De Wilt, J.G. (ed). Towards a healthy animal production in 2015. The Hague (The Netherlands), National Council for Agricultural Research (NRLO), 1997. NRLO Report 97/30.

[Original title: Naar een gezonde veehouderij in 2015]

Summary

To a healthy livestock production in 2015

de Koning, Animal Health Service

In the year 2015 livestock production and animal health management will have changed substantially. As a result of continuing liberalisation and internationalisation fewer and bigger farms will exist, which will produce mostly for regional markets. By then, the Netherlands is a big landscape park with quite a lot of hobby production. Commercial livestock production will have to adapt to its surrounding and to balance between controlling and safeguarding against animal diseases. Technological developments will contribute to these changes.

An important challenge to research is to develop a vital and "reasonable alternative" for livestock farms under Dutch circumstances. In 2015, urban population have squatted in rural areas and are now developing these areas according to images from old-fashioned picture books. For a major part the rural area is changed into an idyllic agricultural landscape and cultivated nature with a lot of hobby production. Commercial livestock production has to adapt in order to survive.

Health management is part of quality management and conducted in a managerial sound way, with ample use of computerised controlling systems. Processes on livestock farms are directed by arithmetic models. Farmers, supported by necessary equipment carry out the main functions, while sensors control the current situation. Controlling systems, directed by models, are also operational in sectors, regions or in production chains. Research should develop these models. It should offer adequate tools, define parameters and develop measuring systems for process controlling.

By 2015 there has to be a delicate balance between controlling diseases and safeguarding against diseases. The risks of the introduction of pathogens and zoonoses have increased, due to the widespread presence of hobby production, the globalisation of pathogens and zoonoses, the expected transparent way of production and the non-vaccination policy imposed by the EU. In 2015 a complete scenario on several pathogens will have been made, drawing up a sound risk analysis. An adequate 'early warning' system is used as well as effective marker vaccins and testing systems. Monitoring is used for safeguarding.

Hobby production takes place at a large scale in both cultivated nature and idyllic agricultural cultural landscape. Rational management plans and a final control system geared to hobby production are available in order to avoid risks for commercial livestock production.

Only where modern (bio)technology can contribute to developing a "reasonable alternative" or to controlling the herd's health, there are opportunities for research.

Animal health in between animal welfare and the environment

Bokma, G.J. Koskamp and E.E. Biewinga, Centre for Agriculture and the Environment

This essay explores the risks for animal health, animal welfare and the environment which may occur when developing the Dutch livestock production to the year 2015. It will also go into research that will contribute to a decrease of these risks.

The concepts of animal health, animal welfare and the environment are given a strict interpretation to avoid overlap. Animal health is related to the animal's physiology whereas welfare is related to the animal's behaviour and surroundings. Environment refers to soil, water, air, raw materials, nature and landscape.

Current livestock production has strong sides in the field of animal health, animal welfare and the environment, such as an intensive veterinary system and a high mineral efficiency at animal level. However, it has also many weak sides, for instance the concentration of animals, extensive transport, intensive housing systems, farms with little land, heavy nitrogen and phosphate losses. There are important areas of tension between health, welfare and the environment: elements that are favourable for some themes may be unfavourable for other themes. Tensions are mainly to be found in the field of food and accommodation; they arise chiefly from the policy on these subjects.

Even though there are still many uncertainties, the following developments are expected to function as a framework for Dutch livestock production in the period up to 2015:

• a decrease in the prices for animal products within the EU;
• a deterioration of the Dutch competitive position at the international bulk market;
• a considerable increase in quality assurance in the chain (chain certification) for all aspects (animal health, animal welfare and the environment);
• stricter environment, welfare and health requirements, enforced by the European and the Dutch policy;
• a decrease in the Dutch agricultural area by 200,000 hectares at the most;
• a steady increase in the average land price;
• a gradual introduction of bio-technological innovations.

Based on these developments, four types of animal production that may exist in Dutch agriculture in the year 2015 are described in broad outlines. For each type, both main strengths and weaknesses with respect to animal health, animal welfare and the environment are mentioned, as well as the perspectives for further development:

• Large-scale livestock production shows unsatisfactory results in the three fields. However, a strong point is its low cost price, serving cost-conscious consumers. The scope for development is strongly influenced by the world market for low-quality meat.
• Integrated livestock production is rather strong in all fields and has the least areas of tension. It potentially links up well with a large market of quality consumers in northern and western Europe.
• Extensive livestock production also shows satisfactory results at a broader level, however it is less strong in the field of the spread of disease and the environment. It links up with the submarket of green labels for conscious consumers. For some time, this will be a growing market, but it will never be a dominant one. In the long run this market can slacken again.
• Natural livestock production's strong points are the environment and welfare; its weak point is animal health. This kind of production will remain small in size.

