The role of epidemiological knowledge and grazing management for helminth control in small ruminants

There is no single requirement more crucial to the rational and sustainable control of helminth parasites in grazing animals than a comprehensive knowledge of the epidemiology of the parasite as it interacts with the host in a specific climatic, management and production environment. In its absence, anthelmintic treatment is either given suppressively, which provokes resistance, or therapeutically, which risks clinical disease and production losses. Sustainable parasite-control programmes require knowledge of seasonal larval availability, origin of larvae contributing to any peaks and climatic requirements for worm egg hatching, larval development and survival. Control measures based on this knowledge include strategic anthelmintic treatments and various forms of grazing management. While these measures can reduce the frequency of anthelmintic treatment required, their effect on selection for drench resistance is more problematical, unless they can be combined with other forms of control to reduce our current dependence on anthelmintics.     

Precision Farming and Precision Pest Management: The Power of New Crop Production Technologies

The use of new technologies including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the Global Positioning System (GPS), Variable Rate Technology (VRT), and Remote Sensing (RS) is gaining acceptance in the present high-technology, precision agricultural industry. GIS provides the ability to link multiple data values for the same geo-referenced location, and provides the user with a graphical visualization of such data. When GIS is coupled with GPS and RS, management decisions can be applied in a more precise "micro-managed" manner by using VRT techniques. Such technology holds the potential to reduce agricultural crop production costs as well as crop and environmental damage.     

New trends in microbial technology

Microbial technology includes not only the production of materials in bioreactors, or the production of new catalysts by genetic engineering but extends to aspects of both human and animal health care, waste and pollution management, enhanced oil recovery, mineral leaching, advanced plant breeding, diagnostics and analytical equipment, biosensors, bioelectronics and renewable energy system based on biomass feedstocks. National strategies of industrialized countries are being developed which identify microbial technology as a substantial factor in the attainment of industrial and economic goals. Although extremely promising microbial technology is not a quick fix and its application will only arise as a result of systematic programme of research and development. Such programme requires a broad base of disciplinary underpinning in molecular biology, genetics and bioengineering. The development of expertise of this kind in the tertiary educational institutions is the essential starting point. It should be developed by appropriate programmes and networking systems.     

Changes in woody community structure and composition under constrasting landuse systems in a semi-arid savanna, South Africa

We aimed to explore the farm scale effects of three landuse types, communal grazing, wildlife management and commercial cattle farming, on the woody vegetation of a semiarid savanna. Location The study farms were located within a single bioclimatic zone in semiarid savanna, South Africa. Methods The species composition and structure of woody vegetation on three farms of each of three landuse types were sampled. Results We found that communal grazing land sites were classified outside the topland-bottomland vegetation dichotomy characteristic of this region. Comparisons of size class distributions showed the communal grazing lands had fewer small and large individuals; suggesting both lower levels of regeneration and regenerative capacity in the communal grazing lands. The species richness and biomass of woody plants was lower on communal grazing lands than on private game reserves and commercial cattle farms. The longevity of tree species explains the observed lag between changes in abundance and species loss; we consequently predict that there will be future losses of species in the communal grazing lands. By classifying species into a range of use-categories we showed that utilization and species loss was not limited to certain plant use categories. Higher levels of wood harvesting measured in the communal grazing lands are likely to be responsible for the observed differences. Main conclusions It is concluded that communal grazing management at this study site has substantially changed the composition and structure of woody plant communities, and that these changes have reduced the current availability of natural resources and will reduce resource production in the future.     

Animal board invited review: Animal agriculture and alternative meats – learning from past science communication failures

