Megan Lewis is a PhD student at the University of Western Australia currently researching control methods of pest and parasites of livestock used by farmers across Australia.

As part of Megan’s research she is conducting a national survey about the current practices for pest and parasite control in livestock. The topics covered during this survey will include current management strategies for pests and parasites of livestock on your farm and some of the issues you may face in their management as well as your thoughts relating to other potential control strategies.

Megan is seeking livestock producers based in Australia to gain their insight. Views and responses will feed into further research that will help researchers to understand the needs of livestock farmers in Australia and may contribute to future control methods. This study aims to identify the current use of drench products and the attitudes towards related topics and issues experienced across Australia whilst highlighting the key drivers and motivations behind the choices made for internal parasite control.

Voluntary Participation and Withdrawal from the Study

Participation is entirely voluntary, and you may withdraw at any time without any explanation required. If you choose to withdraw during the survey, the data that you contributed will not be used in the survey and will be destroyed – incomplete responses will not be included in the final data. However, following completion of the survey, removal of data will not be possible due to the anonymous nature of the survey.

Participation or non-participation in this research, or subsequent withdrawal, will not affect your relationship with the research team or their associates in any way. We appreciate that everyone is busy, and therefore there is no issue if you decide to decline the invitation to participate in this study.

Your privacy

Your participation in this study and any information provided by you will be treated in a confidential manner and only shared amongst the research team listed on this document. All data collected will be kept on University of Western Australia network drives and personal, password protected hard drives for a minimum of seven years, at which point it will be destroyed. At no stage will your name or identifying details be used in any publication or presentation that arises out of this research without your prior consent.

Possible Benefits

There are no direct or immediate benefits to you or other participants from participating in this survey. However, this is an opportunity for you to contribute to research regarding current pest and parasite control practices in Australia. It is possible that this information will go on to inform future research into new control strategies that can be based around the needs of both the livestock and their farmers. The (fully anonymized) study results from the survey may be available to access in the future in the form of scientific papers, if published, or within popular media releases. It is also hoped that the final results of the survey will be made open access to allow for yourself and other livestock producers to see how pest and parasite management may vary across Australia.

Possible Risks and Risk Management Plan

There are no other foreseeable risks involved with this study.

Reimbursement

At the end of the survey, you will have the opportunity to enter a prize draw to win one of two $300 Coles gift vouchers. If you wish to enter the draw, you can submit your email address. If you are successful in the draw, you will be contacted by a member of the research team to identify the best way to send you the gift voucher. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose and will not be linked to your survey response so your anonymity will be maintained. If you are not successful in the draw, any records of your email will be destroyed. Participants will also have the opportunity to opt in to receive a non-technical fully anonymised summary of the results of our survey, once the research is complete. This will include national and state results, as well as more localised results if there are enough respondents within the area, providing you with the chance to gain insights into the attitudes and practices of other growers across the nation and also more locally to you. You will have the chance to opt in to receiving this results summary (via email) at the completion of your survey.

Name of Researchers:

Associate Professor Theo Evans, Dr Tim Kurz, Professor Raphael Didham and Dr Jacob Berson. This study is being conducted as part of a PhD project by Megan Lewis at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia. Megan is supervised by the aforementioned researchers.

Contacts

If you would like to discuss any aspect of this study please feel free to contact either Theo Evans on 08 6488 8672 or via email (Theo.evans@uwa.edu.au ) or Megan Lewis via email (megan.lewis@research.uwa.edu.au)