Orf is a common viral infection in sheep. It spreads to humans by direct contact. It is self-limiting, treatment having no beneficial effect. Misdiagnosis by those unfamiliar with its characteristic features is common, and may result in unnecessary treatment with antibiotics or surgery. We present a series of five cases of Orf in children of farmers in the west of Ireland, seen over a 10 year p...

Major modifications in the nation building departments were launched in Pakistan through the Devolution Plan 2000 promulgated by the then military regime. In the agriculture sector, changes were introduced in 2001 to replace the existing Training & Visit (T&V) system. The training sessions arranged by extension workers in the decentralized system are similar to the ones arranged in the T&V syst...

The use of Precision Agriculture systems is in its infancy in Greece, because of the high fragmented land and the adherence of farmers to traditional farming methods. This paper presents the design, implementation and performance evaluation of an integrated agricultural monitoring and irrigation system using energy-autonomous wireless sensors and actuators. Monitoring and irrigation of the fiel...

In organic livestock production systems, farm-management factors are thought to play an important role in the on-farm prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii. Serological results and the results of an HACCP analysis were combined to determine important risk factors for the prevalence of this protozoan parasite. Mathematical analysis demonstrated that feeding goat whey to pigs and the presence of a high...

customer satisfaction is the most important element for developing and sustaining organizational priorities and practices. thus, we examined farmers’ overall satisfaction with agricultural extension services and its determinants using data collected from 150 beneficiary farmers in north west ethiopia. the findings show that about 55% of the interviewees were satisfied whereas 45% of them were d...

BACKGROUND Biosecurity routines at herd level may reduce the probability of introduction of disease into the herd, but some measures may be regarded as expensive and cumbersome for the farmers. Custom-made measures based on individual farm characteristics may aid in improving the actual application of on-farm biosecurity. The aim of the study was to provide a tool for calculating the effects of...

Q fever, caused by Coxiella burnetii, is a recognized occupational infection in persons who have regular contact with ruminants. We determined C. burnetii seroprevalence in residents living or working on dairy cattle farms with ≥50 adult cows and identified risk factors for seropositivity. Serum samples from farm residents, including employees, were tested for C. burnetii IgG and IgM; seropreva...

Farmers must perceive soil erosion as a problem before they will invest in preventing it. However, perceptions are often overlooked in the conservation literature. This study analyzes the levels and determinants of farmer perceptions of soil erosion in northern Ethiopia. Results are based on a survey of 250 farmers managing 900 fields during the 1995-96 cropping season. Farmer perceptions of th...

INTRODUCTION Farmers constitute an occupation group at a heightened suicide risk compared to the general population. To date, research has tried to explain this peculiarity by identifying suicide risk factors that are common to the whole of the farming population. There are, however, indications that risk factors may be different for different sub-populations of farmers, such as younger/older f...