Sustainability discussions bring in multiple competing goals, and the outcomes are often conflicting depending upon which goal is being given credence. The role of livestock in supporting human well-being is especially contentious in discourses around sustainable diets. There is considerable variation in which environmental metrics are measured when describing sustainable diets, although some estimate of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of different diets based on varying assumptions is commonplace. A market for animal-free and manufactured food items to substitute for animal source food (ASF) has emerged, driven by the high GHG emissions of ASF. Ingredients sourced from plants, and animal cells grown in culture are two approaches employed to produce alternative meats. These can be complemented with ingredients produced using synthetic biology. Alternative meat companies promise to reduce GHG, the land and water used for food production, and reduce or eliminate animal agriculture. Some CEOs have even claimed alternative meats will ‘end world hunger’. Rarely do such self-proclamations emanate from scientists, but rather from companies in their efforts to attract venture capital investment and market share. Such declarations are reminiscent of the early days of the biotechnology industry. At that time, special interest groups employed fear-based tactics to effectively turn public opinion against the use of genetic engineering to introduce sustainability traits, like disease resistance and nutrient fortification, into global genetic improvement programs. These same groups have recently turned their sights on the ‘unnaturalness’ and use of synthetic biology in the production of meat alternatives, leaving agriculturists in a quandary. Much of the rationale behind alternative meats invokes a simplistic narrative, with a primary focus on GHG emissions, ignoring the nutritional attributes and dietary importance of ASF, and livelihoods that are supported by grazing ruminant production systems. Diets with low GHG emissions are often described as sustainable, even though the nutritional, social and economic pillars of sustainability are not considered. Nutritionists, geneticists, and veterinarians have been extremely successful at developing new technologies to reduce the environmental footprint of ASF. Further technological developments are going to be requisite to continuously improve the efficiency of animal source, plant source, and cultured meat production. Perhaps there is an opportunity to collectively communicate how innovations are enabling both alternative- and conventional-meat producers to more sustainably meet future demand. This could counteract the possibility that special interest groups who promulgate misinformation, fear and uncertainty, will hinder the adoption of technological innovations to the ultimate detriment of global food security.     

Moving GIS Research Indoors: Spatiotemporal Analysis of Agricultural Animals

A proof of concept applying wildlife ecology techniques to animal welfare science in intensive agricultural environments was conducted using non-cage laying hens. Studies of wildlife ecology regularly use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to assess wild animal movement and behavior within environments with relatively unlimited space and finite resources. However, rather than depicting landscapes, a GIS could be developed in animal production environments to provide insight into animal behavior as an indicator of animal welfare. We developed a GIS-based approach for studying agricultural animal behavior in an environment with finite space and unlimited resources. Concurrent data from wireless body-worn location tracking sensor and video-recording systems, which depicted spatially-explicit behavior of hens (135 hens/room) in two identical indoor enclosures, were collected. The spatial configuration of specific hen behaviors, variation in home range patterns, and variation in home range overlap show that individual hens respond to the same environment differently. Such information could catalyze management practice adjustments (e.g., modifying feeder design and/or location). Genetically-similar hens exhibited diverse behavioral and spatial patterns via a proof of concept approach enabling detailed examinations of individual non-cage laying hen behavior and welfare.     

Not all GMOs are crop plants: non-plant GMO applications in agriculture

Since tools of modern biotechnology have become available, the most commonly applied and often discussed genetically modified organisms are genetically modified crop plants, although genetic engineering is also being used successfully in organisms other than plants, including bacteria, fungi, insects, and viruses. Many of these organisms, as with crop plants, are being engineered for applications in agriculture, to control plant insect pests or diseases. This paper reviews the genetically modified non-plant organisms that have been the subject of permit approvals for environmental release by the United States Department of Agriculture/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service since the US began regulating genetically modified organisms. This is an indication of the breadth and progress of research in the area of non-plant genetically modified organisms. This review includes three examples of promising research on non-plant genetically modified organisms for application in agriculture: (1) insects for insect pest control using improved vector systems; (2) fungal pathogens of insects to control insect pests; and (3) virus for use as transient-expression vectors for disease control in plants.     

Arable acronyms analysed – a review of integrated arable farming systems research in Western Europe

Arable production has come under increasing economic and environmental pressures, especially in the last decade. These have derived from over-production, decreased farm incomes and a concern with the possible environmental effects of intensive pesticide use associated with such intensive cultivation. A number of long-term research programmes on integrated farming systems and their sustainability have recently been completed or are currently under way. In the UK, these include the ‘Boxworth’ project, ‘SCARAB’, TALISMAN’, RISC, ‘LINK Integrated Farming Systems’, ‘LIFE’ and the demonstration-only programme ‘LEAF’. These projects are reviewed in terms of their objectives, designs and results to date, and are compared with some parallel programmes in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France.     

