The principle that supervising and managing animals affects farm animal welfare is widely recognised within the livestock industries. However,the manner in which the stockperson affects animal welfare, both directly and indirectly, is probably not fully appreciated. Together with the opportunity to perform their tasks well, stockpeople require a range of well-developed husbandry skills and know...

The animal feeds industry has known for some 25 years how to formulate a compound diet which conforms to a set of minimum or maximum nutrient constraints, and to ensure that the ingredients are chosen in such a way as to minimize the cost per ton of the resulting compound. The computer technique of lincar programming has been in use for over 10 years by the larger firms as a routine step in die...

Based on production guidelines, organic livestock farming has set itself the goal of establishing environmentally friendly production, sustaining animals in good health, realising high animal welfare standards, and producing products of high quality. By striving for these goals, organic livestock farming meets the demands of an increasing number of consumers who are critical of conventional pro...

Animals' exchanges are considered the most effective route of between-farm infectious disease transmission. However, despite being often overlooked, the infection spread due to contaminated equipment, vehicles, or personnel proved to be important for several livestock epidemics. This study investigated the role of indirect contacts in a potential infection spread in the dairy farm network of th...

Although farm biosecurity reduces the risk of disease spread among livestock, this knowledge is not always applied. Farmers' application of disease preventive measures is expected to depend on many things, e.g. whether they consider disease prevention possible and demographic factors. In this study, Swedish livestock farmers' perspectives on occurrence, control and communication related to infe...

Previous research conducted in 2009 found a significant positive association between pneumonia in humans and living close to goat and poultry farms. However, as this result might have been affected by a large goat-related Q fever epidemic, the aim of the current study was to re-evaluate this association, now that the Q-fever epidemic had ended. In 2014/15, 2,494 adults (aged 20-72 years) living...

This paper tests whether structural change in US agriculture is an important channel to TFP growth and evaluates the relative impact of (i) public research and education policies, (ii) private R&D and market forces, and (iii) government farm programs on structural change. We specify a structural econometric model, fit it to US state aggregate data, 1953–1982, and use the associated reduced-form...

Mixed farming systems involving varying degrees of crop–livestock integration are found in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Increasing population combined with climatic, economic, social, and institutional changes are transforming systems for producing crops and livestock—from systems based on extensive, shifting cultivation and grazing to ones that are more intensively managed and are based o...

In recent years, extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL) producing bacteria have been found in livestock, mainly as asymptomatic colonizers. The zoonotic risk for people working in close contact to animal husbandry has still not been completely assessed. Therefore, we investigated the prevalence of ESBL-producing Escherichia spp. in livestock animals and workers to determine the potential risk fo...

Intensification increases the environmental impact of livestock production systems. Efforts to recycle nutrients in livestock manure for crop production will effectively reduce several pollution problems, although general solutions are difficult to devise in view of the diversity in production systems, management strategies and legislation between countries and regions. This paper argues that a...