Browsing by Author "Nyholm, Cecilia"

As the grazing decreases on farms in Finland, and we face several challenges with restoring different ecosystems such as natural grasslands, we need new innovations. One recently introduced technology, virtual fencing, has been evaluated for its effect on animal health and wellbeing around Nordic countries and Europe. However, there are few studies examining farmers’ opinions on the technology, which is important to determine if the technology will be implemented in practice in the future. This master thesis therefore examined dairy farmers opinions on virtual fences. The objectives of the study were to investigate if the producers knew what virtual fencing was before taking part of the study if they have a positive or negative view of virtual fencing and if they could consider using virtual fencing for their cows in the future. The background factors such as the number of dairy cows, field area, education and age were also investigated to see if they affected the results. The study used quantitative methods to evaluate the responses to a survey and results were analysed with Chi-Square tests to study possible factors affecting the answers. As equipment, Webropol was used for making the survey and IBM SPSS Statistics for analysing results. The survey was sent out by email to Arla and Valio producers, on social media and other channels. There were 119 respondents in total, and they represented demographically all Finnish dairy farmers well. The results indicated that around 60% of the respondents knew what virtual fences were beforehand, that over 50% thought that the technology is positive and around 45% could consider using the technology in the future. None of the factors investigated (including number of dairy cows, field area, education, and age) had a significant relationship with respondents’ opinions about virtual fences. Although some minor statistical relationships were found, their effects were minimal and followed no clear pattern. The respondents thought the technology would have benefits in grazing difficult pasturelands and to decrease the workload while individual learning difficulties and bad mobile network were considered as challenges. In the open answers, there were concerns to increased wolf attacks with virtual fences due to the lack of a physical barrier. The study suggests there is an interest regarding virtual fences among dairy farmers and, therefore further studies within the technology would be important to eventually legalize it in Finland in the future. As further studies, opinions among other animal producers as well as physical tests on different herds would be recommended.