Browsing by Subject "Tiergesundheit"

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An analysis of institutional arrangements for providing animal health services : a theoretical framework and empirical evidence from Kenya and Uganda
(2015) Ilukor, John; Birner, Regina
Providing adequate animal health services to smallholder farmers in developing countries has remained a challenge, in spite of various reform efforts during the past decades, mainly because of governance challenges. Although good governance has been recognized as an important element in addressing emerging and re-emerging animal disease threats, animal health research has paid limited attention to the governance challenges inherent in the provision of animal health services. The existing frameworks for analyzing animal health services have mainly focused on market failures to decide what the public sector, private sector, and “third sector” (the community-based sector) should do with regard to providing animal health services. This thesis uses transaction cost economics to analyze institutional arrangements for providing animal health services since it captures both market failures and governance attributes. The objective of this thesis is threefold: (1) to develop a conceptual framework for analyzing animal health services using transaction cost theory of economic organization and to provide empirical evidence on its application using data collected on clinical veterinary services in Uganda and Kenya; (2) to identify governance challenges in the provision of animal health services and possible remedies to address them using a case study of Uganda; (3) to examine the quality of services provided by different service providers (paraprofessionals and veterinarians) and to gain insights into paraprofessional-veterinarian relations. This thesis is comprised of six chapters. The introductory chapter provides background information regarding the study areas in Uganda and Kenya, highlights the importance of strengthening and supporting the provision of veterinary services in developing countries, and presents the main research objectives and outline of the thesis. Chapter 2 presents a conceptual framework for analyzing institutional arrangements for providing veterinary services using Williamson’s discriminating alignment hypothesis and generates testable hypotheses regarding the cost effectiveness of various institutional arrangements. Using household survey data collected in Uganda and Kenya on clinical services, empirical tests of these hypotheses are presented. Chapter 3 examines the process of animal service delivery as well as identifies the main influential actors, important social relations, and main governance challenges encountered in the provision of clinical and preventive veterinary services in pastoral and intensive livestock productions systems in Uganda. Chapter 4 examines the determinants of referrals from veterinary paraprofessionals to professional veterinarians. The Chapter 5 examines whether veterinary paraprofessionals perform correct disease diagnosis and prescribe correct drugs for selected endemic diseases. The chapter also examines whether interaction between veterinary paraprofessionals and professional veterinarians would result in correct drug prescription and disease diagnosis. Chapter 6 concludes and offers policy recommendations and areas for further research. After presenting the importance of animal health services in developing countries, a framework for analyzing animal health services is developed in Chapter 2 based on Williamson’s discriminating alignment hypothesis. This framework combines both market failure and governance attributes to assess the cost-effectiveness of different institutional arrangements for animal health services. Some of these attributes include externality, transaction intensity, care intensity, measurability, and state and community capacity. Using this attributes, testable hypotheses regarding the appropriateness of institutional arrangements for providing animal health services are developed. Using data from Uganda and Kenya on clinical veterinary services, empirical tests of these hypotheses are performed to demonstrate the application of Williamson’s transaction cost theory to veterinary service delivery. The empirical results show that paraprofessionals are desirable because they offer needed care and attention to clients since they are located closer to livestock producers and thus have lower transaction costs and may be trusted more by farmers. Professional veterinarians, on the other hand, are preferred by farmers when cases require technical expertise (high measurability). The use of paraprofessional services is found to be positively associated with the availability of veterinarians, implying the existence of synergistic relationship between veterinarians and paraprofessionals. In other words, a referral system may be the most costs effective approach for building state and community capacity to provide veterinary services. After developing the framework for analyzing the provision of animal health services, Chapter 3 examines the process of providing animal health services using Uganda as a case study. A participatory mapping tool called Process Net-Map is used to identify relevant actors and assess their influence in the delivery of clinical and preventive veterinary services in both pastoral and intensive livestock production systems. The tool also helps elicit governance challenges in veterinary service delivery. The results reveal that important social relations in ensuring the provision of quality veterinary services and the timely reporting of animal disease in veterinary service delivery include: (1) cooperation between private veterinarians and paraprofessionals, as well as private veterinarians and government veterinarians in intensive production systems; and (2) cooperation between NGOs, government veterinarians, and community based animal health workers (CAHWs) in pastoral areas. The limited number of trained paraprofessionals and professional veterinarians, absenteeism by government veterinarians, insufficient and unpredictable budgets, weak legislation, exclusion of technical staff from the decision making process, and policy illogicality are identified as major governance problems