Evaluating extensive sheep farming systems.

Review: Precision livestock farming, automats and new technologies: possible applications in extensive dairy sheep farming

The present study was conducted to identify the associated factors with morbidity and mortality of goats in extensive and semi-intensive farming systems. A sample of 266 goat farmers of three districts i.e., Ampara, Batticaloa and Trincomalee in the eastern province were randomly selected with the assistance of veterinary offices. A pre-tested questionnaire with face-to-face interviews, farm visits and observations were used to collect the data. The study found that goat farming is a male-dominant (>90%) activity regardless of the farming systems. Young and middle-aged farmers with better educations adopted semi-intensive farming systems while the older and poorly educated farmers adopted extensive farming systems while being self-employed. The factors i.e., ectoparasites, lack of feed, lack of water, age of the goats, rainy season, and the lack of veterinary services significantly associated (p<0.05) with morbidity and mortality of goats in both extensive and semi-intensive farming systems. The factors i.e., disease, poor housing, dry season and predator attack were not associated with morbidity and mortality of goats in semi-intensive farming systems whereas the association was significant (p< 0.05) in the extensive farming system. Hence, it is concluded that the semi-intensive farming system is effective in protecting goats from morbidity and mortality caused by disease, dry season, predator attack and poor housing compared to the extensive farming system. The factors associated with morbidity and mortality in extensive farming are inherent to the system except for the lack of veterinary services. J Bangladesh Agril Univ 22(3):369-376, 2024

Sheep welfare is an emerging topic in research and food marketing, and recent studies suggest that farm labour is a key factor for both animal welfare and productivity in extensive sheep farming systems, although little research has been done into labour utilisation in these systems. This paper reports field data collection on two commercial farms and the use of a linear programming (LP) model to link labour economics and animal welfare analysis. The model maximises the number of ewes to clooked after over the lambing period, when constrained by labour availability for various key tasks and by a pre-determined level of sheep welfare. The results show a trade-off between welfare level and labour input per sheep. Dropping tasks with less significant welfare and productivity consequences is an effective way of increasing carrying capacity (from 977 ewes/shepherd to 1428), as is working longer hours (1174 ewes/shepherd) or only doing the legal minimum of welfare checking (labour reduced from 0.68 min/ewe to 0.44 min/ewe) . The field data suggest that farmers currently provide high welfare, and that, despite much time spent away from the flock (e.g. driving), they spend a large amount of time (39% of total) with their sheep.

This study quantified interactions between animal welfare and farm profitability in British extensive sheep farming systems. Qualitative welfare assessment methodology was used to assess welfare from the animal's perspective in 20 commercial extensive sheep farms and to estimate labour demand for welfare, based on the assessed welfare scores using data collected from farm inventories. The estimated labour demand was then used as a coefficient in a linear program based model to establish the gross margin maximising farm management strategy for given farm situations, subject to constraints that reflected current resource limitations including labour supply. Regression analysis showed a significant relationship between the qualitative welfare assessment scores and labour supply on the inventoried farms but there was no significant relationship between current gross margin and assessed welfare scores. However, to meet the labour demand of the best welfare score, a reduction in flock size and in the average maximum farm gross margin was often required. These findings supported the hypothesis that trade-offs between animal welfare and farm profitability are necessary in providing maximum animal welfare via on-farm labour and sustainable British extensive sheep farming systems.

Extensive farming systems form an integral part of sheep production systems across Europe. However, with innate production handicaps, declining sheep numbers and narrow economic margins, production is becoming increasingly challenging threatening the future sustainability of the industry. Gastrointestinal nematodes (GINs) are a significant cause of production losses to the global sheep industry, with well-established resistance to the major anthelmintic groups. Traditionally, extensive farming systems are not thought to have a significant parasite challenge compared with intensive farms, but there is a need to identify the scale and importance of GINs on extensive farms to inform the need for sustainable control strategies. In this study, a questionnaire of extensive farmers (n=34) was conducted and parasitological data were collected from nine study farms to investigate the perceived versus actual GIN and anthelmintic resistance challenge faced by extensive farms. The results showed a production-limiting challenge on most farms, with a higher GIN challenge observed on improved pastures. Furthermore, over half of the extensive farmers perceived anthelmintic resistance to be a greater problem for intensive farmers, with only 20% of respondents reporting known anthelmintic resistance. However, all study farms had evidence of resistance to at least one group of anthelmintics. Consequently, this study has demonstrated that despite the traditional perception of parasitism on extensive farms, there is a need to increasingly consider its impact and take a proactive approach to sustainable control, with solutions tailored to their unique management.

