WP3 has developed proactive monitoring and preventive protocols and has carried out testing and piloting of the initial protocols in France and Sweden with farmers, advisors and vets. A monitoring protocol was tailored for the farm in order to adapt it to the health problems that the farmers considered important in their herds. The main conclusion of the tests was that the protocols should be adaptable to each farm. Hence, they have been revised accordingly. For 12 months, the farmer and the respective advisor met in a regular basis to implement the pro-active protocol by their own.

Finally, the technical effectiveness of the pro-active protocol was assessed by its observance, its perception and the evolution of the indicators of the animal health status, reproduction and milk performances. The testing period lasted 15 months during which each farmer and advisor were supposed to meet 4 times. All the farmers used the participatory approach to construct a monitoring tool specifically adapted to their farm. Farmers and advisors declared in the survey that they considered it had helped them to improve the herd health. However, there was no evidence for an effect of the pro-active monitoring and prevention protocols in terms of improvement in animal health.

Deliverables D3.1 and D3.2 are available for download.