How do work challenges interact with health management in dairy farms?

Abstract

Herd health management is a critical issue for the future of dairy systems. The right combination of preventive and curative practices will depend on management system, level of work productivity, and self-sufficiency objectives, and will entail specific skills and work organizations. However, the combination of work dimensions and animal health management has rarely been explored in the literature on a livestock farming system scale. The Grand Ouest region of France spans a diverse array of livestock farming systems that can serve to design herd health management indicators, farming objectives and work arrangements, and explore their linkages. Here we ran semi-structured interviews on 10 dairy farms, analyzed the farmers’ discourses, and built 7 variables and 25 modalities that, for the first time, cover three components, namely herd health, farming objectives and work arrangements, and we tested various associations between these variables. Our interview data confirms that consultants and veterinarians have a key role to play in building a pool of skills adapted to various types of health management system. Data suggests linkages between prevention measures, alternative or conventional curative interventions, and work-related parameters.