The life cycle assessment was employed to evaluate the environmental impacts of three farming systems (indoor intensive, semi-intensive and extensive systems) of sea cucumber living near Qingdao, China, which can effectively overcome the interference of inaccurate background parameters caused by the diversity of economic level and environment in different regions. Six indicators entailing global warming potential (1.86E + 04, 3.45E + 03, 2.36E + 02), eutrophication potential (6.65E + 01, −1.24E + 02, −1.65E + 02), acidification potential (1.93E + 02, 4.33E + 01, 1.30E + 00), photochemical oxidant formation potential (2.35E-01, 5.46E −02, 2.53E-03), human toxicity potential (2.47E + 00, 6.08E-01, 4.91E + 00) and energy use (3.36E + 05, 1.27E + 04, 1.48E + 03) were introduced in the current study. It was found that all environmental indicators in the indoor intensive farming system were much higher than those in semi-intensive and extensive farming systems because of the dominant role of energy input, while energy input also contributed as the leading cause factor for most of the indicators in the semi-intensive farming system. Yet in the extensive farming system, infrastructure materials played a major role. Through a comprehensive comparison of the three farming systems, it was concluded that income per unit area of indoor intensive farming system was much higher than those of semi-intensive and extensive farming systems. However, the extensive farming system was the most sustainable one. Moreover, adequate measures were proposed, respectively, to improve the environmental sustainability of each farming system in the present study.

Emergy analysis is effective for analyzing ecological economic systems. However, the accuracy of the approach is affected by the diversity of economic level, meteorological and hydrological parameters in different regions. The present study evaluated the economic benefits, environmental impact, and sustainability of indoor, semi-intensive and extensive farming systems of sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) in the same region. The results showed that A. japonicus indoor farming system was high in input and output (yield) whereas pond extensive farming system was low in input and output. The output/input ratio of indoor farming system was lower than that of pond extensive farming system, and the output/input ratio of semi-intensive farming system fell in between them. The environmental loading ratio of A. japonicus extensive farming system was lower than that of indoor farming system. In addition, the emergy yield and emergy exchange ratios, and emergy sustainability and emergy indexes for sustainable development were higher in extensive farming system than those in indoor farming system. These results indicated that the current extensive farming system exerted fewer negative influences on the environment, made more efficient use of available resources, and met more sustainable development requirements than the indoor farming system. A. japonicus farming systems showed more emergy benefits than fish farming systems. The pond farming systems of A. japonicus exploited more free local environmental resources for production, caused less potential pressure on the local environment, and achieved higher sustainability than indoor farming system.

The vulnerability of extensive sheep systems in marginal areas, and their capacity to deliver important socio-economic functions and ecosystem services, can be studied through the lens of resilience theory. This research aims to explore how alternative farm management patterns contribute to build resilience in the extensive sheep farming system of Huesca, northeaster Spain. The methodology is based on the content analysis of in-depth interviews to farmers. We follow a specified framework based on the definition of the resilience capacities of robustness, adaptability and transformability, and propose to assess nine case-specific attributes. Results show that sheep farms have undertaken four management patterns to develop over time, namely, extensification, intensification, re-orientation, and conservation. Patterns conservation and extensification appear to promote robustness and adaptability necessary to keep delivering characteristic functions, whereas transformability is much more evident in re-orientation and intensification patterns that re-address the farms' original functions. Matching with natural resources, traditions and perspectives, and farmers' networks are crucial resilience attributes for extensive farming. On the other hand, financial and labour resources, and on-farm diversity favour re-orientation and intensification. The paper casts light on the diverse ways through which farms build their own resilience, and highlights the importance of a balanced development of alternative trajectories for the whole farming system's resilience.

The aim of this work is to assess the flexibility of production allowed by extensive production conditions faced with variations in the environment, i.e., market variations and climatic fluctuations, of Limousin beef systems. The study used a case-based methodology in which seven beef farms with less than 1 LU/ha were chosen. Data collection was based on three interviews using a semistructured questionnaire and on the analysis of productive and economic results over a 15-year period (1991-2005). The main evolution of these farms is related to a rise in work productivity associated with an increase in herd size. Herd increase was made possible by enlarging the area, the margin of intensification being limited in these regions. To take advantage of the enlarged land area, females were reared for fattening or for reproduction instead of selling them at weaning. The Limousin female provides a wide product mix because of its plasticity, as has been studied by several researchers. This mix flexibility is achieved by delaying product differentiation, a form of production flexibility that can reduce the risk of under-producing or over- producing varied product configurations. On the other hand, calves sold to the Italian market after weaning are generic products, associated with a flexible production process to overcome fluctuations in forage availability due to climatic variations. The introduction of maize silage for feeding acts as an alternative route, actual and potential, through the system to overcome unexpected forage shortage from natural grasslands as a result of droughts. The study shows that extensive farming systems have developed types of flexibility to match different factors of uncertainty from the environment. Finally, the issue of farm system performance is thus not so much a question of whether a farm is fit at a specific moment in time, but whether it transforms into a less or more sustainable orientation.

