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.