In the EU-funded DairyMix project, partners from 10 different countries from Europe and Latin America are joining forces to assess circular mixed farming systems for dairy production.
Mixed dairy farming systems are an essential backbone of European agriculture. They produce high quality protein products based on fibrous feed resources that could not be utilized by humans or monogastric animals. Furthermore, these systems create and maintain employment in rural communities by contributing to the conservation of species and to the maintenance of traditional agricultural landscapes and biodiversity. DairyMix strives to implement a multi-criteria assessment approach while developing decision support, modelling and management tools aimed at improving the sustainability of mixed dairy systems.
Selected case studies integrating dairy, crop, and forestry systems will be used to test the effect of novel options, concepts and strategies to reduce of emissions and nutrient losses, and enhance the environmental, economic and social sustainability of mixed farming scenarios.
DairyMix will develop circularity concepts across a wide range of systems, contributing to (re)connecting livestock and crop systems by achieving synergies that result in a better use of resources. Furthermore, DairyMix will identify agroforestry practices, which are presented as a key option to promote the integrated sustainability of mixed farming systems. In this way, specific and tailored solutions that increase the integration of crop-livestock-forestry systems will be promoted.
The results obtained in DairyMix will be available to a broad audience through the DairyMix platform. This tool will present relevant results for farmers, consumers and other stakeholders interested in investigating circularity concepts applied to mixed dairy and crop production systems. The platform will integrate region specific input variables and will deliver output data that promote the sustainability of a range of mixed systems. By doing so, DairyMix intends to enable science based decision making on social, environmental and economic sustainability as a basis for the implementation of concepts for more integrated crop-livestock systems in key European and Latin American regions.
Project work started in March 2022, and the DairyMix partners met in June 2022 at the Norwegian Bioeconomy Research Institute (NIBIO) in Tjøtta (Norway). This meeting was attended in person by a broad representation of partners and online by additional collaborators. Communication between different partners was constant and intense in order to ensure a successful meeting in Norway. As a result, future lines of action in terms of the selection of case studies, sustainability (economic, social and environmental) and circularity indicators were established. For the latter, future collaboration with other projects of the same call will be explored in order to identify possible synergies. Lastly, the attendees had the opportunity to see first-hand the NIBIO research facilities in Tjøtta and to visit some of their case study dairy farms, receiving extensive explanations of the ongoing projects with the aim of fostering synergies.
