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The concept of antibiotic stewardship has recently gained prominence in UK and EU policy and practice as part of wider efforts to reduce antibiotic use in agriculture and respond to concerns about antimicrobial resistance. The purpose of the paper is to provide initial insights into what antibiotic stewardship might mean in practice for agricultural animal-human relationships, particularly within intensive systems. We do this by firstly outlining the anticipated implications for agricultural animals by different stakeholders. Secondly, we develop the concept of heterogeneous biosocial collectivities through engagement with the literatures on care and thirdly we apply this concept to one case study (intensive dairy) farm to explore empirically how animal-human relationships are changing in response to antibiotic stewardship. Three on-farm heterogeneous biosocial collectivities are identified, each of which coheres around a particular problem of life associated with distinctive practices of care and antibiotic use resulting in collectivity-specific responses to antibiotic stewardship. These collectivities are: the calf collectivity and the problem of immunodeficient life; the milking cow collectivity and the problem of 'stoic' life; the dry cow collectivity and the problem of fatigued life. In conclusion we point to: the uneven effects for animal-human relationships of changes in antibiotic use including in particular practices of care and their consequences; an intensification of human control over animals with variable implications for their health and welfare. The analysis raises questions for future research, in particular the need to test the assumption that reducing antibiotic use will stimulate systemic change in intensive animal agriculture towards sustainable, high-welfare, and more extensive systems of production. • Antibiotic stewardship initiatives have reduced antibiotic use in agriculture. • Attention to the implications of these changes for agricultural animals has been neglected. • We develop the heterogeneous biosocial collectivities concept to explore these implications. • Initial insights are derived from ethnographic research on an intensive dairy farm in England. • Uneven responses to antibiotic stewardship produce new relationships of care, control and risks for animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cattle and sheep breeders in the UK and elsewhere increasingly draw on genetic techniques in order to make breeding decisions. Many breeders support such techniques, while others argue against them for a variety of reasons, including their preference for the 'traditions' of visual-based and pedigree-based selections. Meanwhile, even for those institutions and breeders who promote genetic techniques, the outcomes are not always as predicted. We build on our recent use of Foucault's discussions of biopower to examine the effects of the introduction of genetic techniques in UK livestock breeding in order to begin to explore the diffuse and capillary nature of resistance within relations of biopower. We focus specifically on how resistance and contestation can be understood through the joint lenses of biopower and an understanding of livestock breeding as knowledge-practices enacted within heterogeneous biosocial collectivities. In some instances these collectivities coalesce around shared endeavour, such as increasing the valency of genetic evaluation within livestock breeding. Yet such mixed collectivities also open up opportunities for counter-conduct: heterogeneous resistances to and contestations of genetic evaluation as something represented as progressive and inevitable. We focus on exploring such modes of resistance using detailed empirical research with livestock breeders and breeding institutions. We demonstrate how in different and specific ways geneticisation becomes problematised, and is contested and made more complex, through the knowledge-practices of breeders, the bodies of animals, and the complex relationships between different institutions in livestock breeding and rearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the environmental knowledge of small-scale rural landholders and comments on the implications of this for environmental policy. The paper draws on conceptualisations of knowledge as ‘know what’, ‘know why’, ‘know how’ and ‘know who’, recognises a distinction between tacit and codified environmental knowledges and highlights the need to consider the politics of knowledge surrounding environmental issues. Both quantitative and qualitative data are reported, and are derived from structured interviews with 30 small-scale landholders who were participants in a nature and landscape conservation initiative – the Landscape Heritage Scheme – within South Devon, England. These data are used to explore the place of environmental concerns within the land management objectives of respondents; the nature and extent of their environmental knowledge; how a range of factors alongside their environmental knowledge shaped the environmental practices of respondents; and the politics of knowledge associated with the Landscape Heritage Scheme. The paper suggests that small-scale landholders should be of interest to environmental policy, prioritising environmental objectives in their land management, being relatively knowledgeable about the environment and highly responsive to environmental advice and financial incentives that support environmental management. A case is made for developing research in this area, given ongoing processes of rural demographic change and the rising importance within this of an increasingly diverse landholding population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The sustainable management of soils, while constituting an important resource conservation concern in some contexts, has been neglected in the UK. However, this all seems set to change, with implications for various actors within the agricultural knowledge system. New policies designed to encourage the more sustainable management of soils in England together with the introduction of Soil Management Plans (SMP) as part of cross-compliance under recent Common Agricultural Policy reform mean that demands on agricultural advisors’ knowledge about soil will increase. This paper reports the findings of research into the nature and extent of agricultural advisors’ knowledge about soil best management practice. Specifically, it examines the ‘know-what’, ‘know-why’ and ‘know-how’ of soils among agricultural advisors through analysis of data collected from an extensive postal questionnaire survey of 162 advisors across England supplemented by qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 64 advisors. The results show that as a community advisors are generally knowledgeable about soil best management practice and appear to be observing soil degradation, undertaking training, using guides, tools and recommending soil best management practice to a relatively large extent. The data however do indicate that different types of advisors hold different forms of knowledge to a different extent. They also reveal gaps in knowledge gained through practical experience about cultivation and using the nutrient value of manures. The paper concludes that advisors’ knowledge about soil and its sustainable management is considerably greater than earlier research on advisors’ environmental knowledge has suggested but that some areas will have to be significantly enhanced and standardised to meet the new policy challenges. The significance of the results is discussed in terms of the wider role advisors play in the transition from ‘production only’ goals towards those concerned with more sustainable practices in agriculture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]