in veterinary service delivery. Respondents also noted that the quality of veterinary services is very low because paraprofessionals without animal health training have dominated animal health markets in Uganda and the key to improve veterinary services is to build referral arrangements between paraprofessional and veterinarians. Although the literature on animal health service delivery recognizes that referrals between paraprofessionals and veterinarians are important in ensuring correct drug prescriptions and in improving disease surveillance, detection, and reporting, little is known about determinants of referrals between paraprofessionals and professional veterinarians. Chapter 4 analyzes data collected from paraprofessionals in Kenya and Uganda to identify factors influencing referrals from paraprofessionals to veterinarians using a probit regression model. The results show that the determinants of paraprofessional referrals to veterinarians include: paraprofessional’s mobile phone ownership, gender, attendance of short term trainings, annual assessments, and membership in paraprofessional associations. This chapter argues that policy makers should invest in legislation for paraprofessionals, supervision of paraprofessionals, the expansion of mobile phone ownership by paraprofessionals, the formation of paraprofessional associations, and short term training for paraprofessionals to build and strengthen referrals from paraprofessionals to veterinarians. The question of the quality of veterinary services provided by paraprofessionals has been contested in the animal health service delivery literature. Chapter 5 examines this question by using a role play experiment to analyze how the interaction of farmers and service providers influences the quality and demand for clinical services. The quality of clinical services is measured by scoring the accuracy of a service provider prescribing the appropriate drug for selected endemic animal diseases in each of the game’s four rounds. Statistical tests establish whether the quality of services provided by different types of paraprofessionals and veterinarians differ. Learning curves for service providers are constructed to examine whether the quality of services provided by paraprofessionals improves as they continue to interact with veterinarians. Belief updating curves are constructed for farmers to examine whether they change their beliefs about paraprofessionals after receiving information about the quality of they (farmers) receive from service providers. A probit regression model for binary panel data is estimated to determine the factors that influence farmers’ decisions to change service providers. The results show that the ability to identify the signs of different diseases and the accuracy of prescriptions by veterinarians is not significantly different from that of paraprofessionals trained in veterinary science. However, the ability of service providers who are not trained in veterinary medicine to perform these tasks is significantly lower than that of service providers trained in veterinary science. The continued interaction between paraprofessionals and veterinarians gradually leads to an improvement in the ability of paraprofessionals trained in general agriculture and social sciences to perform these tasks. This is not the case for paraprofessionals with no formal training or education. Farmers do not easily change their beliefs about paraprofessionals, even if they receive information on their lack of ability to diagnose diseases and prescribe drugs correctly. Belief updating depends not only on the outcome of the previous round, but also on the gender of the farmer and on the livestock production system. This paper argues that the slow pace in which farmers update their beliefs about paraprofessionals limits paraprofessionals’ willingness to learn and to consult with veterinarians. However, the use of “animal health cards” (records of diagnoses and treatments) could induce paraprofessionals to provide better quality services as well as enable farmers to measure the quality of services, thus improving the quality of veterinary services in the long run. The main policy recommendation generated from this thesis are the following: (1) There is a need for developing countries to invest and create an enabling environment that supports paraprofessionals and professional veterinarians’ relations to ensure timely reporting, treatment, and control of animal disease. This would help reduce wastes and efficiencies in animal production as well as human health risks. (2) The provision of veterinary extension services should focus not only on household heads, but on other household members as well, such as spouses/wives and herdsmen. This could contribute to improved reporting, treatment, and disease control, thus reducing the risks of animal loss and the spreading of diseases to other animals, livestock farms, and humans. (3) Stronger government engagement in the provision of veterinary services in pastoral or extensive livestock is required because the market has failed to attract private and trained paraprofessionals. Our findings indicate that the effort to close this gap by promoting community animal health workers with rather limited informal training has proven to be a rather problematic answer to this problem. This is especially true when these service providers are expected to fulfill a major role in providing curative services since this may lead to the inefficient use or potentially dangerous misuse of veterinary drugs. (4) Farmers need to be empowered to hold service providers accountable by developing and experimenting with tools, such as animal medical cards, that would enable them to measure the quality of services they receive and distinguish qualifications of different services providers. (5) Investment in veterinary education is needed to ensure that enough qualified veterinary staff (both diploma and degree holders) are available to offer veterinary services. This could be achieved by supporting and encouraging recognized universities or tertiary institutions to establish training centers in livestock producing areas and by offering scholarships targeting training community-based animal health workers or students from marginalized/pastoral livestock areas.
