Role of Veterinarians in Promoting Sustainable Dairy Practices
Dr. Raj Desai, Senior Research Fellow, Directorate of Research Office, Kamdhenu University, Gandhinagar-382010, Gujarat, India.
ABSTRACT:
Sustainable livestock production has evolved significantly over recent decades and is now widely recognized as a multidimensional concept encompassing economic viability, environmental protection, social responsibility, and ethical considerations. Within this framework, dairy farmers—particularly those operating grassland-based systems—play a crucial role in maintaining sustainable agricultural practices. In addition to producing safe and high-quality milk, they contribute substantially to landscape conservation, biodiversity preservation, and water resource management while ensuring animal health and welfare. Sustainability in the dairy sector extends beyond farm-level activities and involves all stakeholders associated with the food production and consumption chain. Therefore, sustainable development must be addressed at structural, technological, and managerial levels. The structural aspect focuses on the organization and integration of production, processing, retailing, and consumption systems. Technological sustainability involves the adoption of efficient technologies, innovations, and logistics that minimize environmental impact and improve productivity. Managerial sustainability emphasizes comprehensive quality assurance measures, including effective disease control, responsible pesticide and nutrient management, water conservation, genetic improvement, animal welfare, and nutritional management. Efficient management practices are essential for enhancing the long-term sustainability of dairy farms. Improved animal health and welfare not only optimize the utilization of production resources but also enhance economic returns and socio-economic stability for farmers. In this context, veterinary advisory services, including herd health and production management programmes, play an important role in guiding dairy farmers toward sustainable farming practices. Such advisory systems support farmers in improving productivity, reducing risks, and maintaining high standards of animal welfare and food safety, thereby contributing to the overall sustainability of the dairy industry.
Keywords: Livestock, Veterinary advice, Animal Health, Dairy Industry and Sustainability
Sustainability Developments On Dairy Farms and the Role of Veterinarians
The participation of dairy farmers in veterinary herd health and production management advisory programme has been considered as a prerequisite for dairy farmers to develop a more sustainable production, especially because the management quality is improved. For example, having a formal Farm Health Plan with a Farm Treatment Advisory Protocol, e.g. for mastitis control, is actually being requested by the dairy and meat industry for 2012 in The Netherlands. Sustainability indexes for agricultural systems look a lot like those applied in quality assurance programme (SMK 2009, Spoelstra & Elzen 2010). These two issues, herd health programme and quality assurance programme, make it quite interesting for veterinarians to participate more in the development of sustainable dairy production. Such opportunities to retain a steady income in a shifting market demand should be developed further. Given the fact that curative veterinary service demands will continue to drop, this could be compensated for by preventive (advisory and training) services. Farmers participation in veterinary herd health programme The participation in veterinary herd health and production management advisory programme (HHPM) is considered to be a prerequisite for dairy farmers to further improve sustainability. There exist other consultancies too, for example by nutritionists or accountants. In HHPM however, the veterinarian can play the coordinator role of the different farm consultants because he visits the farms frequently, he is independent advisor not related to e.g. a feed mill, and he has knowledge and skills in animal/herd associated domains (reproduction, health, production, disease control programme, welfare). HHPM programme have been applied for many years in different parts of the world (Brand and others 2001, Noordhuizen and others 2009). Core elements in this HHPM are: (1) Routine Diagnostic Herd Evaluation (on cattle; their environment, and farm data); (2) Problem analysis (using standard protocols and data analysis procedures); (3) Prevention plans (including the design and application of bio-security programme). HHPM are centered around pre-planned farm visits (e.g. once every 2 or 4 weeks) and the availability of farm records related to animal identification, events in reproduction, health milk production, growth in young stock, medicine use, management events, farm economics, ration composition, pasture exploitation. Farm visits serve to evaluate animal performance within the context of farmer’s goals, and to detect putative risk factors in the cows’ environment which may contribute to disease occurrence (Noordhuizen and others 2008). In a professional HHPM, the communication between farmer and veterinarian is at a high level; the basis of their relationship is mutual trust and confidence, and respect for knowledge and skills (Kleen & Rehage 2008, Kleen and others 2011). During each farm visit, the veterinarian conducts, as a routine activity, a clinical observation of cows, their environment and management, and the actual farm data, following preset protocols (Noordhuizen and others 2008). This so-called “diagnostic herd evaluation routine” serves to detect deviations in animal performance and behavior in different operational farming areas (early warning system), to detect risk factors in the animal’s environment and management, to design a plan of actions to restore the deviations on the short (high priority items) or mid-long (for low priority items) term, and to check the effects of advice during the next farm visits. It is a dynamic monitoring system and performance surveillance. Moreover, the focus is further on prevention of diseases by vaccination and by applying risk identification and risk management, such as in applied biosecurity (Noordhuizen and others 2010). It is not peculiar that applied quantitative veterinary epidemiology can play a substantial role in this context (evidence based medicine; diagnostic test characteristics; assessment of odds ratios or relative risk; survival analysis) as has also been stated by Noordhuizen and others (2001) and Emanuelson (2007). There are large differences between regions and between veterinarians with regard to the provision of this service and to the success rate of this service.
Extending the Veterinary Advisory Practice from the Dairy Farm to the Food Chain:
Currently, veterinary practitioners –though perhaps active at the operational level- hardly participate in the decision-making processes in food quality and food safety assurance chains “from primary production to consumers”. Yet, as intermediate between the primary production level (the farms) and society (consumers) the veterinarian has the potential to bridge the gap between these two parties of the chain: explaining to the public how public health, animal health and welfare are taken care of at the dairy farms; explaining to the farmers what society in general and consumer’s in particular expect from them. Here too, the role of the veterinarian would be a coaching one. Of course, veterinarians have played a key role in bridging views of producers and consumers during outbreaks of highly contagious diseases like foot-and-mouth disease, FMD. In debates, dealing with ethical and economic questions related to killing healthy animals in FMD-surveillance areas, veterinarians provided essential information for the decision-making process. During episodes of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) incidences, a comparable phenomenon could be observed. The veterinarian was the key intermediate between the farmers and the other actors in the food chain. Given the long “incubation” period, the effects have been dramatic, in both economic and socio-cultural sense, as it has largely influenced the public image of the sector, and the confidence of consumers in food of animal origin. Such bans have only been implemented following outbreaks of certain highly contagious diseases. Evidently, the veterinary practitioner plays a paramount role with respect to safeguarding public health, animal health and animal welfare issues related to animal husbandry methods including mega-exploitations and high yielding dairy herds, as a bridge between the farming community and society. The operational HHPM targets and tactical QRM objectives must be adapted to the changing needs of the cows, farmers and society too. At the same time, it could be necessary that farm management qualities must be adjusted or improved, to serve such cows in a better way; this would mean a revision of (criteria for) the “license to produce and to market”. Food chain actors, like the milk processing companies, retailers and consumers, will have a say in the revised criteria for that license.
References:
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