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Information System for Agriculture and Food Research

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Cattle innovation network - sustainable cattle farming in Germany, taking into account animal welfare, environmental impacts and social acceptance (InnoRind)

Project


Project code: 28N304206
Contract period: 01.05.2021 - 31.10.2021
Budget: 19,307 Euro
Purpose of research: Public relations
Keywords: husbandry techniques, milk, cattle, stable building, animal health, animal welfare

The joint project InnoRind pursues the goal of bundling the competences available in the field of livestock husbandry and building a network that uses the expertise of the project participants to develop innovative concepts for sustainable cattle husbandry in Germany. These approaches are intended to improve animal welfare on the one hand and to reduce the negative environmental impact on the other hand, but at the same time also include the economic situation of the farms and the wishes of consumers in the sustainable concepts. The resulting solutions from InnoRind will also take into account the profitability of the farms. The network aims at a comprehensive consideration of cattle husbandry and deals with the rearing of calves and young cattle as well as the keeping of beef and dairy cattle. The main topics are cow-calf contact systems, alternative fattening and marketing concepts to address the sales problem of male dairy calves as well as the transit period and the balancing of environmental impacts in the dairy barn. In the first funding phase, the status quo of cattle husbandry will be analyzed and beyond questioned critically in relation to the above-mentioned sustainability criteria and identify existing innovation potential. Based on this, in the second funding phase, projects on innovative barn construction and husbandry measures are implemented on cooperating experimental farms. On a conceptual level preventive oriented husbandry and management concepts will be developed to improve animal welfare. The results obtained can then transferred directly into practice. With this effective overall concept InnoRind will make a contribution to improving animal welfare in German cattle farming and reducing negative environmental impacts. In this context it ensures that consumers continue to be supplied with sustainably produced animal products whose origin is socially accepted. A sustainable network structure is being set up for the cattle innovation network. In addition to the establishment of a central coordination point, four subject-specific working groups will define the status quo of concepts for increasing animal welfare in cattle farming in the individual research areas of the innovation network. Building on this, innovation potentials have to be identified in the individual areas. For this purpose, a detailed literature research will be carried out and the existing experts‘ knowledge, who are involved in the project, is exchanged and bundled in an interdisciplinary manner. On the basis of the sound knowledge, the developed project ideas for the second funding phase have to be critically questioned in the individual working groups as well as in the context of the entire consortium, concretized and supplemented by further barn construction concepts and husbandry measures to improve animal welfare. The aim is to work out a total of 6 to 10 final concepts, which in the second funding phase can initially be implemented on the involved experimental farms under as standardized practical conditions as possible. The designed projects are summarized in one application from all project partners, with the project coordinator bundling all sub-projects in one application. The first starting points for the transfer of the results into practice are already shown. In addition to the project-specific exchange of information, a website is intended to promote the visibility of the cattle innovation network in public. In order to establish direct contact with consumers and other stakeholders, InnoRind is also advertised via social media.

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