The effect of policy measures on agriculture and water quality with respect to nitrogen have been monitored on farms in the sandy regions since the early 1990s. Nitrogen surplus on dairy farms decreased by 100 kg/ha (30%) in the 1991-1999 period due to demonstration projects and the implementation of MINAS, limiting farm gate balance surplus. Nitrogen surplus on arable farms has slightly decrea...

Cattle are a natural reservoir for Shiga toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC), however, no data are available on the prevalence and their possible association with organic or conventional farming practices. We have therefore studied the prevalence of STEC and specifically O157:H7 in Swiss dairy cattle by collecting faeces from approximately 500 cows from 60 farms with organic production (OP) and 6...

Enteric redmouth disease (ERM), caused by Yersinia ruckeri, is among the most important infectious diseases in rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss aquaculture in Europe. Our aim was to analyse the persistence of Y. ruckeri strains in trout farms in northwest Germany and their dissemination between farms based on a detailed molecular and phenotypical characterisation scheme. The data on identifica...

The aims of this study were to determine the ability of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) to differentiate Salmonella isolates from different units of swine production and to demonstrate the relatedness of Salmonella between farms and abattoirs by AFLP. Twenty-four farms in the midwestern United States were visited four times from 2006 to 2009. At each farm or abattoir visit, 30 fec...

Rhodococcus equi is a gram-positive coco-bacillus and an intracellular opportunistic pathogen which causes pneumonia in foals. It is widely detected in environment and has been isolated from several sources, as soil, feces and gut from health and sick foals. The goal of this study was to characterize the epidemiological status (endemic, sporadic or no infection) of horse breeding farms from Bag...

While many studies have demonstrated that organic farms support greater levels of biodiversity, it is not known whether this translates into better provision of ecosystem services. Here we use a food-web approach to analyse the community structure and function at the whole-farm scale. Quantitative food webs from 10 replicate pairs of organic and conventional farms showed that organic farms have...

Toxoplasma gondii has frequently been named as one of the most important foodborne pathogens, in terms of its impact on human health. EFSA advised to include serological testing of pigs on T. gondii infections and audits of pig farms on risk factors for T. gondii infection (EFSA, 2011). In order to generate knowledge about the epidemiology and prevalence of T. gondii infections in pig herds we ...

The main goal of current study was to investigate the prevalence of coccidiosis in broiler farms in Hamedan province, western Iran. Chicks and fecal samples were collected in all of the 220 broiler farms in this region. All viscera were examined for gross pathological changes. The mucosa of small intestine and the caeca were examined for the presence and identification of parasitic forms using ...

trend towards farm consolidation, it is also imThe purpose of this paper is to measure the portant to know if large farms are more techextent of technical inefficiency among a nically efficient than smaller ones. Finally, it sample of Illinois grain farms using the corshould be noted that the method developed rected ordinary least squares method. Instead here can be easily applied to farm data ...

Shrimp and prawn farming in Bangladesh have experienced spectacular growth in response to expanding global demand and higher economic return. In 2011, 180 shrimp and prawn farms were surveyed in Bangladesh to estimate their production efficiency and determine factors affecting the efficiency level. The results show that there are substantial inefficiencies among shrimp and prawn farms. The tech...