthy communicator. Consequently, veterinarians are recommended to receive training in communication; keywords in this process are dialogue and reflection. An educational framework based on science and the authors' experience is presented. The aim is to guide practising cattle veterinarians into a personal learning process considered necessary for them to be recognised by farmers as trustworthy dairy herd health advisors.

A multidisciplinary approach to determine factors associated with calf rearing practices and calf mortality in dairy herds

“…When the impression of the identity of the farmer does not agree with the impression of the veterinary advisor there might be an increased risk that the communication between them is not effective. According to Kristensen and Jakobsen (2011), it is very important that the advisor communicates in a way that facilitates the context bound reality at individual farms and that they address the farmers' fundamental values in life. They recommend veterinary advisors to learn about the herd dynamics before defining advise and to provide necessary and sufficient information to support the provided advise.…”

“…The background of this approach was that previous studies showed that a "one-fits-all" communication does not work in stimulating the farmer to implement improvements (Kristensen and Jakobsen, 2011;Valeeva et al, 2007) and that tailored advice is needed. Thus both, veterinary and sociological aspects were combined in the given advise (tailored advise).…”

Farm characteristics and farmer perceptions associated with bovine tuberculosis incidents in areas of emerging endemic spread

“…Previous work has recognised that the ability to come up with solutions for complex problems can benefit from integrating between several analytical approaches and knowledge generated by different scientific disciplines (Kristensen andJakobsen 2011, Wentholt, Cardoen et al 2012). Studies from participatory epidemiology have highlighted the importance of capturing and including farmers' understandings of disease in scientific analyses of disease transmission (Catley, Alders et al 2012, Leach andScoones 2013).…”

Farmers’ willingness to invest in livestock disease control: the case of voluntary vaccination against bluetongue

“…This finding is in line with previous research showing that the veterinarian is being perceived as a highly trusted and influential referent in herd health management (e.g. Ellis-Iversen et al, 2010;Kristensen and Jakobsen, 2011;Lam et al, 2011;Derks et al, 2013;Fisher, 2013). This suggests that for future BT alike vaccination strategies, the social interactions between veterinarians and farmers might be an appropriate communication channel to use.…”