Good practice:

Sustainable Intensification in Dairy Sheep Farming

Billions of people consume milk and dairy products daily, which are now considered a rich source of protein and energy. At the same time, they enable producers and all those involved in the milk value chain to develop significant economic activity. However, every part of this chain must display elements of sustainability. Moreover, the breeders, who are the foundations of the dairy sector, are now forced to adopt modern means and methods that will ensure their long-term profitability in respect to the society, the environment and the animals.
Sustainable Intensification offers a practical pathway towards the goal of producing more food with less impact on the environment, intensifying food production while ensuring the natural resource base on which agriculture depends is sustained, and indeed improved, for future generations.
Sustainable intensification in dairy sheep and goat farming, is a holistic approach, which is based on the use of the technology for the collection of productive, animal health, animal welfare, zootechnical, financial, environmental data for the development of a decision making system, that will be able to increase productivity, improve the nutrition value of the milk produced, increase animal welfare, health and resilience to diseases, increase efficiency of manure management and close our production cycle, improving the efficiency of the usage of the system inputs.

Proud farm (PF) invested on a milk recording system, environmental sensors, a weighting system for the calculation of the Income over feed cost, a weather station. PF enriched their manure with bio-stimulators to enrich the manure fertility. PF has support by animal nutritionists & geneticists.

PF average milk yield increased more than 20%, by milk recording. PF also reduced the animals’ interventions of more than 50% and reduced mortality rates at the adult sheep and also managed a significant reduction at the mortality rate of the lambs, by improving colostrum quality and organising a strict protocol for the colostrum management. PF kept fertility rates very high, eliminating any hormone intervention to the animals. PF also improved health and animal welfare.

The results of the sustainable intensified model need time effort to provide positive results.

PF has a big investment plan to expand its activities based on a specific business model. The Farm is planning to invest in dairy products from its mil and to establish the 1st primary sector incubator for new breeders, based on its experience and learning through the years. Proud Farm (PF) is financially supported by regional funds and other funds from the EU cohesion policy programs. PF is participating in RIS3 initiatives with the Region and in research projects with the University of Western Macedonia. PF business model has a big learning potential for other regions, and it is also a flexible but very innovative transferable model, especially when the farms owners in EE have strong belief in science and innovation.