Tackling the future challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry - vTI

! Agriculture and Forestry Research, Special Issue No 362 (Braunschweig, 2012) ISSN 0376-0723
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Figure 1. Occurrence of variables as effective factors
As shown in Table, the number of effective factors per farm differed between 6 (Farms C and H)
and 12 variables (Farms G and J). Most of them were found in quite different systemic roles.
Table 1: Number of effective factors per farm
Farm G J A F E B D I C H
Number of effective factors 12 12 11 10 9 8 8 7 6 6
The variables were evaluated and ranked according to their grade of activity, represented by the
classes of systemic behaviour. By doing so, a priority list of health related factors was set up for the
individual farms. Comparing these hierarchies of impact, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (W)
achieved 0.59 (chi-square = 123.85, df = 21, p = 0.00). To a great extent this concordance was
based on similar rankings of variables, which were found in an active role either on each or on none
of the farms. Excluding these variables, Kendall’s W had a value of 0.35 (chi-square = 52.97, df =
15, p = 0.00). Thus, it can be established that the impact on animal health of most variables differed
to a great extent, depending on farm specific interconnections.
Discussion
Although the farms were operating under the same EU regulation on organic farming, quite different
factors were likely to have an impact on animal health. Hence, the improvement of animal
health is determined by the farm specific interconnections of health related variables. Furthermore,
the importance of the interconnections dispels the myth that minimum standards are sufficient to set
a high animal health standard. The detected variation in the ranking of variables is contradictory to
general recommendations relying on effects found in thoroughly defined conditions while neglecting
individual conditions and interactions between relevant factors.
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