Behavioral economic impact on animal health surveillance system in Thailand
(2021) Kewprasopsak, Tossapond; Reiner, Doluschitz
Zoonotic diseases are a continuously significant threat to global human and livestock health (causing millions of deaths yearly). Zoonotic diseases are not only a human health threat, but also a threat to animal health and welfare. Moreover, they have a high impact on national economies and food security due to productivity and production reduction. Expanding worldwide travel and global trade increases the importance of the threat of zoonotic diseases. The increase in global meat consumption contrasts with the escalating instability of the global meat market, which is affected by the increase of livestock densities, changes in production intensity, and slaughtering systems, causing animal disease outbreaks to spread widely. This study focuses on the animal disease surveillance system in Thailand as an important world meat exporter. In 2014, the Participatory One Health Disease Detection project, or PODD was set up by the veterinary inspection authorities to test animal epidemic control systems using smartphone applications in the Chiang Mai province in northern Thailand The main objectives of this study are (i) to evaluate the economic impact of the PODD system on farmers by impact assessment (n = 177) (ii) to demonstrate the impact of monetary and non-monetary incentives on the PODD reporters by the experimental approach (n = 17), (iii) and to present the effect of the socioeconomic factors and behavioral bias on farmers animal disease reporting behavior with the logit model (n = 467). Focusing on the first objective, the results of this study concluded that there is an impact on the farmers. The technology alone cannot improve animal health security in the short-term. In the second objective, the results concluded that, in the case of the PODD reporters, the decision of using monetary incentives to motivate most of the PODD reporters has a negative impact in the long-term. Losing reporter motivation and effort reflected to the low efficiency of the digital surveillance system of PODD and no impact on farmers. Concerning In the last objective, the results concluded that the optimistic bias of farmers has a very high impact on their decision making about reporting animal diseases on their farm. Just one infected farm in the case of dairy milk farmers can spread the foot-and-mouth disease to other farms. The new digital animal health surveillance system alone is not enough to reduce the impact of animal diseases of farmers. Suitable motivation for the reports and awareness of farmers optimistic bias in animal disease reporting cannot be neglected in digital animal disease surveillance system improvement. Overall, it can be concluded that the digital animal disease surveillance system is a powerful instrument for reducing the impact of animal diseases and increasing food safety and security. However, application of this advanced technology still needs time to demonstrate the impact and to be broadly adopted by users. In terms of motivation, the monetary incentive can increase the effort of report in the short run but it comes at a high cost and has a negative impact in the long-term. While the social incentive costs less and is more effective in the long-term. Where farmers’ animal disease reporting behavior is concerned, the optimistic bias is the highest influential factor on the farmers reporting decisions, in an inverse correlation.
