Is animal health management of cattle herds consistent with environmental concerns?
Résumé
The preservation of a good animal health and the preservation of the environment are both considered as public goods, and they are at the core of livestock farming. Hence, the sustainability and the competitiveness of the livestock production sector do not only rely on economic performances, but also on its ability to reach high levels of environmental and health performances. While farm production decisions may affect at once the income, the herd health and the environmental externalities, the potential spillover effects (positive or negative) of farmers' decisions between these three pillars of sustainability are rarely addressed in the literature.
The focus of this paper is to shed light on the possible complementarity or technical competition between environmental and sanitary objectives set by cattle producers. We aim at highlighting the determinants of environmental and health performances at the farm level. This permits to link farm types (e.g. among the degree of intensification of livestock farming) and their environmental and animal health externalities. Our research approach relies on the elaboration of (i) a theoretical model with externalities. While environmental externalities are often theoretically modeled, to our knowledge, externalities associated to the animal health
management are rarely considered, especially when considered jointly with environmental externalities, (ii) a spatial econometric model of simultaneous equations revealing the farm performances, using farm level French data for cattle producers, and concerning common bovine diseases (mastitis, lameness). Results of the estimations are expected to show how the environmental and health policies in livestock production are inclined to generate obstacles to the farm performances and competitiveness, or whether animal health benefits (resp. environmental) can be expected from environmental policies or practices (resp. health).