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“Should we just stop fighting the beast?”: Tackling the wicked problem of surplus dairy calf management using a participatory framework
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

“Should we just stop fighting the beast?”: Tackling the wicked problem of surplus dairy calf management using a participatory framework

Sarah Bolton, K. E. Koralesky and M. A.G. von Keyserlingk
Animal (Cambridge, England), Vol.18(12), 101359
2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2024.101359
PMID: 39571421
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Published1.05 MBDownloadView
Open Access CC BY-NC-ND V4.0

Abstract

Animal welfare Beef Deliberative engagement Farmers Perspectives
Early life killing of male and female dairy calves not needed as replacements for the lactating herd poses a threat to the social sustainability of the dairy industry. However, implementing sustainable alternatives to this common practice is a complex challenge exhibiting many characteristics of a ‘wicked problem’. Addressing these problems requires understanding the needs of a wide range of actors including farmers, their advisors, beef and dairy value chain stakeholders, the public, and the animals. The aim of this study was to describe how Australian dairy farmers and advisors understand the factors affecting surplus calf management and examine how this understanding changed following interventions where participants were exposed to community and value chain stakeholder perspectives. To achieve this, we utilized a participatory framework that included longitudinal focus groups, where the same groups were reconvened multiple times, periodically revisiting the same issue, as a practical method for achieving deliberative engagement. We analyzed participants’ responses before and after the interventions were applied using thematic analysis. Responses were organized into two themes: (1) economic and practical aspects of surplus calf management; and (2) social aspects of surplus calf management. We conclude that farmers and their advisors see surplus calf management as complex and without simple solutions. Farmers are faced with numerous challenges when it comes to breeding, rearing, and marketing calves for economically viable beef markets and are often impacted at a personal level by this burden. Participants often positioned the public as naïve to the plight of the farmer, requiring education to understand and accept farming practices. However, exposing participants to community views, particularly those which included some common ground with which participants could identify, resulted in some suggesting that preserving public trust may instead require adapting farming practices to align production systems with public values. In contrast, sharing value chain perspectives had less impact. Our findings indicate that participatory processes offer a promising approach for working toward sustainable management of surplus dairy calves in a local and global context.

Details

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#12 Responsible Consumption & Production

Source: SDGs in the Output

Metrics

1 Record Views
4 Times Cited - Web of Science

InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Citation topics
3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology
3.51 Dairy & Animal Sciences
3.51.799 Farm Animal Welfare
Web Of Science research areas
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Veterinary Sciences
ESI research areas
Plant & Animal Science
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