DairyMix Annual Meeting in Milan: partners reviewed project progress, data collection, sustainability assessment and modeling. Field trip to cheese factory and farm for knowledge exchange.
From October 2nd to 4th, the DairyMix project gathered all partners in Milan for their Annual Meeting and General Assembly. The event was held at the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences – Production, Territory, Agroenergy of the University of Milan (UNIMI). In addition to the participants attending the meeting in person, the meeting was also available for digital participation for partners and Advisory Board members who could not travel.
During the meeting, the partners went through the work done in the project work packages. In particular, data collection in the case study farms was completed by August 2023; currently, the data are being quality-controlled and validated by Teagasc, INRAE and UNIMI teams. The modelling framework has been defined by UNIMI and Ruralis, and Italian farms have been used as test cases by the modelling team of UNIMI. Sustainability indicators and the framework for the multicriteria assessment have been developed in a joint effort of Teagasc, INRAE, ATB and UZ coordinated by INRAE. In the next months, the modelling approach will be extended to other case studies, and sustainability and circularity indicators will be calculated.
After two days going through the work done, having fruitful discussions and planning future data treatment and publications, the last day was dedicated to a field trip, visiting the “Torre Pallavicina” cheese factory (https://www.caseificiotorrepallavicina.it), where the DairyMix team could view the live production of Grana Padano cheese. The DairyMix team would like to thank the Grana Padano Protection Consortium (https://www.granapadano.it) for their support in organising the visit. Later, the DairyMix team visited one of the Italian case study farms, the Baronchelli Farm (https://www.aziendaagricolabaronchelli.com). Here, the farmers kindly gave us a guided tour and detailed insights of their dairy production. Close contact with farmers and the continued exchange of knowledge back and forth between researchers and the stakeholders is key for DairyMix research.