Chances for the various sectors are as follows:

• dairy farming: mainly integrated farms, rather a lot of extensive farms and to a smaller extent also natural farms;
• intensive livestock production: mainly large-scale and integrated, also a small number of extensive farms;
• These four types of animal production will very likely exist next to each other.

Specific interventions can make use of strong points and can also improve weak points. This essay deals with four main strategies which complement each other:

• Chain certification is essential to all four kinds of livestock production and should be made obligatory. Certification can set specific requirements for health, welfare and the environment. Certification requirements and government policy have to be tuned to each other.
• By making a regional division, risks to animal health can be limited to a large extent. Cross-border transport will be restricted and corridors will be made between regions. For each region strict regulations will be set up to protect the environment.
• Measures against the introduction of animal diseases from abroad are essential, however they cannot exclude risks to the full 100%. The veterinary program should be able to handle introduction of diseases, for instance by monitoring, closing up regions, (marker) vaccination, etc. Costs related to outbreaks are the responsibility of the farms.
• In volume policy a generic deduction has little effect on health, welfare and the environment, yet it induces an increase in the scale of farms. A selective deduction is fairer and more influential.

Research can contribute to a useful development of the types of livestock production and the strategies that were mentioned above. Spearheads are:

• the viability of the types of livestock production and the risks of these types existing next to each other;
• the development of certification systems;
• the definition of regions;
• the contents of a veterinary programme to control disease outbreaks;
• scenarios for selective deduction of production quotas;
• breeding a healthier and stronger livestock and including impulses to achieve this in chain instruments and policy instruments;
• decreasing medicine use and screening medicines for welfare and environmental aspects;
• housing systems that have beneficial effects on health, welfare and the environment;

When the public at large (public organisations, consumer organisations and consumers) is more involved and public discussion takes place at an earlier stage of policymaking and research, this will enable the use of manpower and means in a more effective way.

An outstanding animal health status in 2015: attainable if affordable

A.A. Dijkhuizen and H.S. Horst, Wageningen Agricultural University

The economic approach with respect to animal health care is not restricted to translating technical effects into monetary values, as it is sometimes believed to be. It is a means to:

a. get a clear picture of the importance of various diseases;

1. consider current measures and scenarios and
2. explore new management and policy options.

In short, the economic approach focuses on supporting the decision-making process as directly as possible.

The kind of farms of the future as well as limiting conditions set by the government and the public will mainly determine what animal health care in 2015 should be like. Not intending to wrong the diversity of farms that will no doubt exist, in this essay we will only distinguish four groups, namely:

• farms that aim for cost leadership, by 'increasing in scale' or by 'maximising the production';
• special product farms;
• pharmaceutical farms;
• animal production in nature reserves. The market for animal health care varies considerably between these groups, both in kind and in size.

In all cases however, the central point is that animal health care will increasingly have to meet the economic principle of the costs of the last input unit (the marginal costs) just having to be compensated by the extra output (the marginal profits). Moreover, this also goes for all possible uses of inputs (for instance animal health care, breeding, nutrition, milk production, roughage production, etc.). The optimal quantity of animal health care thus also depends on other applications of the same inputs, and the profits that they generate within or outside of the farm or the sector. If this is relatively low, more can be spent on animal health care and vice versa.

All in all, the most important policy strategy for the future seems to us to help changing animal health care (and with it education and research) from an approach based on clinical diagnostics and therapy to care that is more controlled by data and information technology. This is both desired for 'normal' health care at the individual farm (the early detection of deviations in production and health of individual animals) and for controlling and quickly detecting contagious animal diseases as effectively and cheaply as possible, at sector or at international level. In all cases there is an increasing (economic) importance of speed and reliability, which cannot be realised to a full extent without the use of modern means from information technology. Future veterinarians will therefore have to be more quantitatively educated (this calls for co-operation between the Wageningen Agricultural University and the University of Utrecht); they will have to be able to handle data that may have been registered routinely and to base advise and decisions on these data. Risk analyses and economic cost-benefit calculations are an integral part of this. In addition, competition amongst veterinarians will increase considerably; not only will this result in quality improvement, but also in the 'market' increasingly controlling both education and research. After all, whichever way you look at it, future veterinarians will have to do better at increasingly less expenses.

