BovINE is coordinated by TEAGASC - AGRICULTURE AND FOOD DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

BovINE will tackle urgent sustainability challenges faced by beef producers by bringing together beef farmers, farming organisations, advisors, researchers and all relevant actors across 10 member states to close the divide between research and innovation in Europe. There are 255,000 farms in the EU bovine meat sector, yet no network focused solely on their needs has been established to date. Coordinated by Teagasc (IE), BovINE is built around the multi-actor approach to implement more intense cooperation between researchers, advisors, farmers and relevant actors to facilitate greater exchange and acceptance of co-created solutions. BovINE draws on the EU, national and regional connections of the 18 consortium members to appropriate networks, on the four related key themes of socio-economic resilience, animal health and welfare, production efficiency & quality and environmental sustainability.

OK NET ECOFEED is coordinated by INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE MOVEMENTS EUROPEAN UNION REGIONAL GROUP

The overall aim of OK-Net EcoFeed is to help farmers, breeders and the organic feed processing industry in achieving the goal of 100% use of organic and regional feed for monogastrics, in particular pigs, broilers, laying hens and parents of broilers and laying hens.
In the last two decades, the market for organic food has shown steady vigorous growth in most parts of Europe and this growth is still accelerating. A key objective of organic farming is the closing of nutrient cycles, but it is difficult to achieve. To a large extent, feed and livestock production, in particular of pigs and poultry, are concentrated in different regions, and animal feed (especially proteins) has to be imported from regions far away. In addition, organic organic farmers have difficulties in sourcing protein feed of organic quality. The lack of organic and regional feed threatens both the sustainability of organic agriculture as well as consumers’ confidence.

HENNOVATION is coordinted by UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

Using the laying hen sector as a case study, we aim to demonstrate the potential for practice-driven innovation networks, supported by existing science and market-driven actors, to develop practical cost-effective solutions to sustainability challenges. Multi-stakeholder networks will develop technical innovations to injurious pecking and the management of end-of-lay hens concerns based on practice, economics and scientific information. A generic “support package” of communication web based tools, facilitation guides and on-line training programmes, designed to help science and market- driven actors, will then be available to support practice-driven innovation networks in other livestock sectors. Finally we will develop policy recommendations that help realize the full potential of practice-driven innovation through multi stakeholder networks in livestock sectors.

4D4F is coordinated by INNOVATION FOR AGRICULTURE

The Data Driven Dairy Decisions for Farmers (4D4F) thematic network will focus on the role which dairy animal and environmental sensors can play in collecting real time information to help make more informed decisions in dairy farming.
The network will develop a Community of Practice comprised of farmers, farm advisors, technology suppliers, knowledge exchange professionals and researchers who will work together to debate, collect and communicate best practice drawn from innovative farmers, industry and the research community to facilitate the co-creation of best practice. The results will be communicated to farmers using best practice guides on the use of sensors and data analysis tools supported by videos, infographics and an online virtual warehouse of dairy sensor technologies.