South West Livestock Pilot final report promotes benefits of NLMD
Defra's South West Livestock Pilot final report concludes that the NLMD provided benefits to flock management and added value over and above data supplied to farmers by other methods.
The pilot aimed to establish whether there was a farmers' business case for the capture of better quality livestock management information, by evaluating the cost/benefits of accurate, timely data. It also aimed to establish successful industry-led approaches to capturing and using good quality data in order to improve management and profitability. This was particularly relevant in view of recent Common Agricultural Policy reform and the current commercial climate for farmers to increase their overall farm management performance by reducing production costs and increasing efficiency.
Beginning in early 2005 and completed in January 2007, it was delivered in partnership between Defra and the Livestock Industry and was overseen by the Meat South West Board. Twenty three South West sheep farmers and their vets were involved along with agricultural IT companies NLMD Ltd and Shearwell Data Ltd, an abattoir (HR Jaspers Ltd), Duchy College in Cornwall and IBM.
The SWLP field trial took a number of existing industry systems and joined them up within a commercial farming situation, enabling a pilot group of farmers to make better use of information about their livestock enterprises. The systems used were:
- A web-enabled Central Data Repository (National Livestock Management Database) to provide interfaces for transferring data and reports and analysis of individual and batch carcase quality and condemnation data to farmers and their vets
- Farm livestock records software (FarmWorks by Shearwell Data)
- Individual electronic identification (on farm and at the abattoir)
- Flock health planning
- Financial benchmarking
- Farmer forums (benchmarking and discussion groups).
The final report can be found at:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/id-move/register/sw-livestockpilot.htm