Contagious disease control in 2015

E.N. Noordhuizen-Stassen, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

At the moment, disease control is chiefly determined by EU regulations and by measures that are consequently taken by the Dutch government. The measures are primarily economically defined: they aim at maintaining trade between member states and at achieving harmonisation of the health status within the EU. In order to realise this, a eradication strategy was adopted for most contagious diseases. Vaccination was prohibited for certain diseases. However, these measures are not sufficiently effective and efficient in the Netherlands, due to livestock farming's intensive character as well as the concentration in regions (resulting in a close contact structure). As animal disease control is based on a technocratic approach, it passes over the fact that it is dealing with living animals, which makes cause and effect of contamination more difficult to control and changeable over the time. Animal health and welfare as well as man come off badly in the current approach of disease control. Moreover, ethical norms and values on handling livestock fly in the face of the law. There is often little support by livestock sectors and the Dutch society for the measures that are taken to stop outbreaks of diseases.

In the year 2015 several strategies, embedded in integral chain control, will be adopted for controlling animal diseases. There will be an tailor-made approach to various diseases. The strategy to be pursued will be determined by factors of risk control, acceptability of risks and the public's reception of measures. Businesses will be mainly responsible for animal disease control in 2015. This self-regulating system can only be developed if the sectors are able to maintain the quality of animal health and welfare as well as ethical aspects of handling livestock. Important tools are control systems and chain certification. In order to meet possible EU or international regulations, the government will restrict itself to creating terms under which measures and rules for prevention, inspection and control of diseases (and their risks) have to be developed. These measures will be the sectors' responsibility. They should be efficient, effective, as well as legally valid. Businesses are obliged to develop these regulations and measures in consultation with representatives of all sections of the Dutch society, showing respect for man and animal. Animal disease control can only then be the businesses' responsibility when drastic structural changes in livestock sectors have been achieved. Disease control in 2015 may then focus on prevention, because the developed regulations and measures will only rarely be necessary. This will result in more support from sector and public.

Technology and animal diseases: drama or Ariadne's thread?

1. Claassen, DLO Research Institute for Animal Husbandry and Animal Health

Livestock production has become considerably more large-scale as a result of a large number of breakthroughs in the field of genetics, microbiology and the combination area of biotechnology. The success of antibiotics and vaccinations in particular caused a feeling of invulnerability, which has only recently changed, due to a combined action of several factors. Public perception of the problem, as well as the perception of the problem's causes could very well hamper a technological solution to the current situation. Essential in the discussion on technology and animal diseases is therefore the consumers' perception of livestock production in general and the acceptation of the situation as well as its final product. Animals' believed welfare (anthropomorphism) is important in this, however less important than cost, positive quality and safety (in this order). This means that product improvements as wished for by the public should be achieved by means of new technological breakthroughs. After all, in the current situation realisation of wishes on welfare, quality and safety would result in products that cannot financially compete with import articles (except for unforeseen world-wide regulations/standardisation on this matter). On the other hand, there will be an increasing product/price differentiation, with guaranteed regional origin functioning as a sale factor.

In this essay a number of promising developments will be put into this perspective. Examples of this are: animal-side-diagnostics and its impact on quicker intervention, specific therapy or quicker removal of animals. Another example is in-line diagnostics at a relevant or an economically favourable place, for instance the screening of bulk milk on paratuberculosis and slaughter house diagnostics on for instance BSE. Other early warning systems at business level will lead to behaviour that is less focused on cure and more on prevention, for instance by linking I&R and temperature registration to 'smarter' software. Prevention will be more at the level of breeding/genetics; however, in order to make this into a success more knowledge on congenital diseases and the relationship host/pathogen will be needed. From an economic point of view, a complete world-wide eradication of a number of animal diseases (cf. smallpox) is a realistic option, which seems achievable for viral diseases in particular (FMD, swine fever). A new generation of vaccines (marker vaccines, DNA-vaccines) and dosage forms are important in this. A large number of new molecular biological devices will become available from human medicine; these devices can be used for early diagnostics (combinatorial chemistry, phage display, IVET etc.). Considering the relatively limited R&D budgets, the veterinary sector will have to make better use of spin off from human pharmacy (this offers possibilities to The Netherlands that has always been strong in both fields). Moreover, the government-component in agricultural R&D as well as education should always be relatively large.

Development and application of new technologies, farming systems and production chains is an area with many possibilities for The Netherlands. The importance of the agrosector is increasingly often described as dying out; this is absurd and incorrect. The solutions to the problems are not primarily to be found in a reduction of the size, but in adapting current systems to the consumers' wishes. By an improved communication and a sensible application of modern technological possibilities the last difficulties of a manageable problem can be removed. Consumers' participation, co-ownership, and co-makership should result in a capital investment to maintain an initiating role within Europe.

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