Q fever and pneumonia in an area with a high livestock density: a large population-based study

Concerns about public health risks of intensive animal production in The Netherlands continue to rise, in particular related to outbreaks of infectious diseases. The aim was to investigate associations between the presence of farm animals around the home address and Q fever and pneumonia.Electronic medical record data for the year 2009 of all patients of 27 general practitioners (GPs) in a region with a high density of animal farms were used. Density of farm animals around the home address was calculated using a Geographic Information System. During the study period, a large Q fever outbreak occurred in this region. Associations between farm exposure variables and pneumonia or 'other infectious disease', the diagnosis code used by GPs for registration of Q fever, were analyzed in 22,406 children (0-17 y) and 70,142 adults (18-70 y), and adjusted for age and sex. In adults, clear exposure-response relationships between the number of goats within 5 km of the home address and pneumonia and 'other infectious disease' were observed. The association with 'other infectious disease' was particularly strong, with an OR [95%CI] of 12.03 [8.79-16.46] for the fourth quartile (>17,190 goats) compared with the first quartile (<2,251 goats). The presence of poultry within 1 km was associated with an increased incidence of pneumonia among adults (OR [95%CI] 1.25 [1.06-1.47]).A high density of goats in a densely populated region was associated with human Q fever. The use of GP records combined with individual exposure estimates using a Geographic Information System is a powerful approach to assess environmental health risks.     

Production and efficacy of baculviruses

Several baculvirusus of nuclear polyhedrosis virus (NPV) have been produced and tested for microbial control of various Lepidoptera spp. To date, there are three registered preparations of NPV that are exempt from the requirement of tolerance by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States (US). The first and only commercially available viral preparation used in agriculture was developed by Sandoz, Inc. under the name of Elcar® for control of Heliothis spp. on cotton. The other two baculovirus preparations were developed and registered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for control of Douglas-fir tussock moth and gypsy moth on forests. Several methods are being used for production of NPV viruses: (1) field collection of diseased larvae, (2) laboratory rearing of insects followed by infection with viral inoculum, (3) tissue culture. and (4) tissue culture and mass rearing larvae. Recent progress in mass production of insect virus points toward the adoption of tissue culture with the whole organism technology for production of a standardized viral product. The practical usefulness of various baculovirus preparations has been demonstrated for protection of forests from defoliation by various lepidopterous species. In agriculture, Elcar® has been successfully marketed and has been very well received for use in integrated pest management on cotton. Recent development also demonstrated that use of adjuvants further increase the efficacy of Elcar® against Heliothis spp. on cotton.     

Indian system of medicine and women's health: a clients' perspective

India has a strong base of ancient indigenous systems of medicine and its national health policies and programmes have consistently promoted the integration of Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) into the country's official health system. Realizing the safety and efficacy of ISM drugs, the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy (ISM&H) has suggested their use for certain women's health problems and during pregnancy. Although the Government of India has attempted to integrate ISM through the country's contemporary health programme of Reproductive and Child Health (RCH), utilization dynamics from the clients' perspective is little understood. This study shows that, at least in urban areas, for the majority of women's health problems biomedicine is regarded as the first choice, failure of which leads clients to seek treatment from ISM as a final resort. Nevertheless, women showed a preference for ISM treatment for certain specific health problems, strongly backed by a belief in their efficacy. Of the predictors that positively influenced women's choice of ISM treatment, 'strong evidenced-based results' was found to be the most important. Women's preference for ISM is dependent on the availability of competent providers.     

中国粮食和农业植物遗传资源状况报告(Ⅱ)

10多年来,中国政府十分重视粮食和农业植物遗传资源的保护和可持续利用,并根据《粮食和农业植物遗传资源全球行动计划》20项优先领域,通过制定和完善相关的法律法规,加强了粮食和农业植物遗传资源的管理;通过培训和科普宣传,提高了公众意识;通过国际合作和协作网建设,实现了信息、人员和植物遗传资源的交流与交换;通过各种国家计划和项目的实施,建立和完善了植物遗传资源保护体系,实现了植物遗传资源的安全保存和可持续利用,为中国乃至世界植物育种和粮食安全发挥了较大作用。     

World Health Organization activities on anthrax surveillance and control

The achievements of a World Health Organization Anthrax Working Group, established in 1990, have been the production of two editions of guidelines on anthrax surveillance and control and the formulation of templates to assist countries in the construction of their surveillance and control programmes. The latter was made possible by the active participation of the Department of Animal Production and Health, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Zambia and the Livestock Development Programme, Mongu, Western Province, Zambia in a model country programme designed by the Working Group for the purpose. This paper elaborates on these achievements, particularly the lessons learned from the experience of Western Province, Zambia.     

