We aim to create awareness about the importance of dung beetles and sound farming practices for healthy agro-ecosystems
Project Rationale
The major importance of dung beetles lies in their dung burying activities which lead to improved soil fertility, aeration, water penetration and prevents the accumulation of a breeding medium for pests and parasites like flies, ticks and nematodes.
We would like to limit the use of environmentally toxic antiparasitics because their residues in the dung of treated livestock are toxic to dung beetles.
As a result, dung pads remain unprocessed, which leads to forage fouling and economic losses (for the USA: $120mil annually) and, consequently, dung-breeding parasite and fly populations explode, which leads to higher incidences of parasite infestation in livestock as well as infant mortality in people.
Farmers are faced with yet another growing dilemma - increasing tick and nematode resistance to antiparasitics, which in turn demands a more potent and longer lasting, but also more expensive, antiparasitic which has serious negative environmental consequences.
Our aim is to determine the environmental toxicity of available antiparasitics, informing the farming community on their ecological toxicity and to publicize the importance of dung beetles in agro-ecosystems.
Outcomes
Reduction of application of dung beetle toxic antiparasitics will lead to healthier dung beetle communities
Effective dung beetle communities will reduce the amount of unprocessed dung and therefore the breeding ground of many livestock parasites and flies
Pasture health and productivity will improve
Effectively, this will lead to a reduced incidence of parasite inflicted diseases of both livestock and rural people
THEREFORE: Increased health in animals and as a result, increase in annual economic turnover!!
