Farmers’ representations of the effects of precision livestock farming on human-animal relationships

Highlights

• The human-animal relationship is not always degraded by the introduction of PLF.

• Farmers have room to maneuver when using a tool or equipment.

• Farmers choose to either completely or partially delegate a task to the equipment.

• With PLF farmers implement different new practices to familiarize animals.

• With PLF farmers fear the loss of observation skills and dependence on the tools.

Abstract

Precision livestock farming affects the nature and frequency of farmers’ daily tasks, specifically in relation to animals. It consequently may modify how farmers consider their animals, the quality of the human-animal relationship and animal welfare. To better understand how new technologies impact human-animal relationships on the farm, a survey was carried out on 25 livestock farms in France. The farms raised dairy cows, gestating sows or broiler chickens using different equipment (sensors associated or not with robots). A qualitative thematic analysis to better identify farmers’ views on the different topics, and secondly a statistical analysis to identify if farmer profiles exist and to better understand the diversity of views were conducted. Most of the farmers expressed satisfaction about working with the new technology because their work becomes easier and allows more control over the management of the animals. Using PLF, the farmers describe a profession that has not fundamentally changed but which involves new tasks, new skills and daily schedules. Three farmers’ profiles were identified. Profile A farmers consider that one cannot talk about a human-animal relationship on their farm, and do not enjoy either touching or talking to their animals. Profile B farmers associate a good human-animal relationship with the animals’ welfare. Profile C is characterized by the central place occupied by animals and associate a good human-animal relationship with an absence of fear on the part of the animals. Farmers motivated by animals (profile C) find in precision livestock farming benefits related to animals, while the others (profiles A and B) find technical benefits detached from the animals. The farmers have room to manoeuvre in how they use the equipment; this can be seen for instance in the degree to which tasks are delegated to the equipment, which can be partial or total. Nevertheless, some farmers expressed concerns regarding the place of the new technologies on the farm, such as the risk of losing their own autonomy or their ability to observe animals and detect problems. Complementary studies could monitor these developments and contribute elements on the role of PLF in the sustainability of livestock farms.

Introduction

The human-animal relationship, which is defined as the degree of closeness or distance between an animal and a person (Waiblinger et al., 2006), develops over the course of daily interactions on a farm and expresses itself in their mutual behaviour. The relationship always exists, and may take different shapes, be pleasant or not for the animal, or for the livestock person. To study, to describe or to assess human relationship on farm, different aspects can be take into account and different disciplines used.

For the animal, the human-animal relationship is one criterion of animal welfare. In the Welfare Quality© protocols¹, the "Good human-animal relationship" criterion is linked to the "Appropriate behaviour" principle, alongside the criteria "Expression of social behaviour", "Expression of other behaviour" and "Positive emotional state" for all species. The relationship impacts an animal's health and performance. Positive interactions during physical or visual contact (touching, farmer can be seen by the animal, farmer speaking calmly...) help to build a relationship that animals perceive as positive, and instills confidence in the human. Negative interactions (painful treatments, blows, farmer shouting) build a relationship that animals experience as negative, and create fear and mistrust of the human (Zulkifli, 2004; Waiblinger et al., 2006) which expresses itself into a physical distance or closeness. When the relationship is poor, behavioural responses such as physical avoidance, fight or aggression are a result; when it is positive, there is a move toward and search for contact with the human i.e. physical closeness (Boivin et al., 2012; de Boyer des Roches et al., 2016). Approaches such as ethology, animal production and health science are used to understand the animal view on the human animal relationships on farm.

For the livestock farmer, this relationship is a factor determining his or her professional satisfaction, comfort and safety when working with animals as reported through sociological approaches focussing on the social representations of the farmer (Bock et al., 2007; Kling-Eveillard et al., 2015). Dockès and Kling (2006) define four farmer profiles based on their closeness to their animals, which is assessed from the farmer's discourse. This closeness, or distance, is not physical, but relational. This typology brings to light differences between species and between productions regarding the closeness of the farmer to his or her animals. Dairy cow farmers tend to be in the profiles where relational closeness to the animals is the most important, poultry farmers in the profiles most distant from the animals, and sow farmers are distributed among the different profiles. To understand and describe human animal relations from the livestock farmer view, ergonomic approach is used focusing on human work in interaction with the animals, observing the physical closeness or distance chosen or implemented by the farmer to interact with the animals. Other approaches are also developed, for instance psychology. We do not detail all possible approaches.

