Search

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

International audience; This paper presents the over-arching latest advances of the multi-actor approach project, TechCare, which aims at developing appropriate early warning systems and business models using innovative technologies to improve welfaremanagement in EU small ruminant production systems. Small ruminants play a key socio-economic role in Europe, especially in harsh environments where innovative technology is not yet commonly adopted. Small ruminants are oftenmanaged as a flock/herd, allowing only average welfare states to be considered. Innovative technologies are a unique opportunity to improve small ruminant welfare management at the individual or flock/herd level, along the valuechain. To this aim, in each participant country, stakeholders will be involved to prioritize the most relevant welfare issues and corresponding indicators. In a second step, they will contribute to assess an array of country and productionsystem-tailored innovative technologies and early warning systems with potential for managing the prioritized welfare issues. These will then be tested on pilot farms in different conditions and validated at large-scale. The best performingtechnologies and systems which successfully pass all these steps will be evaluated for their viability in terms of business models. Whilst other consortium authors will present details of specific project activities (namely – stakeholders’engagement, welfare challenges identification and innovative technologies inventory), this paper focus on presenting preliminary activities and goals of the project to ensure awareness to a wide range of small ruminant stakeholders.

Infections with parasitic helminths (nematodes and trematodes) represent a significant economic and welfare burden to the global ruminant livestock industry. The increasing prevalence of anthelmintic resistance means that current control programmes are costly and unsustainable in the long term. Recent changes in the epidemiology, seasonality and geographic distribution of helminth infections have been attributed to climate change. However, other changes in environment (e.g., land use) and in livestock farming, such as intensification and altered management practices, will also have an impact on helminth infections. Sustainable control of helminth infections in a changing world requires detailed knowledge of these interactions. In particular, there is a need to devise new, sustainable strategies for the effective control of ruminant helminthoses in the face of global change. In this paper, we consider the impact of helminth infections in grazing ruminants, taking a European perspective, and identify scientific and applied priorities to mitigate these impacts. These include the development and deployment of efficient, high- throughput diagnostic tests to support targeted intervention, modelling of geographic and seasonal trends in infection, more thorough economic data and analysis of the impact of helminth infections and greater translation and involvement of end-users in devising and disseminating best practices. Complex changes in helminth epidemiology will require innovative solutions. By developing and using new technologies and models, the use of anthelmintics can be optimised to limit the development and spread of drug resistance and to reduce the overall economic impact of helminth infections. This will be essential to the continued productivity and profitability of livestock farming in Europe and its contribution to regional and global food security. View Full-Text