Special feature of the French young bulls' value chain and associated sanitary issue to control bovine respiratory diseases
Résumé
In France, the young bulls sector has a very complex organization where beef calves are
raised by a cow-calf producer and then sold to a fattener through numerous middle men. This
organization is in favour of an increased incidence of respiratory diseases in fattening units,
and thus increased use of antibiotics.
No study allows a holistic understanding of the young bulls' value chain, in France or in other
countries. This would lead to a better apprehension of the influence of stakeholders to control
bovine respiratory diseases (BRD) and of the possible lever to improve the existing situation. In this research, we aimed at (i) describing the functioning of the French young bulls value chain and the different roles of stakeholders and institutions, (ii) understanding how the present organization influences the risk to develop BRD in fattening units, (iii) observing the existing strategies of stakeholders to control the risk of BRD and discussing some possible alternative methods.
We collected information from cow-calf producers, middle men, and fatteners relying on qualitative semi-structured interviews and on observations on field conducted in major beef cattle regions in France.
The main findings first confirmed the expected complexity of different existing commercial paths in the value chain and the role of this vertical organization in increasing risks factors for BRD. Second, there was a preventive and quasi systematic use of antibiotics which sharply reduced (i) the potential effects of technical and sanitary interdependency between the cowcalf producer and the fattener, (ii) the risk to develop BRD, when there were an increased number of middle men before fattening. Finally, main opportunities to improve sanitary health status of animals would be to (i) reduce the number of intermediaries and (ii) the number of farms of origin in weanling batches, (iii) increase the use of vaccination by cowcalf producers.