The drivers for anthelmintic use today are substantial and anthelmintic use has become an embedded normalised behaviour. The cheapness and easy availability of anthelmintic products has meant that New Zealand farmers have had access to easy "solutions" for dealing with parasites and minimal forward planning or system redesign has been required. Despite 30 years of messaging about the emerging issue of anthelmintic resistance, management to reduce parasitism and the need to change behaviour, farmer practice has largely remained unchanged. Traditional approaches to extension, particularly around parasite management, appear to have been quite ineffective, apart from encouraging change in anthelmintic products and a switch to use of anthelmintics in combination. More effective approaches are required. The evolving nature of anthelmintic resistance and sustainable management of parasitism require attitudes, knowledge and behaviour to change. This is a challenge for all players in the industry; researchers, manufacturers and sellers, advisors and farmers. Looking beyond agriculture to the health sector provides some insight into models of decision making and behaviour change that can inform future strategies. Features in the health belief model including concepts of self-efficacy and cues to action appear to align with the issues, challenges and culture prevailing in farming, and parasite management in particular. Programmes through which farmers have made substantial beneficial behaviour change and the lessons learnt are discussed. Effecting consistent behaviour change around parasite management will involve new approaches by all participants in the process. And the process itself also needs to change. It requires an understanding of whole-farm systems, and the consideration of all the sources of influence on the farmer and the other participants in the process. The process of knowledge sharing involving the farmer should be based on equality; each person in the process brings their own expertise and knowledge and that needs to be valued and integrated into new practices. In effect, a multi-disciplinary team approach is required through which knowledge is shared and developed, confidence and understanding is developed, practice and behaviour is reflected on and positive behaviours are given affirmation.
Small-scale farms represent about 80% of the farming area of China, in a context where they need to produce economic and environmentally sustainable food. The objective of this work was to define management zone (MZs) for a village by comparing the use of crop yield proxies derived from historical satellite images with soil information derived from remote sensing, and the integration of these two data sources. The village chosen for the study was Wangzhuang village in Quzhou County in the North China Plain (NCP) (30°51′55″ N; 115°02′06″ E). The village was comprised of 540 fields covering approximately 177 ha. The subdivision of the village into three or four zones was considered to be the most practical for the NCP villages because it is easier to manage many fields within a few zones rather than individually in situations where low mechanization is the norm. Management zones defined using Landsat satellite data for estimation of the Green Normalized Vegetation Index (GNDVI) was a reasonable predictor (up to 45%) of measured variation in soil nitrogen (N) and organic carbon (OC). The approach used in this study works reasonably well with minimum data but, in order to improve crop management (e.g., sowing dates, fertilization), a simple decision support system (DSS) should be developed in order to integrate MZs and agronomic prescriptions.
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