Trends and developments in organic livestock farming systems
As part of the World Congress of Animal Production in Porto Alegre, Brazil 2003, the European Association of Animal Production, arranged a session on Organic Farming. The contributions to this session and the general discussion to it, is now published in a special issue of Livestock Production Science Vol 90, no. 1 named: Trends and developments in organic livestock farming systems.
The special issue is edited by John E. Hermansen, Denmark and George Zervas, Greece and contains the following papers:
- Preface (A. Aumaitre and J. Boyazoglu)
- Organic livestock production in Europe: Aims, rules and trends with special emphasis on animal health and welfare (E. von Borell and J.T. Sørensen).
- Integration of organic animal production into land use with special reference to swine and poultry (J.E. Hermansen, K. Strudsholm and K. Horsted).
- Sustainability of small ruminant organic systems of production (A. Nardone, G. Zervas, and B. Ronchi).
- Organic dairy farming in Europe (A. Rosati and A. Aumaitre).
- Supply chain approach for sustainable beef production under Brazilian Perspective (K.E. Filho)
- Discussion at the round table discussion for the organic animal production session (J.E. Hermansen and G. Zervas).
- Closing remarks (C. Devendra)
Webpage on Mediterranean long-term crop rotations
The webpage of the MASCOT long-term experiment (Mediterranean Arable Systems COmparison Trial) can now be accessed.
MASCOT is the major long-term experiment comparing conventional and organic management for a 5-year stockless arable crop rotation of the whole Mediterranean area. MASCOT has been established in 2001 as part of the activities on organic farming research carried out at CIRAA by the University of Pisa and the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa.
Successful congress on Organic Farming, Food Quality and Health
European Commissioner Janez Potocnik gave the Keynote lecture 'The importance of research into organic and low input food production' at the 'Organic Farming, Food Quality and Health' congress in Newcastle upon Tyne.
The congress, that attracted around 750 delegates, was jointly organized by the 'QualityLowInputFood' (QLIF) Integrated project and the Soil Association the UK’s largest soil conservation, organic farming and environmental protection focused NGO.
Contributions from the QLIF project given at the congress will be highlighted in the next QLIF newsletter. However, commissioner Potocnik's lecture is already available. See www.qlif.org.
Workshop on systems development in relation to quality and safety of organic livestock products
The coming SAFO Workshop deals with "Systems development: Quality and safety of organic livestock products".
The workshop takes place in Frick, Switzerland on the 17th-19th March 2005.
Programme and possibilities for on-line registration are available at www.safonetwork.org
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