Partners of the MixEnable project met for the first annual meeting in Darmstadt, Germany April 10-12. They discussed the progress made during the first year of the project, exchanging knowledge on how to find sustainable and robust forms of organic mixed livestock farming in Europe.
First field trials results were presented regarding alternate pasture grazing between cattle and sheep to control parasites and effects of co-grazing with cattle and broilers on parasite control and on promoting further exploration of free-range areas by broilers.
Upcoming activities that will be conducted in the different work packages were discussed, such as finishing surveys on 140 farms in seven different European countries and planning the analysis to assess the relations between farmers’ management and farm sustainability.
The results of MixEnable will be communicated throughout the project through workshops, field days, university courses, practice abstracts and videos. These will serve as tools that can be used by farmers and advisors to benefit from the research performed in this project.
Project coordinator: Guillaume Martin (guillaume.martin@inra.fr), INRA, France
Swedish coordinator: David Parsons, SLU (see below)
Keep an eye on the MixEnable Facebook account and Core Organic website for updates about the project.
Financial support for this project is provided by funding bodies within theH2020 ERA-net project, CORE Organic Cofund, and with cofunds from the European Commission
Gun Bernes, Experiment Group Leader
Department of Animal Nutrition and Management, SLU
gun.bernes@slu.se, +46(0)90-786 8744