Smallholder farmers in low-income countries face a number of challenges in animal production. Animal husbandry carries great potential in reducing poverty, hunger and gender inequality, but at the same time infectious diseases are prominent threats to farmers? livelihoods and their animals. The objective of this study was to investigate the socioeconomic impact of infectious animal diseases on smallholder farmers in low-income countries, using African swine fever (ASF) in Uganda as an example. The study was conducted in two parts. The first part of the study was questionnaire-based and performed in Gulu district, northern Uganda.

The aim for this study was to investigate if it is less stressful for cow and calves in loose housing systems when separation is made so they can see and touch each other (Physical Contact-PC) instead of just hearing each other (Hearing Contact-HC). The behavior of eight cow- calf pairs (n=4 pairs per treatment) on an ecological dairy farm with cubicle housing were studied for four hours directly after separation and four hours the day after separation. The first four cows that gave birth were used for treatment PC, and the following four cows that gave birth were used for treatment HC. The only selection criteria used was that both cow and calf were healthy. Separation took place 3-4 days after birth and the calves were put separately in two different pens while the mothers were let loose into the cubicle system.

Today, pigs are moved on farm, between farms, between countries and to abattoirs. This movement of live pigs requires handling practices that are designed for the purpose. The objective of this study was to research the use of paddle in moving pigs, to investigate if there were different methods of paddle practice, explore the time efficiency of different kinds of paddle use and if there were any time variations in methods that varied in intensity of touch. This study was done on two Swedish abattoirs for a total of five weeks. A total of 22 transporters working at two different abattoirs where studied during unloading of pigs at the abattoirs.

A variety of food is produced and passes the whole chain by processing, transport and trade and finally it ends up with the consumer. But in many cases, the food is disposed before it is eaten. Some of the produced food does not even pass the whole entire chain before it turns to waste. The question about food waste in debates is a case of access to food for every human beeing. It is question of consumption of the resources, waste management and an issue of environmental impact.

In today's Sweden there are approximately 23 000 combination companies, and most of them have a connection with the agricultural sector. The most common type of additional operation is some form of contracting.The aim for this degree project is to answer the following question: which problems and key factors exists within combination operations? The main topic will be within coordination and management questions within agricultural companies with an additional operation.Litterateur written earlier within this subject will be used in this thesis. Mainly litterateur which contains information about combination companies and diversification of some sort. There are also other theories used in this thesis such as; resource based theory and decision making theory in order to understand the problems and key factors within combination companies.In order to investigate the aim of this thesis we have chosen to perform two qualitative interviews with the managers of two different combination companies.

Det här är resultatet av ett examensarbete utfört vid Mälardalens högskola i samarbete med Iggesund Paperboard AB. Syftet med examensarbetet var att se om det är viktigt för ett företag att ha tillgången till en gästgård men även till hur de är utformade för att fungera för den typen av verksamhet.En gästgård kan ses vara viktig för ett företags representation. Gården används främst som ett tillvägagångssätt för att sälja företagets varor och tjänster men ger också en god möjlighet till att knyta starkare band mellan kunder såväl som mellan företagets egna arbetstagare.Anledningen till att det här examensarbetet utfördes var för att företaget såg det som ett behov att se över om dessa gästgårdar var värda att bevara och utveckla i framtiden. En utredning gjordes därför genom besök och jämförelse av tre olika gästgårdars verksamhet och utformning för att se hur viktig en sådan gård kan anses vara för ett företag. Som ett resultat av denna utredning har därefter ett förslag till en utformning av en bättre fungerande arbetsmiljö vid Hedvigsfors Herrgård tagits fram.

The structural rationalization of rural firms in Sweden has led to many new creative ways of developing companies. The agriculture sector is characterized by the need of capital in form of buildings, labor and inventory. The rationalization process has led to free capacity in rural firms when new technology make buildings and inventory not longer necessary for the production process. To get a better cost coverage this free capacity can be used to start-up new business areas that help the rural firm to growth.The study aims to identify factors that motives entrepreneurs in rural firms to develop new business areas. The purpose is also to analyze driving forces that lies behind development of rural firms and the forces that support or not support development in rural firms.The study is built upon five cases that all can be categorized as firms with different size and orientation.

