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Start-up financing of professional pest control in pig farming in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany

BACKGROUND: Due to the risk of spreading epizootic diseases through rodents, pest control is mandatory in pig farming in European countries. However, there is limited research focused on rodent control practices, usage of anticoagulant rodenticides, and the acceptance of Pest Control Operators (PCOs...

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Autores principales: Hecker, Odile C., Boelhauve, Marc, Mergenthaler, Marcus
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6166279/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30288296
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40813-018-0099-0
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author Hecker, Odile C.
Boelhauve, Marc
Mergenthaler, Marcus
author_facet Hecker, Odile C.
Boelhauve, Marc
Mergenthaler, Marcus
author_sort Hecker, Odile C.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Due to the risk of spreading epizootic diseases through rodents, pest control is mandatory in pig farming in European countries. However, there is limited research focused on rodent control practices, usage of anticoagulant rodenticides, and the acceptance of Pest Control Operators (PCOs) in pig farming in Germany. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate current control practices in pig holdings and to analyze the potential of a financial support on the implementation of professional pest control. RESULTS: Data were collected from monitoring records of PCOs and personal interviews with farmers and PCOs. 33 of 47 farmers, who were offered the possibility to outsource rodent control to PCOs supported by financial contribution of the North Rhine-Westphalian Animal Disease Fund (TSK) for a period of 2 years, joined the project. Despite the widespread opinion that the professional would not be beneficial – the authors figured out that farmers could financially benefit in time saved and by improved rodent control measures from the work of the PCOs. Costs of pest control measures per operation on average did not differ significantly between costs incurred by employment of PCOs (1.310 € per year) and calculated costs that arise by farmers themselves (1.217 € per year). All PCOs used Difenacoum and Brodifacoum against pest infestations. In doing so, the infestation with rodents was reduced and most of the participating farmers assessed the project as successful and employ the PCOs permanently. However, mapping the farm locations to resistance areas of the Rodenticide Resistance Action Committee (RRAC) shows that Brodifacoum was frequently used in areas which are marked as areas that are at low risk or rather have no risk for resistance. The environmental risks, however, are increased in these areas. CONCLUSION: The instrument of temporal start-up financing professional pest control allows ensuring the continuous engagement of PCOs after the project period. This could possibly lead to long-term effects on the individual farm hygiene and on disease prevention. Nevertheless, important research questions with regard to the application of anticoagulant rodenticides of farmers and PCOs in livestock farming and with regard to risk mitigation measures were generated, meriting further investigation. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40813-018-0099-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-61662792018-10-04 Start-up financing of professional pest control in pig farming in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany Hecker, Odile C. Boelhauve, Marc Mergenthaler, Marcus Porcine Health Manag Research BACKGROUND: Due to the risk of spreading epizootic diseases through rodents, pest control is mandatory in pig farming in European countries. However, there is limited research focused on rodent control practices, usage of anticoagulant rodenticides, and the acceptance of Pest Control Operators (PCOs) in pig farming in Germany. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate current control practices in pig holdings and to analyze the potential of a financial support on the implementation of professional pest control. RESULTS: Data were collected from monitoring records of PCOs and personal interviews with farmers and PCOs. 33 of 47 farmers, who were offered the possibility to outsource rodent control to PCOs supported by financial contribution of the North Rhine-Westphalian Animal Disease Fund (TSK) for a period of 2 years, joined the project. Despite the widespread opinion that the professional would not be beneficial – the authors figured out that farmers could financially benefit in time saved and by improved rodent control measures from the work of the PCOs. Costs of pest control measures per operation on average did not differ significantly between costs incurred by employment of PCOs (1.310 € per year) and calculated costs that arise by farmers themselves (1.217 € per year). All PCOs used Difenacoum and Brodifacoum against pest infestations. In doing so, the infestation with rodents was reduced and most of the participating farmers assessed the project as successful and employ the PCOs permanently. However, mapping the farm locations to resistance areas of the Rodenticide Resistance Action Committee (RRAC) shows that Brodifacoum was frequently used in areas which are marked as areas that are at low risk or rather have no risk for resistance. The environmental risks, however, are increased in these areas. CONCLUSION: The instrument of temporal start-up financing professional pest control allows ensuring the continuous engagement of PCOs after the project period. This could possibly lead to long-term effects on the individual farm hygiene and on disease prevention. Nevertheless, important research questions with regard to the application of anticoagulant rodenticides of farmers and PCOs in livestock farming and with regard to risk mitigation measures were generated, meriting further investigation. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40813-018-0099-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-10-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6166279/ /pubmed/30288296 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40813-018-0099-0 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Hecker, Odile C.
Boelhauve, Marc
Mergenthaler, Marcus
Start-up financing of professional pest control in pig farming in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany
title Start-up financing of professional pest control in pig farming in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany
title_full Start-up financing of professional pest control in pig farming in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany
title_fullStr Start-up financing of professional pest control in pig farming in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany
title_full_unstemmed Start-up financing of professional pest control in pig farming in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany
title_short Start-up financing of professional pest control in pig farming in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany
title_sort start-up financing of professional pest control in pig farming in north rhine-westphalia in germany
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6166279/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30288296
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40813-018-0099-0
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