The first two years of the CowficieNcy project were dedicated to training participants in model use and the development of laboratory protocols to provide feed analyses with low variability between laboratories. Some project participants were trained during secondments in feed analysis and model use, while others were involved in comparing current laboratory protocols and the harmonisation of techniques for future use. In the first part, most partners participated in knowledge transfer on model use (especially that of CNCPS) and a dedicated workshop took place in Barcelona (Spain) organized by the project partner Autonomous University of Barcelona. The workshop was held on four different dates and trained sixteen participants, comprising students, researchers and other academic staff. Furthermore, the need to train participants, other professionals and students on CNCPS diet formulation led to the development of a specialized long-term web-based seminar at the University of Thessaly in Greece. The seminar run for three years involving twenty-eight professionals and students from Greece, Cyprus, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Field work was an important element of the CowficieNcy project allowing us to develop links with the dairy industries of Greece, Italy, Spain and the UK. A detailed on-farm sampling and data collection protocol allowed us to define nitrogen use efficiency through diet evaluation and whole-herd nitrogen balances. A total of 64 dairy farms across countries involved in the CowficieNcy project. Specifically: (1) 20 in Greece, (2) 20 in Italy, (3) 14 in the United Kingdom, and (4) 10 in Spain. Following the assessment of the current N status, all involved farms received a written report describing their nitrogen status and suggesting ways of improvement. As expected, only portion of these were willing to implement suggested changes, reaching an overall acceptability of 12.5 %. In these farms the holistic nutritional management scheme was implementing increasing milk nitrogen use efficiency for 5 units (from 29 to 34 %).
Furthermore, a significant part of our on-farm work is dedicated to heifer growth. Even though the on-farm data development for this part of the project was more difficult than that for lactating cows, a set of farms from Italy and Greece were recruited to the study. Analysis with both the CNE and CNCPS models revealed that growing animals contribute significantly to overall nitrogen use efficiency of dairy farming and that holds potential for improvement. This can be achieved through accurate feeding that will adjust offered diets to actual needs of different growth rates and growth stages.
Besides the scientific part of the CowficieNcy project significant efforts were directed to dissemination activities. The main target groups (scientists, professionals, dairy and feed industries) were reached through a series of conference participation and targeted workshops. Members of the consortium participated in the annual EAAP international meeting, where a major part of CowficieNcy outcomes was presented. In addition, with the objective to reach dairy farmers we realized that is more efficient to develop local workshops rather than target more international ones. Such workshops were organized by the University of Thessaly in Greece, where it received permanent characteristics since it took place the last four years, even during the Pandemic, where a virtual meeting took place. Furthermore, the scientific community was also reached by peer-reviewed publications. Even though this stage needs more time to be concluded since several articles are under review or need more work to be finalized, four peer-reviewed research articles are already published.
