The main challenges facing livestock farming and farmers' job have changed
In the last decade, the farming systems and particularly livestock production systems have structurally changed.
The farm units tend to increase in size with a rise in herd size and broadly a larger scale whereas, at the same time the workforce decreases due to, among other things, the decline of work contribution by family members and the development of wage labour (Madelrieux et al., 2008).
This trend implies an increase of administrative, technical, organizational and logistic workload for the farmers.
As a consequence, the available working time per animal has dropped, as shown in the two examples below.
Example : Example 1 : Changes in work productivity in pork production
As shown in Figure 1, there is a drastic and general increase in labour productivity in pork farming system. Over the 10 year period 2002-2012 labour productivity increased by 44% in Denmark (from 103 to 148 kg of pig carcass per working hour) and 33% in France (from 91 to 121 kg).
Example : Example 2 : Changes in working time per sow in France
Figure 2 shows that working time (hour) per sow decreased by 14,5% between 1999 and 2010 and number of sows per worker increased by 17,7 % over the same period
Note :
The context of farming is moving from production-oriented to more demand-oriented (Ondersteijn et al., 2010). Farmers are facing changes of expectations regarding their job and the way to produce animal products. Modern society, citizens and consumers, is more and more concerned about food safety, quality and traceability, efficient and sustainable animal farming, healthy animals, guaranteed animal well-being and animal productions which respect the environment (Berckmans, 2006).
Those expectations are passed on to the farmer by the animal production chains through their demands regarding animal products and production processes, that are sometimes translated into formalized specifications.
Simultaneously, farmers have their own expectations concerning their work. They have to handle possible risks regarding the biotechnical functioning of the production system (health, climatic hazards, volatility of agricultural commodities ...) in order to stay competitive and productive, and to earn a sufficient income. Furthermore, their perception of work and their concerns about working conditions have changed. For instance they are willing to organize their work differently, increasingly focusing on having more free time to spend on private activities (Dufour and Dedieu, 2010), working regular hours, taking some time off (Madelrieux et al., 2008).
The tremendous rise in the availability of new technology opens the road for huge new possibilities in livestock production.
One of the keys to meet the new consumer demands and citizen expectations is to optimize the operation of the production system through close monitoring of animals and livestock farming process, development of decision making tools facilitating farmer's work and/or decisions, improved traceability of the production process.