Evaluation of the impact of a Herd Health and Production Management programme in organic dairy cattle farms: a process evaluation approach

Animal health planning activities are not always providing a satisfactory positive impact on herd health and welfare. Moreover, evaluating the impact of advisory programmes is complex due to multiple interacting elements that influence its outcome. Therefore, measuring solely health outcomes is not sufficient: the whole process of the implementation and use of such programmes should be evaluated. In order to evaluate the impact of an intervention with a Herd Health and Production Management (HHPM) programme a process evaluation framework was designed and used. The intervention involved 20 organic dairy cattle farmers and their advisors, in both France and Sweden. In both countries 20 organic dairy farms were selected as control herds. The evaluation of the HHPM programme was based on: (a) the compliance to the programme; (b) the programme’s functions influencing herd health management practices and stimulating dialogue between farmers and advisors; (c) its effectiveness in terms of improving herd health compared with control farms. Complete compliance to the programme was fulfilled by 21 out of 40 farmers–advisors. Results from a questionnaire showed that the programme functioned as intended (e.g. by allowing early identification of herd health problems), stimulated change in farmers’ herd health management practices and farmer–advisor dialogue. Even though the majority of the users perceived that the programme contributed to herd health improvements, no significant differences in health outcomes were found when compared with control farms 12 months after the start of the intervention. The programme allowed creating an environment promoting the exchange of information between farmers and advisors, necessary to define pertinent advice in a farm-specific situation. Future research should aim at improving methods for the evaluation of the effect of advisory programmes, by identifying early indicators for effective advice and developing methods to evaluate the quality of advisory situations without interfering with them.     

利用农业生物多样性持续控制有害生物

农业生物多样性对保障全球粮食安全和农业可持续发展至关重要.人类在多样性的形成上发挥了关键作用,人类结合自然进化创造了遗传多样性、物种多样性和生态系统多样性.农业生物多样性发挥了很多社会经济和环境功能:保障粮食安全;维持农业生态系统可持续发展;赋予农村经济适变性.但当前人类毁灭农业生物多样性的速度更为惊人.在总结石油农业单一化种植的生态负效应、传统农业提倡“天人合一”的生态正效应的基础上,分析讨论了利用农业生物多样性持续控制有害生物的必要性和可行性,从生态系统多样性、物种多样性和种内遗传多样性3个层次,归纳了构建和恢复农田生物多样性的基本方法.基于病理学、生态学、营养学和生理学等学科领域,从群体异质效应、稀释效应、微生态效应、诱导抗性效应、物理阻隔效应、生理学效应和化感效应等7个方面,归纳了利用农业生物多样性持续控制有害生物的基础原理.寻求低投入、高效益、多样化和可持续的农业生产系统是当今世界许多科学家、决策者和生产者共同关心的问题.农业生物多样性具有重要的生态作用,在现代农业框架下,是合情合理构建持续、稳定、健康、高产的农田生态系统,持续控制有害生物的金钥匙.为此必须加强四方面的课题研究:各种作物之间的相生相克关系及其作用机理;各种有害生物的主要天敌种类、生物学、生态学特性及其适生环境;利用农业生物多样性全面、持续控制有害生物的农业生产模式;与其相配套的农艺措施与农业机械.     

A Global Assessment of the Water Footprint of Farm Animal Products

The increase in the consumption of animal products is likely to put further pressure on the world’s freshwater resources. This paper provides a comprehensive account of the water footprint of animal products, considering different production systems and feed composition per animal type and country. Nearly one-third of the total water footprint of agriculture in the world is related to the production of animal products. The water footprint of any animal product is larger than the water footprint of crop products with equivalent nutritional value. The average water footprint per calorie for beef is 20 times larger than for cereals and starchy roots. The water footprint per gram of protein for milk, eggs and chicken meat is 1.5 times larger than for pulses. The unfavorable feed conversion efficiency for animal products is largely responsible for the relatively large water footprint of animal products compared to the crop products. Animal products from industrial systems generally consume and pollute more ground- and surface-water resources than animal products from grazing or mixed systems. The rising global meat consumption and the intensification of animal production systems will put further pressure on the global freshwater resources in the coming decades. The study shows that from a freshwater perspective, animal products from grazing systems have a smaller blue and grey water footprint than products from industrial systems, and that it is more water-efficient to obtain calories, protein and fat through crop products than animal products.     