In this relationship, any improvement benefits both partners, impacting the farmer's daily work and the animal's welfare, and ultimately the livestock farm's economic performance (Lensink et al., 2000; Hemsworth and Coleman, 2010). Likewise, any deterioration in the relationship will negatively impact both partners.

As reported by Hostiou et al. (2017) in dairy production, the human-animal relationship is directly modified by any change in livestock farming conditions, particularly the arrival of sensors, automated machines and new technology, which is referred to as precision livestock farming (PLF). The impact on the farmer's work depends on whether the change involves an automated machine capable of replacing the human in the performance of a task, or a sensor which provides data on the parameters of the environment or the animal itself. Equipment combining sensors with automated machines reduce human-animal interactions the most (Hostiou et al., 2017).

With PLF, automated machines take over certain tasks that were previously done by farmers, and consequently directly influence farmers’ interactions with their animals and thus the human-animal relationship (Driessen and Heutinck, 2015; Schewe and Stuart, 2015). Moreover, the production of new, instant and readily accessible data on biological parameters and animal behaviour can influence how farmers perceive their animals and modify their direct observations of their animals, particularly by reducing their occurrence (Hostiou et al., 2017).

Farm size influences the reasons farmers to equip themselves. When herds are large or growing in size, becoming equipped with sensors and automated machines reflects a desire to increase productivity and save time (Allain et al., 2016; Gargiulo et al., 2018). Cornou and Kristensen (2013) have shown that the combination of new technologies and an increase in the size of a pig farm led to a change in how information is managed. The size of the herd also changes the daily interactions between a farmer and his or her animals (Boivin et al., 2012).

Furthermore, farmers do not all use the tools in the same way. Allain et al. (2016) demonstrated that among dairy farmers equipped with heat sensors, some delegate the task entirely to the equipment and directly contact the inseminator as soon as an alert is sent on a cow, while others begin by first verifying the information, going to see if the cow signaled is actually behaving in a way characteristic of a cow in heat.

Lastly, the development of tasks linked on one side to computers and new technology and, on the other, to equipment and automated machines, can impact how farmers experience and think about their professions, and consequently their job satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Cornou, 2009).

However, the new technology does not necessarily create greater distance between humans and animals. It can enable new relationships to develop, for example, when farmers with milking robots move frequently and calmly through their herd to maintain the machines and rub shoulders with their animals (Lagneaux and Servais, 2014; Wildridge et al., 2020). Furthermore, several authors (Butler et al., 2012; Schewe and Stuart, 2015) have shown a diversity between farmers with regard to the consequences of PLF on work organization and thus on the farmer's profession.

The present paper aims to present the results of a study conducted in 2016 using a sociological approach on the human-animal relationship on farm. This topic is rarely addressed through qualitative interviews which makes possible a better understanding of human animal relationship from the farmers’ views. Most researches focus on the link between farmer practices and animal welfare or animal reactivity to humans. Some assess farmer's attitudes through a closed questionnaire, while our research is based on semi-directive interviews with open-ended questions which enable to collect a variety of viewpoints and thus to understand the different representations of the speakers on a given topic.

We studied the diversity of farmers' representations of their profession and the human-animal relationship in connection with PLF (Kling-Eveillard et al., 2017). Interviews were conducted on farms in three animal sectors (dairy cattle, pigs and poultry). In this study, we chose not to examine the changes that have occurred with the arrival of PLF tools (to do so, we would have had to conduct interviews and observations before and after the equipment was installed). Instead, we chose to explore the farmers' subjective vision and social representations of these impacts based on how they have experienced them. The aim is to understand how they currently were experiencing their work and their relationship with the animals while using these tools, and to listen to what they have to say about the changes that occurred before and after becoming equipped, and about how the arrival of the tools on the farm has taken place.

We relied in this work on the social representation concept, defined by Jodelet (1989) as “a form of socially formulated and shared knowledge intended for a practical purpose". Other works have relied instead on the concept of attitude, such as has been used in the theory of reasoned action. In particular, Hemsworth (2003) uses it in his research on the attitudes of people who work with animals. The concept of social representations is broader than that of attitudes because it considers the social nature of the determinants of both attitudes and levers of change. Examples are how farmers influence each other, or the influence of parents if they themselves were farmers.

In the first part of the article, we present the methodological choices made in terms of the equipment and livestock farms studied. We then describe the results concerning the farmers' representations of the animal, their profession, and the human-animal relationship, and then on the satisfaction in and new practices stemming from PLF. These thematic results will be complemented by the presentation of the three profiles of farmers that emerged from the statistical analysis.