Grid codes are becoming more demanding on power generating units due to the factthat the complexity of the power grid is increasing. The penetration of wind powerhas grown over the last years and it is clear that wind farms need to be addressedwith the same type of grid codes as conventional generation units. There is howeveran undeniable difference between the technology in conventional synchronousgeneration units, and the asynchronous generation units in wind farms.This thesis has reviewed the current grid code in Sweden and compared it to the newcode proposed by ENTSO-E, ?the Requirements for Generators?, in the aspect ofwind farms with an installed power of 30 MW or more. The comparison has beencomplemented by an analysis of how wind farms of two different technologies(Doubly fed induction generators and full power converters) can meet therequirements and technical proposals have been given on how to be able to meetcompliance with the new grid codes.The Requirements for Generators contains many non-exhaustive and optionalrequirements, because of this it has been difficult to, at this stage, exactly point outthe technical impact on the grid connection of future wind farms in Sweden.

When farm animals are transported there are several factors that can affect their welfare. If the vehicle has an accident the welfare of the animals transported will probably be compromised. The aim of this study was to make a survey of accidents with animal transportation vehicles in Sweden. The survey included the number of accidents from January 2000 to May 2014, the cause of the accidents and how the animal welfare was affected by the accident. The authorities which were likely to have reports about accidents involving animal transports were contacted. There were no collected records about transportation accidents and the authorities referred to eachother for information.

Den svenska regeringen satsar på småföretagande på landsbygden som omfattar bland annat gårdsbutiker och livsmedelsförädlande företag. Uppsatsen studerar denna bransch i Stockholms län och för att hitta de underliggande faktorerna till framgång används en kvalitativ studie. En serie intervjuer med Herrvik, Järna Mejeri, Nilssons Köttaffär och Saltå Kvarn bygger upp det empiriska innehållet och från dessa intervjuer studeras vilka strategival som gjorts inom respektive fokusområde. Med hjälp av produktklassificeringarna bekvämlighetsprodukter, preferensprodukter, shoppingprodukter och specialitetsprodukter dras slutsatser om företagens förmåga att hålla sig till sin målklassficering.Analysen visar att Saltå Kvarn, det företag som har vuxit sig störst, hör till klassificeringen preferensprodukter och har i princip optimal strategi över alla fokusområden. Enda avvikelsen är i marknadsföring.

Swedish agricultural businesses are facing challenges in order to achieve long-term profitability. The opportunity to improve profitability and efficiency on farm level may be enhanced by management. One way to work with leadership is to use Lean. It is a management system that aims to improve competitiveness. Currently, there is a project where Lean is implemented into 100 agricultural firms.

Today a trend can be seen towards fewer dairy farms and increasing number of cows per farm. Larger farms set a higher demand of more labour efficient milking systems. The time to enter and exit milking rotary platforms is crucial to maintain a high cow throughput. This study is a project initiated by DeLaval in order to evaluate the cow throughput and cow behaviour during entry and exit in two types of parallel external rotaries with different bail designs. The two rotaries compared were DeLaval parallel rotary PR2100 and PR3100HD.

Cattle have a species specific movement pattern when lying down and getting up. They need sufficient space for their heads to perform these movements normally. The aim of this study was to investigate the lying down and getting up behaviour of beef bulls at a Swedish farm operation. The hypothesis was that bulls older than 10 months (over approximately 400 kg) were disturbed by a horizontal front rail and that the time to lie down and get up differed from what can be regarded as normal based on earlier scientific studies. The bulls were Swedish Red and White (SRB), Swedish Friesian (SLB) or crossbreeds of these two, and were kept in a cubicle system with a stall front design where there was a horizontal rail 40 cm above the stall floor.

Indications on poor understanding for the animal producers situation from the inspectors of animal welfare control have been seen in papers from farmers interest organizations. The aim of this study was to investigate what farmers view is on the animal welfare inspections done by regional Swedish authorities as well as the animal welfare inspectors work. The study investigated whether or not there were any differences between different counties in Sweden. There were also questions asked to see what animal producers thought could change in the animal welfare inspectors work so it would benefit them. The study was conducted using a telephone interview questionnaire.

Bakgrund: Antalet patienter med ångest ökar och orsakar ofta ett lidande för patienten. Sjuksköterskan har omvårdnadsansvar att lindra detta lidande. Olika djurterapier förekommer i vården för att behandla olika besvär, till exempel Animal Assisted Activity (AAA) och Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT).Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka vilken påverkan djur har på patienters ångest. Metod: Studien har genomförts som en litteraturstudie baserad på kvantitativa studier(n=12).Resultat: I samtliga studier framkom en sänkning av ångest vid djurterapier och i sju av studierna var det en statistiskt säkerställd sänkning. Resultatet visar främst en sänkning hos patienter som vårdas inom psykiatrin men även patienter inom den somatiska vården påverkades positivt av djuren.Diskussion: En sänkning av patienternas ångest visar att djur inom vården har en lugnande inverkan.