Abstract
A questionnaire-based survey on veterinary herd health and production management services was conducted on 194 specialist dairy veterinarians and 466 dairy farmers. The farmers were randomly selected from greater than 6,000 farmer clients of the surveyed veterinarians. This paper reports these survey findings and the findings of an earlier survey conducted among the veterinarians. The survey included questions on the attributes of the service itself, the practitioners delivering the service, reasons for participation and the expected future of herd health and production management services. Reasons farmers participated in herd health and production management programmes included; access to routine screening of their herd; increasing profits; and receiving regular veterinary advice or solutions to remedy existing problems. Advantages of participation named included: good management support; higher profits; structural solutions to problems; and being better informed. Differences between farming styles were observed, pointing to the different needs and goals of farming styles. Farmers cited high costs and the time investment required as major disadvantages. The proportion of farmers citing these reasons was lower than expected by the veterinarians. In the future, preventive healthcare will be the main reason of farmers to participate. Farmers who are not using the service can potentially be encouraged to engage the services after gaining increased insight into the herd health and management service structure, the planning of activities, the cost-benefit of the service, veterinary surgeons being more co-operative with other farm advisors and veterinarians being more willing to pay attention to quality issues on the dairy farm.
Highlights
Herd health and production management services by veterinarians (HHPM) have been introduced in many countries (Noordhuizen, 1984; Goodger and Kushman, 1985)
Given that peer reviewed dairy farmers in European countries are confronted with increasingly quality awareness consumers, veterinarians should question the role they play in quality assurance at farm level (Hesselink et al, 1997) and whether quality assurance could be integrated in the current HHPM service (Kuiper et al, 1996; Noordhuizen and Welpelo, 1996)
They forget that prevention of diseases will costs the same, or even more time and money, than curative approaches while the income of the farmer can decrease. Veterinarians thought that this group of farmers and the work regarding HHPM programs had been taken over by other professionals and institutions, but up till this has not been the case. In conclusion, it appears that most of the problems veterinarians encounter are related to farmers who are unaware of the services and costs of HHPM (Noordhuizen,1994; Brand et al, 1997)
Summary
Herd health and production management services by veterinarians (HHPM) have been introduced in many countries (Noordhuizen, 1984; Goodger and Kushman, 1985). Sol et al (1984) reported the economic benefits for dairy farmers participating in HHPM programmes, but were not able to identify which components of the programme provided the economic benefits. Both the perceptions of the farmers and the veterinarians are crucial if the product is to be marketed and improved. Certificates require regular animal and farm monitoring and health improvement. These activities could be part of a regular HHPM service
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