Extensive sheep farming systems make an important contribution to socio-economic well-being and the ‘ecosystem services’ that flow from large areas of the UK and elsewhere. They are therefore subject to much policy intervention. However, the animal welfare implications of such interventions and their economic drivers are rarely considered. Under Defra project AW1024 (a further study to assess the interaction between economics, husbandry and animal welfare in large, extensively managed sheep flocks) we therefore assessed the interaction between profit and animal welfare on extensive sheep farms. A detailed inventory of resources, resource deployment and technical performance was constructed for 20 commercial extensive sheep farms in Great Britain (equal numbers from the Scottish Highlands, Cumbria, Peak District and mid-Wales). Farms were drawn from focus groups in these regions where participative research with farmers added further information. These data were summarised and presented to a panel of 12 experts for welfare assessment. We used two welfare assessment methods one drawn from animal welfare science (‘needs’ based) the other from management science (Service Quality Modelling). The methods gave complementary results. The inventory data were also used to build a linear programme (LP) model of sheep, labour and feed-resource management month-by-month on each farm throughout the farming year. By setting the LP to adjust farm management to maximise gross margin under each farm's circumstances we had an objective way to explore resource allocations, their constraints and welfare implications under alternative policy response scenarios. Regression of indicators of extensification (labour per ewe, in-bye land per ewe, hill area per ewe and lambs weaned per ewe) on overall welfare score explained 0.66 of variation with labour and lambs weaned per ewe both positive coefficients. Neither gross margin nor flock size were correlated with welfare score. Gross margin was also uncorrelated with these indicators of extensification with the exception of labour/ewe, which was negatively correlated with flock size and hence with gross margin. These results suggest animal welfare is best served by reduced extensification while greater profits are found in flock expansion with reduced labour input per ewe and no increase in other inputs or in productivity. Such potential conflicts should be considered as policy adjusts to meet the requirements for sustainable land use in the hills and uplands.

This study assessed the impact of farming systems on aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) content and the prevalence of mastitis-causing bacteria in goat milk. A total of 233 milk samples were collected from two Skopelos goat farms-one intensive and one extensive farm-and analyzed for AFM1 content using a competitive ELISA. An additional 219 samples from goats suspected of subclinical mastitis were tested for bacterial prevalence with microbial culturing. The results showed that AFM1 concentration was significantly higher in the intensive farming system (7.76 ± 0.76 ng/kg) than in the extensive farming system (3.78 ± 0.79 ng/kg), though it remained below the legal limit of 50 ng/kg. The main effects of season and year were not significant, though higher levels of AFM1 were observed during winter. The interaction effects of season-farming system and year-season-farming system on AFM1 levels were significant. The prevalence of mastitis-causing bacteria varied by system, with Streptococcus spp. being more common in the extensive farming system, and Staphylococcus aureus was more frequently detected in milk samples from the intensive farming system. Binomial regression indicated that both the farming system and lactation stage significantly influenced Streptococcus spp. prevalence (p = 0.05; OR = 1.9 and 2.7, respectively). It is concluded that the farming system affects those quality parameters in goat milk.

Extensive sheep farming systems provide numerous ecosystem services, most of which consumers are not aware of. Consumers’ subjective quality perception relates to intrinsic and extrinsic quality attributes. Extrinsic quality attributes, like animal welfare, conservation of biodiversity, and regional and sustainable lamb meat production, meet the expectations of meat consumers. Communication of quality attributes can support consumers’ willingness to buy and pay a premium price, as well as producers’ economic viability. Previous studies focused on consumers’ perception of intrinsic quality attributes, while it is our objective to analyse the target group-specific communication of extrinsic quality attributes of extensive sheep farming. An online survey with 387 valid respondents included lamb meat consumers in Berlin-Brandenburg and revealed their consumption patterns. The sample is representative of Berlin-Brandenburg in net household income, population division and gender, while academics and respondents over 50 years were overrepresented. The survey addressed demographics, meat consumption and purchasing behaviour, preferences for different lamb meat products, purchasing motives and barriers, perception of communication messages and personal initiative for the purchase of regional lamb. Via Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Analysis, we identified two key target groups for regionally produced lamb meat: “Foodies” and “Cooking enthusiasts”. Guided by Alphabet theory with its specific focus on Knowledge, Information seeking behaviour and purchasing Habit, we derive recommendations for target-group-specific communication of regionally produced lamb meat. “Foodies” showed a high potential for direct marketing and personal storytelling of sheep farmers. “Cooking enthusiasts” are best addressed through print and online marketing with a focus on cooking and personal health.

