Programme of the one-week course:

Day 1

Day 1 before lunch (Søren Østergaard, AU)

• Introduction to the course
• PhD students introduce their PhD project plan and outline elements of economics of livestock health and welfare
• Introduction to economics of livestock health and welfare
  • History of economics of animal health and welfare
  • Consumers and citizen willingness to pay (WTP) for animal health and welfare
  • Livestock production economics and basic theory of economics of controlling livestock diseases and welfare problems

Day 1 after lunch (Anne Braad Kudahl, AU)

• Tools to draft a strategy for a livestock farm with focus on animal health and welfare, carbon footprint, biosecurity and workload
• Preparation for farm visit on day 2

 

Day 2

 Day 2 before lunch (Søren Østergaard, AU)

• Basic methods and tools applied in AHE
  • Gross margin analyses
  • Enterprise budgets
  • Partial budgeting
  • Marginal costs and benefits
  • Investment analysis
  • Cost-benefit analyses
  • Decision trees
  • Optimization approaches
  • Simulation techniques

Day 2 after lunch (Anne Braad Kudahl, AU)

• Farm visit where we asses a dairy farmer’s decision-making in relation to livestock health, welfare and carbon footprint

 

Day 3

Day 3 before lunch (Mogens Agerbo Krogh, AU) 

• From epidemiological studies to economic analyses
• Implication of study design and statistical analyses when retrieving parameters for your economic  analyses of animal health and welfare
• Introduction of herd cases to be used for subsequent simulation modelling

Day 3 after lunch (Peter Thorup Thomsen, AU)

• Example of aggregation of biological scientific evidence as input to economic analyses
• Case: cow mortality, risk factors and prevention strategies

 

Day 4

Day 4 before lunch (Jonathan Rushton, University of Liverpool)

• The role of AHE in development of public regulation of the livestock production

Day 4 after lunch (Søren Østergaard, AU & Anne Braad Kudahl, AU)

• Working with outline of students' individual report

 

Day 5

Day 5 before lunch (Vivi Mørkøre Thorup, AU)

• Using Big Data and Machine learning techniques to monitor the status of the animal and the herd
• Assessment of value of information from precision livestock farming techniques
• Exercises

Day 5 after lunch (Jehan Frans Ettema, SimHerd A/S)

• Herd simulation modelling as a tool in economics of animal health and welfare
• Presentation of the SimHerd dairy cattle herd simulation model
• Using various types of herd data as input for analyzing alternative management strategies
• SimHerd exercises
  • After this lecture you will be able to use SimHerd on your own in your projects.

Programme of a two-day follow-up course: Presentation and discussion of course assignments