Behavioral economic impact on animal health surveillance system in Thailand (correct version of the dissertation)
(2021) Kewprasopsak, Tossapond
Zoonotic diseases are a continuously significant threat to global human and livestock health (causing millions of deaths yearly). Zoonotic diseases are not only a human health threat, but also a threat to animal health and welfare. Moreover, they have a high impact on national economies and food security due to productivity and production reduction. Expanding worldwide travel and global trade increases the importance of the threat of zoonotic diseases. The increase in global meat consumption contrasts with the escalating instability of the global meat market, which is affected by the increase of livestock densities, changes in production intensity, and slaughtering systems, causing animal disease outbreaks to spread widely. This study focuses on the animal disease surveillance system in Thailand as an important world meat exporter. In 2014, the Participatory One Health Disease Detection project, or PODD was set up by the veterinary inspection authorities to test animal epidemic control systems using smartphone applications in the Chiang Mai province in northern Thailand The main objectives of this study are (i) to evaluate the economic impact of the PODD system on farmers by impact assessment (n = 177) (ii) to demonstrate the impact of monetary and non-monetary incentives on the PODD reporters by the experimental approach (n = 17), (iii) and to present the effect of the socioeconomic factors and behavioral bias on farmers animal disease reporting behavior with the logit model (n = 467). Focusing on the first objective, the results of this study concluded that there is an impact on the farmers. The technology alone cannot improve animal health security in the short-term. In the second objective, the results concluded that, in the case of the PODD reporters, the decision of using monetary incentives to motivate most of the PODD reporters has a negative impact in the long-term. Losing reporter motivation and effort reflected to the low efficiency of the digital surveillance system of PODD and no impact on farmers. Concerning In the last objective, the results concluded that the optimistic bias of farmers has a very high impact on their decision making about reporting animal diseases on their farm. Just one infected farm in the case of dairy milk farmers can spread the foot-and-mouth disease to other farms. The new digital animal health surveillance system alone is not enough to reduce the impact of animal diseases of farmers. Suitable motivation for the reports and awareness of farmers optimistic bias in animal disease reporting cannot be neglected in digital animal disease surveillance system improvement. Overall, it can be concluded that the digital animal disease surveillance system is a powerful instrument for reducing the impact of animal diseases and increasing food safety and security. However, application of this advanced technology still needs time to demonstrate the impact and to be broadly adopted by users. In terms of motivation, the monetary incentive can increase the effort of report in the short run but it comes at a high cost and has a negative impact in the long-term. While the social incentive costs less and is more effective in the long-term. Where farmers animal disease reporting behavior is concerned, the optimistic bias is the highest influential factor on the farmers’ reporting decisions, in an inverse correlation.
Integration von tiergesundheitsrelevanten Daten in betriebliche Managemententscheidungen
(2010) Fick, Johanna; Doluschitz, Reiner
For many years agriculture in Germany has been subject of changes due to economic, technical and social developments. These changes are structural, market and environmental induced. Livestock owner may react with increasing turnover and/or cost reduction to face the changes and to achieve sustained success in livestock farming. Expenditures for veterinarian and pharmaceuticals in dairy farming have a large share in the expenditures. Furthermore revenue losses due to animal diseases have to be added to the costs. Strategies to reduce costs and revenue losses can only lead to success if farmers and veterinarians act jointly. Basis for this can be an established digital information exchange between the process partners. Existing data of the process participants are used, consolidated and analysed in such a digital information exchange. Previous activities to improve the animal health were mostly partial solutions of individual members of the process chain. These are partial solutions due to the fact that the existing data are not brought together and that the use as an entity is not possible. The available software merges the animal health data and the animal performance data merely partial. The target of this research focuses on the integration of relevant data on animal health in operating management decisions by conception and development of an IT-model. This IT-model links relevant but distributed, incomplete, and redundant animal health data of the process participants (farmer, veterinarians, and professional associations) in livestock farming. So this contribution shall improve the use of animal health and animal performance data. Thereby issues of veterinary medicine and dairy farming will be joined by using information technology (IT). The procedure is structured in drafting the principles, an analysis of the status quo, and a market- and potential analysis consisting the use and application of sector software by farmers and veterinarians. It is followed by the conception and development of the animal health system and the conception of the implementation with a first product test. To answer the research questions of this paper a process model has been developed which was used as methodical frame. Different explanation strategies were necessary and therefore qualitative and quantitative methods of social research were used.
