Abstract:

For several years now Agridata has supplied in a continuing form (the Animal Health Index) data collected at farm level on the market for non ethical Animal Health products. During this time the nature of the service and the requirements of clients have undergone various changes partly in response to changes in the market and partly as a result of experimentation and development of new research ideas and techniques. Basically the service that has evolved is of regular surveys of established panels of livestock farmers to record usage of the major types of animal health products. A parallel purchase audit was formerly also conducted but reluctance on the part of the farmers to disclose invoices and the problems of cash purchases, suppliers' discounts and VAT necessitated abandoning this audit and developing the usage survey to supply information on the values (sterling) of the various 'on farm' animal health markets. The purpose of the remainder of this paper is to discuss the earlier points made and the reasoning behind the decisions taken on research procedure and how they have been implemented in practice.