Male and female Broiler chickens and male of Transylvanian naked‐neck chickens kept in extensive and intensive farming systems were investigated. The leg and chest muscle of these chickens were used for the analysis. Muscle weight and muscle to bone ratio were significantly higher but protein content had a lower tendence in the muscle of Broiler chickens kept intensively as compared to the extensive way. There was no difference in the level of cholesterol between the animals from the two farming systems although the fat contents were much higher in the chickens kept intensively. The level of conjugated dienes and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were found significantly less in the muscles of Broiler chickens kept extensively than those raised intensively which may be related to the lower fat content. Extensive farming system proved to be superior for Broiler (mainly in legs) and Transylvanian naked‐neck chickens in the aspect of lowered lipid peroxidation and significant higher iron, zinc and thiamin levels. The higher protein and zinc levels showed a relationship with the better water binding capacity (WBC) in the legs of Broiler chickens kept extensively. Myristic and palmitic acid concentration in the fatty acid composition were higher in intensive Broilers as compared to the chickens kept extensively.

Simple SummaryWelfare assessment in outdoor and extensive systems has rarely been investigated, and little is known about the most appropriate indicators. This study aimed at compiling a list of animal-based measures of welfare for domestic ruminants raised on outdoor/extensive systems by means of a systematic review. Out of 810 papers retrieved, 52 matched the inclusion criteria and went through an in-depth analysis. According to available literature, 45 indicators have been used to assess welfare on pasture, often following different methodologies. Most indicators were measured by observers even if the use of sensor technologies increased in recent years. Considering the growing interest in pasture-based or grass-fed products, it is suggested that welfare assessment in outdoor/extensive farming systems is carried out by following shared methodologies in order to provide evidence of the higher animal welfare claims that these products often imply compared to indoor systems.Outdoor and extensive farming systems allow animals to behave in a natural way and are often perceived as welfare friendly. Nonetheless, the natural environment poses multiple challenges to the welfare of animals, sometimes hampering their capacity to cope. Welfare assessment in outdoor and extensive systems has been rarely investigated, and little is known about the most appropriate indicators. The aim of this review was to identify animal-based measures of welfare to apply in extensive and pasture-based systems in domestic ruminants. Through the use of a dedicated software for systematic reviews, 810 papers were screened and a total of 52 papers were retained for in-depth analysis. ABM resulting from these papers were initially divided according to the species (cattle and small ruminants, including sheep and goats) and then to four principles: comfort, behavior, feeding and health. The results showed that welfare data were collected applying different methodologies, with an increasing use of sensors in recent years. The need to herd and restrain animals for individual data collection is one of the major constraints to data collection in extensive farming systems. It is suggested that welfare assessment in outdoor/extensive farming systems is carried out by following shared procedures in order to provide evidence of the higher animal welfare claims that these products often imply compared to indoor systems.

Complex investigations designed to explore the impact of extensive, organic-sustainable and conventional-chemical farming systems on changes of soil chemical, physical and microbiological properties of sandy loam Haplic Luvisol (LVh) were performed at the Vokė Branch of the Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry during 2003–2012. The studies were carried out employing different crop rotations, where the plant sequence was laid out in four treatments so that the plant residues in the soil would accumulate more organic matter and nitrogen. Research evidence showed that different farming systems and plant sequences in rotations did not affect soil acidity, but significantly increased the contents of total nitrogen and organic carbon and reduced the contents of available phosphorus and potassium. Soil physical properties changed accordingly. Higher moisture levels were determined in soil under extensive and conventional-chemical farming systems. At the lower soil layers the impact of green manure on the reduction of soil bulk density and increase of total and air-filled porosity was evident. Extensive and conventional-chemical farming systems favoured the distribution of fungi in the soil. With the application of organic farming system, the balance between the number of ammonifying and mineral nitrogen assimilating bacteria was maintained.