have important effects on biological and economic
variables.
In conclusion, most veterinary and agricultural
research is rooted in the biological perspective. However,
in this paper we provided several examples on how
information available in cattle-databases can be utilised
in a broader sense than what is often the case today.
Merging data from the biological, economic, managerial,
and social perspectives can enrich our understanding of
the farming processes and the veterinary challenges
associated with it. Looking forward, we believe more
attention should go to the farmer as manager and social
actor. Given the continuous changes facing most farmers
today, collaboration skills and problem solving abilities
will be increasingly important in explaining the
success of farming operations (cf. [14]). In short, we
need a holistic understanding of the farmer and the
farming processes.
Expanding the perspectives to study farm operations
also requires new ways of collecting information. Perhaps
more important, it calls for broad knowledge in
analysing the collected data and merging them with
biological data. Thus, we need to engage in cross-disciplinary
research-efforts. This situation calls for collaboration
between researchers from different professions just as [14,
p.7] put it: “The combined approach requires besides skills
and interdisciplinary collaboration also openness, reflection
and scepticism from the involved scientists, but the
benefits may be extended to various contexts both in advisory
service and science.” Ideally, we hope the perspectives
and illustrations presented in this paper can inspire
researchers to adopt multiple foci and to increase the use
of multi-method approaches in agricultural and veterinary
research.