Herd characteristics influence farmers’ preferences for trait improvements in Danish Red and Danish Jersey cows

TY - JOUR

T1 - Herd characteristics influence farmers’ preferences for trait improvements in Danish Red and Danish Jersey cows

AU - Slagboom, Margot

AU - Kargo, Morten

AU - Edwards, David

AU - Sørensen, Anders Christian

AU - Thomasen, Jørn Rind

AU - Hjortø, Line

N1 - Accepted 21 December 2016 Published online 18 January 2017

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - The aim of this study was to characterize preferences of farmers for breeding goal traits with Danish Red (DR) or Danish Jersey (DJ) cows. A breed-specific survey was established to characterize farmers’ preferences for improvements in 10 traits, by means of pairwise rankings using the online software 1000Minds. These pairwise rankings were based on equal economic worth of trait improvements. The DR survey was filled in by 87 farmers and the DJ survey by 76 farmers. Both DR and DJ farmers gave the highest preference to improvements in mastitis, and the lowest to calving difficulty. By means ofa cluster analysis, three distinct clusters of farmers were identified per breed. Comparisons of herd characteristics between clusters suggest that farmers choose to improve traits that are problematic in their herds. This study shows that heterogeneity exists in farmers’ preferences for trait improvements and that herd characteristics influence these preferences in DR and DJ.

AB - The aim of this study was to characterize preferences of farmers for breeding goal traits with Danish Red (DR) or Danish Jersey (DJ) cows. A breed-specific survey was established to characterize farmers’ preferences for improvements in 10 traits, by means of pairwise rankings using the online software 1000Minds. These pairwise rankings were based on equal economic worth of trait improvements. The DR survey was filled in by 87 farmers and the DJ survey by 76 farmers. Both DR and DJ farmers gave the highest preference to improvements in mastitis, and the lowest to calving difficulty. By means ofa cluster analysis, three distinct clusters of farmers were identified per breed. Comparisons of herd characteristics between clusters suggest that farmers choose to improve traits that are problematic in their herds. This study shows that heterogeneity exists in farmers’ preferences for trait improvements and that herd characteristics influence these preferences in DR and DJ.

KW - Breeding goal

KW - Cluster Analysis

KW - Conventional

KW - Dairy cow

KW - Organic

KW - SOBcows

KW - GUDP

U2 - 10.1080/09064702.2016.1277550

DO - 10.1080/09064702.2016.1277550

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0906-4702

VL - 66

SP - 177

EP - 182

JO - Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A - Animal Science

JF - Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A - Animal Science

IS - 3

ER -