Which cows do low-input and organic farms need?

Breeding cows for organic dairy systems - Which cows do low-input and organic farms need?

Breeding cows for organic dairy systems - Which cows do low-input and organic farms need?

Organic and low-input dairy farms rely on forage-based dairy cattle feeding with little supplementary feeding. However, in many industrialized countries - and also in Europe - breeding in recent decades has moved strongly towards increasing milk yield and thus also higher use of concentrated feed.

This raises questions about breeding for organic and low-input farms:

- Which cow fits which system?
- What do low-input and organic farms have to pay attention to when breeding?

In the European research project SOLID, these questions were investigated scientifically with Austrian participation (BOKU Vienna and the Bio-Institute of the HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein).
The following English-language document summarizes selected results from the studies in Austria, Northern Ireland and Finland.

Authors: Werner Zollitsch (BOKU-University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Austria), Conrad Ferris (Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute AFBI, Hillsborough, Northern Ireland, UK; Auvo Sairanen (Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Maaninka, Finland; Andreas Steinwidder (Austrian Research and Education Center Raumberg-Gumpenstein, Irdning, Austria)

Similar projects

2387: Genotype comparison

Studies on the suitability of cows of different genetic origins for low-input milk production - part of the EU project SOLID
2011 - 2014, Steinwidder Andreas