Twenty years of research and development on work in livestock farming: achievements and prospects

Abstract

Transformations in work with livestock are structural, due to the increasing size of farms. They are sociological: livestock farmers want to have better working conditions. Technologies that aim at better efficiencies push changes in work as well. Livestock farmers integrate all these transformations and adapt their herd and land area managements while reorganizing the other components of work organization (equipment and workforce). The work models proposed by livestock scientists, with borrowings from economics, ergonomics, and agronomy, consider that neither the work nor the workers, nor the periods of the year are equivalent. They try to connect the different facets of the farmer's work (that of the technico-economical manager, work organizer and sensitive operator)and make it possible to qualify work organization and assess its efficiency and flexibility. The propositions have been taken up by advisors in France and abroad. They contribute to the emerging community of research, extension and education which has been created over 20 years around this theme, which is strategic for the future of livestock farming.