BovINE, an EU-funded knowledge exchange project for European beef farmers, says identifying and validating tools for calculating and improving environmental sustainability and biodiversity on beef farms is one of its priorities for 2022.Other areas the group is focusing on this year include securing a fairer distribution of the price paid along the beef supply chain, the use of alternative feed stuffs in order to reduce the high costs of beef farm input costs and tools and strategies to improve meat quality.
BovINE, an EU-funded knowledge exchange project for European beef farmers, says identifying and validating tools for calculating and improving environmental sustainability and biodiversity on beef farms is one of its priorities for 2022.
Other areas the group is focusing on this year include securing a fairer distribution of the price paid along the beef supply chain, the use of alternative feed stuffs in order to reduce the high costs of beef farm input costs and tools and strategies to improve meat quality.
BovINE aims to connect beef farmers across Europe by providing an open platform, the BovINE Knowledge Hub, where they, their advisers, farm organisations and researchers can exchange knowledge and share experiences of farm innovative and proven practices. Each country participating has a BovINE network manager.
The network has decided its priority areas for 2022 following farmer engagement through national and international meetings.
The project’s four themes for this year include socio-economic resilience, animal health and welfare, production efficiency and meat quality and environmental sustainability.
Good practices
Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) representative and BovINE Irish network manager Kevin Kinsella said: “Our beef farmers welcomed the opportunity to share their views and highlight their needs for information, guidance and good practices to support their journey towards sustainability.”
The BovINE network in Ireland will be hearing further from farmers and sharing good practices and new information with them at their national network meeting to be held in autumn 2022.
To receive up-to-date information on the national meeting, contact Kevin Kinsella via kevin@agspace.ie.
BovINE project manager Richard Lynch of Teagasc also said that practical demonstrations on local beef farms to create “farm-ready” good practices will be arranged.
For more information on BovINE and to sign up for the project’s newsletter, see here.
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