Project description
The importance of grazing-based farms
Farmers, animals and society at large benefit from grazing-based production systems. But grazing, which helps yield high-quality food and contributes to enhancing other ecosystem services, is in decline in Europe. To hinder this, the EU-funded Grazing4AgroEcology (G4AE) project is collaborating with grazing farmers and other stakeholders to find solutions for sustainable, integrated grazing-based animal production systems. Part of this includes sharing knowledge as well as capturing, introducing and enhancing best practices and innovations to promote grazing for agroecology. The work will support farmers by fuelling their understanding about their own agroecological performance through an integrated self-assessment and encouraging them to innovate.
Objective
Grazing-based production systems have the proven potential to produce high quality food, to be beneficial to the competitiveness of farmers and animal welfare, as well as for other ecosystem services and are widely apreciated by the society. However, for many reasons grazing is generally declining in Europe, which is a threat for many ecosystem services. In Grazing4AgroEcology (G4AE), grazing farmers are for the first time at the centre of a thematic network, complementing other thematic networks such as Inno4Grass, EuroDairy, SheepNet, BovINE, HNVLink, etc. in providing solutions for sustainable, integrated grazing-based animal production systems. G4AE has 18 partners including farmers organisations, extension services, education, and research in eight countries (France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, & Sweden). The Partner Farm Network of G4AE of 120 Partner farms (15 per country) will enable the capture and implementation of best-practices and innovations to promote grazing for agroecology. Our 3-tier multi-actor approach based on co-creation and knowledge sharing will actively involve all relevant actors of the grazing AKIS including farmers, industry, education, researchers, advisors, society, etc. This will improve the uptake of the innovation capital and significantly contribute to the improvement of the transferability of best practices and innovations and will also enable cross linkage of OGs. G4AE will innovate the grazing sector by strengthening the capacity of farmers to understand more objectively their own agroecological performance through an integrated self-assessment. This will trigger farmers to strive for innovation. G4AE will boost digitalization through webinars, digital interactions, videos and media training. G4AE will provide a rich set of practical hands-on knowledge and training material for a vast community of current and future grazing farmers, available in a Knowledge & Information Management System.
Fields of science
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-CSA - HORIZON Coordination and Support ActionsCoordinator
26939 Ovelgoenne
Germany
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Participants (17)
37073 Gottingen
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R93 Carlow
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T45 F685 Cork
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
39051 Vadena
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39011 Lana
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00185 Roma
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35042 Rennes
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75007 Paris
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75012 Paris
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
750 07 Uppsala
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514 05 Langhem
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7800-502 Beja
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
7000 803 Evora
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6717 XA Ede Gld
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5223 DE S Hertogenbosch
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
400372 Cluj Napoca
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407039 Apahida
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