Satellite estimates of productivity and light use efficiency in United States agriculture, 1982–98

Remote sensing of net primary production (NPP) is a critical tool for assessing spatial and temporal patterns of carbon exchange between the atmosphere and biosphere. However, satellite estimates suffer from a lack of large‐scale field data needed for validation, as well as the need to parameterize plant light‐use efficiencies (LUEs). In this study, we estimated cropland NPP with the Carnegie‐Ames‐Stanford‐Approach (CASA), a biogeochemical model driven by satellite observations, and then compared these results with field estimates based on harvest data from United States Department of Agriculture National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) county statistics. Observed interannual variations in NPP over a 17‐year period were well modelled by CASA, with exceptions mainly due to occasional difficulties in estimating NPP from harvest yields. The role of environmental stressors in agriculture was investigated by running CASA with and without temperature and moisture down‐regulators, which are used in the model to simulate climate impacts on plant LUE. In most cases, correlations with NASS data were highest with modelled stresses, while the opposite was true for irrigated and temperature resistant crops. Analysis of the spatial variability in computed LUE revealed significantly higher values for corn than for other crops, suggesting a simple parameterization of LUE for future studies based on the fraction of area with corn. Absolute values of LUE were much lower than those reported in field trials, due to uncommonly high yields in most field trials, as well as overestimates of absorbed radiation in CASA attributed to bias from temporal compositing of satellite data. Total NPP for US croplands, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, was estimated as 0.62 Pg C year^?1, representing ～20% of total US NPP, and exhibited a positive trend of 3.7 Tg C year^?2. These results have several implications for large‐scale carbon cycle research that are discussed, and are especially relevant for studies of the role of agriculture in the global carbon balance.     

Eradication of scrapie with selective breeding: are we nearly there?

Background  

Following EU decision 2003/100/EC Member States have recently implemented sheep breeding programmes to reduce the prevalence of sheep with TSE susceptible prion genotypes. The present paper investigates the progress of the breeding programme in the Netherlands. The PrP genotype frequencies were monitored through time using two sets of random samples: one set covers the years 2005 to 2008 and is taken from national surveillance programme; the other is taken from 168 random sheep farms in 2007. The data reveal that although the level of compliance to the breeding programme has been high, the frequency of susceptible genotypes varies substantially between farms. The 168 sheep farms are a subset of 689 farms participating in a postal survey inquiring about management and breeding strategies. This survey aimed to identify how much these strategies varied between farms, in order to inform assessment of the expected future progress towards eradication of classical scrapie.     

Fungal growth promotor endophytes: a pragmatic approach towards sustainable food and agriculture

Agricultural productivity suffers a heavy loss due to plant pathogens, insect pests and various abiotic stresses. Agriculture being the world’s largest economic sector, it is the need of time to find and establish the ideal strategy for sustainable agriculture and improvement in crop growth. Endophytes are microorganisms that asymptomatically grow within the plant tissues without causing any disease to the host. Endophytic fungi live in symbiotic association with plants and play an important role in plant growth promotion, higher seed yield and plants resistant to various biotic, abiotic stresses and diseases. Many are able to produce antimicrobial compounds, plant growth hormones and various agrochemical bioactive metabolites. These mycoendophytes hold enormous potential for the development of eco-friendly and economically viable agricultural products. In this review we focused on the endophytic fungi recovered from different medicinal plants, their active principles involved in plant growth enhancement and the applications of fungal endophytes in agriculture. Moreover, we also discussed about endophytic fungi and their pragmatic approach towards sustainable food and agriculture.     

Evaluating mountain goat dairy systems for conversion to the organic model, using a multicriteria method

Organic farming conserves natural resources, promotes biodiversity, guarantees animal welfare and obtains healthy products from raw materials through natural processes. In order to evaluate possibilities of increasing organic animal production, this study proposes a farm-scale multicriteria method for assessing the conversion of dairy goat systems to the organic model. In addition, a case study in the Northern Sierra of Seville, southern Spain, is analysed. A consensus of expert opinions and a field survey are used to validate a list of potential indicators and issues for assessing the conversion, which consider not only the European Community regulations for organic livestock farming, but also agroecological principles. As a result, the method includes 56 variables integrated in nine indicators: Nutritional management, Sustainable pasture management, Soil fertility and contamination, Weed and pest control, Disease prevention, Breeds and reproduction, Animal welfare, Food safety and Marketing and management. The nine indicators are finally integrated in a global index named OLPI (Organic Livestock Proximity Index). Application of the method to a case study with 24 goat farms reveals an OLPI value of 46.5% for dairy goat farms located in mountain areas of southern Spain. The aspects that differ most from the agroecological model include soil management, animal nutrition and product marketing. Results of the case study indicate that the proposed method is easy to implement and is useful for quantifying the approximation of conventional farms to an organic model.