The Walloon farmers position differently their ideal dairy production system between a global-based intensive and a local-based extensive model of farm

Dalcq, Anne-Catherine; Dogot, Thomas; Beckers, Yves; Brostaux, Yves; Froidmont, Éric; Vanwindekens, Frédéric; Soyeurt, Hélène

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0223346

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The remaining farms were intermediate. As mentioned in [ 26 ], some farms can also make a transition between intensive and extensive characteristics.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prediction of Indirect Indicators of a Grass-Based Diet by Milk Fourier Transform Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy to Assess the Feeding Typologies of Dairy Farms

Soyeurt

Gerards

Nickmilder

et al. 2022

Animals

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This research aims to develop a predictive model to discriminate milk produced from a cattle diet either based on grass or not using milk mid-infrared spectrometry and the month of testing (an indirect indicator of the feeding ration). The dataset contained 3,377,715 spectra collected between 2011 and 2021 from 2449 farms and 3 grazing traits defined following the month of testing. Records from 30% of the randomly selected farms were kept in the calibration set, and the remaining records were used to validate the models. Around 90% of the records were correctly discriminated. This accuracy is very good, as some records could be erroneously assigned. The probability of belonging to the GRASS modality allowed confirmation of the model’s ability to detect the transition period even if the model was not trained on this data. Indeed, the probability increased from the spring to the summer and then decreased. The discrimination was mainly explained by the changes in the milk fat, mineral, and protein compositions. A hierarchical clustering from the averaged probability per farm and year highlighted 12 groups illustrating different management practices. The probability of belonging to the GRASS class could be used in a tool counting the number of grazing days.

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“…The remaining farms were intermediate. As mentioned in [ 26 ], some farms can also make a transition between intensive and extensive characteristics.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prediction of Indirect Indicators of a Grass-Based Diet by Milk Fourier Transform Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy to Assess the Feeding Typologies of Dairy Farms

Soyeurt

Gerards

Nickmilder

et al. 2022

Animals

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In particular, forage maize, which is often associated with a quest for productivity and high input use (Lebacq et al 2015), has gradually gained in importance in bovine systems in Belgium and all over Europe (Peeters 2009;Natagora 2020;Reinsch et al 2021). Finally, current studies in Wallonia have primarily focused on the dairy sector (Lebacq et al 2013(Lebacq et al , 2015Lessire et al 2019;Dalcq et al 2020), with a lack of studies on the sustainability of the beef sector.…”

Section: Research Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for diversity while assessing sustainability: insights from the Walloon bovine sectors

Riera

Duluins

Schuster

et al. 2023

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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Livestock production is confronted with significant challenges across all dimensions of sustainability. There is an urgent need to identify sustainable livestock systems that are environmentally friendly, economically viable for farmers, and socially acceptable. To this end, diversity assessments and data-driven indicator-based sustainability assessments can be helpful tools. These two mutually reinforcing approaches each have their own dilemmas and strengths; however, their combination is not straightforward. In this paper, we propose a method that simultaneously assesses the diversity and sustainability of production systems within one agricultural sector, without compromising either aspect, while overcoming the dilemmas of diversity and sustainability assessments. We test our method on the Walloon dairy and beef sectors (Belgium) and base our assessment on data from the European Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). We apply relevant classification criteria to the sample farms to group them into production systems. The core data was complemented with calculated environmental indicators to perform a comprehensive sustainability assessment, including structural, socio-economic, and environmental indicators. Our results confirm the importance of complementing sustainability assessments with diversity assessments. Our case study results show that a diversity of livestock systems coexist and that it is possible to overcome trade-offs between economic and environmental performances. Extensive grass-based systems present the best combination of economic and environmental results, which highlights the importance of preserving grassland resources at the regional level. The proposed method proves effective to improve the relevance of FADN data and supports the ongoing call to transform the FADN into a more comprehensive database that satisfactorily covers all dimensions of sustainability.

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Developing ‘Smart’ Dairy Farming Responsive to Farmers and Consumer-Citizens: A Review

Henchion

Regan

Beecher

et al. 2022

Animals

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Innovation has resulted in more dairy products being produced with less inputs than ever before. It has also affected how animals are raised, the structure of the sector and the nature of products produced. Not all impacts have been positive. As disruptive technologies—such as precision farming and robotics—herald significant change, it is timely to reflect on the perspectives of different actors on innovations within the sector. Drawing on a review of academic literature, this paper considers farmers’ and consumer-citizens’ perspectives; as expected, their diverse knowledge, interests and values surface a range of perspectives. To provide focus to the study, it examines technologies across three stages of the dairy production cycle: breeding, feeding and milking. It finds that consumer-citizen and farmer perspectives have been examined by researchers in several countries, using a variety of methods, across a range of technologies. It finds both areas of agreement and tension within and between consumer-citizen and producer cohorts. While differences in knowledge account for some variation, differences in values are also significant. The extent to which efforts can and should be put into addressing differences is raised as a point for reflection.

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The Walloon farmers position differently their ideal dairy production system between a global-based intensive and a local-based extensive model of farm

Cited by 3 publications

References 21 publications

Prediction of Indirect Indicators of a Grass-Based Diet by Milk Fourier Transform Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy to Assess the Feeding Typologies of Dairy Farms

Prediction of Indirect Indicators of a Grass-Based Diet by Milk Fourier Transform Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy to Assess the Feeding Typologies of Dairy Farms

Accounting for diversity while assessing sustainability: insights from the Walloon bovine sectors

Developing ‘Smart’ Dairy Farming Responsive to Farmers and Consumer-Citizens: A Review

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