Non-invasive welfare evaluations in horses : the usefulness of laterality
(2020) Marr, Isabell; Stefanski, Volker
Animal welfare is becoming increasingly important, especially for animal owners. In particular, prey animals such as horses generally suffer in silence. To improve the evaluation of animal welfare in practice and to simplify it in scientific research, new welfare indicators are needed that are easier to assess, less time consuming, and repeatable. Therefore, this thesis aimed to investigate laterality as a welfare indicator that could meet these requirements. Domestic horses were used as model organisms as they display sensory and motor laterality on individual and/or population level; their sensory organs are placed laterally, non-invasive stress hormone analysis is already well-established, as a highly social animal that evolved on open ranges it is prone to suffering from inappropriate human management regimes, and it displays various stress responses. In STUDY it could be demonstrated that a shift to an enhanced preference for the right brain hemisphere was in line with increased stress hormone concentrations in faeces. Sensory laterality and motor laterality measured while grazing, shifted to the left when natural needs were restricted by a change from group to individual housing. Sensory laterality changed immediately after the change of housing conditions, whereas the motor laterality changed with a time delay of one week. STUDY 2 demonstrated that motor laterality measured as initial forelimb use correlated with the cognitive bias (welfare indicator). Right-sided horses were faster to approach an ambiguous stimulus and therefore displayed a positive cognitive bias. But neither motor laterality, measured through grazing stance, nor sensory laterality were related to cognitive bias. STUDY 3 demonstrated that a preference for left side sensory organ use is not only evident in negative contexts but also in positive contexts, because the horses also preferred their left side during affiliative interactions that are assumed to induce positive emotions. This study demonstrated that not only the direction of shift in laterality, but also the context of the shift, should be recorded to reliably identify poor or good welfare. Therefore, it is recommended that additional stress parameters be applied to reliably evaluate animal welfare. STUDY 4 investigated whether the sampling and analysis of faecal stress hormones and immunoglobulin A could be simplified by applying a novel conservation method. Often it is not possible to immediately freeze the faecal samples and/or the transportation to the lab is lengthy. The study demonstrated that faecal samples can be dried a closed system such as an air-tight tube containing silica gel. The samples were dried within 24 hours, as fast as in controlled air-drying conditions at room temperature. The new and simpler drying method prevented the stress hormones (glucocorticoid metabolites) from enzymatic degradation and conserved them, demonstrated by the fact that the detectable concentration remained unchanged. In contrast, immunoglobulin A showed a reduction in the detectable concentration. Therefore, if possible, the conservation of faecal samples should be avoided when immunoglobulin A is to be analysed, although it would be possible to apply an extrapolation to attain fairly reliable results. This new drying method will simplify research on wild horses into the type of stressors they are confronted with, the impact of natural stressors, and effect of stressors on, for example, their laterality in comparison with domestic horses. STUDY 5 investigated whether the strength of laterality provides insight into basal physiological and immunological status, stress response, stress reactivity, or cognitive bias. Only a correlation between age and the strength of laterality was found, with strength of laterality increasing with age. However, age could explain only 30 per cent of the inter-individual variation in strength of laterality. The results demonstrated that the strength of laterality is not a reliable indicator of animal welfare. The direction of laterality may be of greater importance. Altogether, it was demonstrated that laterality is a promising, reliable, repeatable, and objective indictor of animal welfare, which is quick and easy to asses, and inexpensive. Like other well-established welfare and stress indicators, laterality has its limitations. Therefore, it is recommended that other welfare indicator should be simultaneously assessed and changes in laterality recorded, as different traits and personalities result in a high inter-individual variation in base laterality indices. Possible influences and correlations between emotional processing and cerebral lateralization are discussed. Nonetheless, further research is needed to establish a more reliable measurement of motor laterality, and to better understand the relationship between emotional processing and lateralization, as well as possible influencing factors.
