EMIDA; Motivators and Barriers Influencing Farmer Decisions to Participate in Collective Animal Health Programmes

The proposal describes two main areas of work:
<ol><li>AHVLA and INRA contributions to a successful EMIDA ERANet application. The full EMIDA project has the title ‘Farmer willingness to prevent and control disease’. Within this (OBJECTIVE 1), INRA will explore the factors which affect farmer participation in collective animal health management programmes, and their willingness to vaccinate (using existing programmes against bovine paratuberculosis (Johne’s) and BTV-8 as case studies). In a pilot study AHVLA will explore factors that influence farmers’ decision-making around antimicrobial medicine usage. (OBJECTIVE 2).</li>
<li>A social science study by AHVLA and Reading University of the motivators and barriers to farmer participation in collective BVD eradication programmes in England and Wales (OBJECTIVE 3);
Funding is requested for three years for the BVD study and for 2 years (2012/13 and 13/14) for the AHVLA and INRA contributions to the EMIDA project. AHVLA will act as the main contractor for both studies. INRA (France) will be a sub-contractor to AHVLA on Objective 1 and the research team of Dr Claire Heffernan (Reading University) will be a sub-contractor on Objective 3.</li></ol>
<p>Concerning 1):The overarching objective of the EMIDA project (lead by Wageningen University, for whom funding is not requested here) is to gain insight into determinants of behaviour that influence farmer willingess to participate in animal health management programmes. Funding is requested by INRA, France in this proposal to support the design and implementation of ‘willingness to participate in collective programmes’ and ‘willingness to vaccinate’ surveys in France, and the econometric analysis of farmer willingness to participate data (using the Johne’s survey data). In a later stage of the EMIDA work (funded outside this proposal), INRA will use the BTV-8 data to simulate the vaccination coverage across a population of dairy farms.</p>
<p>There is increasing concern that overuse and/or sub-optimal use of antimicrobials may be a factor in the development of bacterial resistance to veterinary antimicrobials. The small scale AHVLA survey described here is also part of the EMIDA project will help inform the design of a larger survey of prescribing behaviours on UK farms.
Concerning 2): While various schemes and effective management tools are available to individual farmers for control of BVD, no national programme is currently underway in England and Wales. This contrasts with the situation in other European countries, including in Scotland and Ireland, and particularly Scandinavia, where long-established BVD eradication schemes have successfully reduced BVD prevalence. One aim of the BVD study, which will comprise surveys of industry organisations and up to 180 cattle farmers, is to identify factors likely to affect farmer willingness to join and stay in a voluntary BVD control programme. We will then explore how negative attitudes can be overcome and how we might translate ‘positive intent into actual participation. A third aim will be to identify the key attributes of an on-farm decision tool for use in BVD control.</p>
<p>The work will be innovative in its deployment of scientific tools to evaluate influences on farmer decision-making and will demonstrate the importance of decision-support tools in the design of animal health programmes.</p>