The process of minimising medicine use through dialogue based animal health and welfare planning, Workshop report FIBL. In: CORE Organic project no. 1903 - ANIPLAN

Summary

The process of minimising medicine use through dialogue based animal health and welfare planning.
Livestock are important in many organic farming systems, and it is an explicit goal to ensure high levels of animal health and welfare (AHW) through good management. In two previous EU network projects, NAHWOA & SAFO, it was concluded that this is not guaranteed merely by following organic standards. Both networks recommended implementation of individual animal health plans to stimulate organic farmers to improve AHW. These plans should include a systematic evaluation of AHW and be implemented through dialogue with each farmer in order to identify goals and plan improvements. 11 research institutions in 7 European countries have been involved in the ANIPLAN project with the main objective to minimise medicine use in organic dairy herds through active and well planned AHW promotion and disease prevention. The project consisted of 5 work packages, 4 of which comprised research activities building on current research projects, new applications across borders, exchange of knowledge, results and conclusions between participating countries, and adopting them to widely different contexts. International and national workshops have facilitated this exchange.
In the project, animal health and welfare planning principles for organic dairy farms under diverse conditions were developed. Animal health and welfare assessments, based on the WelfareQuality parameters, were conducted in different types of organic dairy herds across Europe. Finally, guidelines for communication about animal health and welfare promotion in different settings were also developed relevant to both existing animal health advisory services or farmer groups such as the Danish Stable School system and the Dutch network program.
These proceedings contain the presentations at the final workshop, which also included invited external guests. The proceedings also contain three reports which are deliverables of the project. They are focused on the process of planning for better animal health and welfare, and how farmers and facilitators manage this situation. The focus areas are animal health planning, AHW assessment using animal based parameters and development of advisory systems and farmer groups.