Knowledge Transfer in Cattle Husbandry: New Management Practices, Attitudes and Adaptation

This book addresses the principles of knowledge transfer and presents a wide scale of applications. Effective knowledge utilization requires that insights developed in the animal sciences are combined with social science approaches. That is accomplished in this book. The applications focus on the adoption of new management practices in cattle husbandry. In animal sciences the emphasis is generally on the technical and zoological know-how. The organizational and personal dimensions are too often neglected as critical factors to success. Organizational aspects deserve credit, because the results of research must often be implemented in a complex chain of producer and consumer oriented organisations. Personal aspects such as attitudes and views towards the future significantly determine the chance of adopting innovations. In this book, these dimensions also receive some attention. Some more theoretical papers are followed by practical examples of implementations in the field and by descriptions of extension networks and services. A large variety of papers is presented: from the power of the researcher and consultant through the power of data banks to the power of the client and producer in the dissemination process; thus from input driven to demand driven. This book is of importance to all who deal in some way with knowledge exchange and transfer.