The Farmer Field School approach, which has halved
antibiotic use in Danish dairy cattle, is the focus of our latest
report in theCollege Farm Focus
initiative, jointly run by Farmers
Weekly,RASEandLandex, the
umbrella organisation for land-based life-long learning in the
UK.
Farmer Field Schools have been used in many parts of the world
as a means of improving farming systems, explains Stephen Roderick
from Duchy College's RBS Organic Studies Centre.
A Danish organic farming specialist, who has been using the
approach with dairy farmers as part of the health planning process,
recently visited Duchy
College.
Her approach could benefit producers in the south west, claims
Dr Roderick.
Dr Mette Vaarst, from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, visited
Duchy's Rural Business School as part of a collaborative EU
research project in which the College's Organic Studies Centre is
the English partner organisation.
The part DEFRA-funded project, AniPlan, is aimed at developing
animal health and welfare planning for the organic sector, but also
has significant relevance to all livestock producers interested in
reducing dependence on veterinary medicines while maintaining the
highest welfare standards within their herds and flocks. Other
project partners include research institutes from Denmark, Norway,
Wales, Holland, Switzerland, Germany and Austria.
While in Cornwall, Dr Vaarst addressed a meeting of organic
dairy farmers on the results of her research using a Farmer Field
School approach - the so-called Stable Schools - to reduce
veterinary medicine use on organic farms in Denmark.
This well-established approach to problem solving is widespread
in many developing countries, involving a process whereby farmers
meet regularly together to discuss technical problems on each
others farms and use their own knowledge and experience to share
and solve the problem. In some respects, the approach has
similarities to that of the Grassland Challenge project.
Dr Vaarst, who is an international authority on the health and
welfare of organically managed farm animals, encountered the
approach while working with smallholder farmers in Uganda. Having
been approached by the Danish organic milk co-operative, Thise, to
research the potential for reducing antibiotic use in their
members' herds, she saw an opportunity to adapt and apply the FFS
technique to Danish conditions.
Over a period of one year, four farmer groups, each consisting
of approximately six farmers, set to task. Each month, each group
met on a different farm to discuss a particular problem that had
been identified by the host farmer.
Through a process of discussion and examination of farm records,
aided by the presence of a facilitator, the groups were successful
in reducing antibiotic usage by approximately 50%, with no
discernible negative impact on health and welfare and a tangible
improvement in the farm environment.
As part of Duchy College's involvement in the AniPlan project,
it is intended that a similar pilot farmer group be set up in the
south-west. Perhaps this proven approach to health planning could
provide a means by which farmers in the south west could work
together to make health plans a useful tool with real benefits
rather than a bureaucratic task.