Vergleich zweier Mastschweinehaltungssysteme - Beurteilung der Tiergerechtheit
(2004) Bea, Wolfgang; Jungbluth, Thomas
Housing systems for fattening pigs nowadays have to meet a variety of demands concerning the social, political and productional situation. Especially systems, which allow the cost-saving use of existing buildings, an up-to-date production and meet at the same time the needs of the pigs as well as the environment. This shows interesting alternatives to conventional housing systems. The object of this work was a comparison between two housing systems for fattening pigs, concerning animal welfare. A conventional system (VSP), with forced ventilation, underfloor extraction and fully slatted floor, which was enhanced concerning the animal welfare through more space for each fattener and through building in an occupational technique. Compared to compartment VSP was a far more developed, alternative housing system (GK), which stands out through separated climatic areas, natural ventilation and kennels. The conception of the alternative system GK was based on the conversion of existing housing systems with forced ventilation. Both methods were installed parallel. Both housing systems were identical concerning the animals origins, the animal-care, the feeding, the occupational possibilities, the slurry management and the room measurements. Both studies were carried out close to practical scale. Examined were aspects of the lying behaviour, the belly nosing, the playing and explora-tional behaviour, the influences on the tegument, the health, the soiling of the fatteners and pen floors and the performance of the fatteners. The lying behaviour of the animals, concerning the total period of lying was in tendency shorter in compartment GK, than in compartment VSP. The place of rest changed with in-creasing temperature through the different climatic areas from inside the kennels to the other functional areas of the pen. Due to the forced ventilation in compartment VSP, no change of resting place was possible. The lying position changed with increasing inside temperature in compartment GK, not so in compartment VSP. No relation at all could be detected between indoor gas concentrations and the resting position or position of the snout inside or outside the kennels. The Belly Nosing, which is judged as a substitute for explorational behaviour, could be observed significantly more often and for longer periods of time in compartment VSP, than in compartment GK. Playing behaviour could be observed in both compartments from 30 - 35 kg and 70 - 75 kg live weight. Fatteners with around 110 kg live weight showed playing behaviour only in compartment GK. Statistically, frequency and duration of the playing behaviour could not be distinguished in both compartments. The exploration at the social partners did occur extremely less frequent and less long in com-partment GK, than in compartment VSP. This shows that in the well structured pens of com-partment GK, the fattening pigs normal behaviour concerning exploration is far more frequent. The occupation technique in both housing systems were attractive to the animals throughout the fattening period, but wasn´t frequented as often in compartment GK, than in compartment VSP. The duration of explorational actions could statistically not be distinguished. The exploration at the pen equipment seemed to be equalled with the exploration at the occupation technique. Under the aspect of health cough and medication were examined. Any statistical differences between the two housing systems could not be found. This means, that also in free ventilated systems, healthy animals can be kept. The animals gained with over 800 g per day a very high performance in both housing systems. The tendency to a better performance could be detected in compartment GK. The examination of both housing systems showed in aspects of the lying-behaviour, the Belly Nosing, the playing and explorational behaviour, slight advantages in the compartment GK due to separate climatic areas and the structured pens concerning a realization of animal friendly solutions, in comparison with compartment VSP with fully slatted floor and forced ventilation. The damages occurred at the undocked tails of the animals, as well as the heavy soiling of the penfloors and the fatteners themselves in compartment GK, show the necessity to better the dimensions and the structure of the pens. In conclusion it can be established, that the alternative housing system GK with natural ventilation, separated climatic areas and kennels seems to be very good and suitable under the given, very positive circumstances of the examination to comply with the requests of animal welfare. Nevertheless were the results of compartment VSP concerning the examined parameters under the given, very good experimental conditions, better than expected.