Beef farmers are willing agents of change to drive sustainability of the sector confirms BovINE
For its final dissemination conference in Brussels (1st December 2022), BovINE partners welcomed online over 250 delegates from across Europe in the morning, and key EU policy-players including from DG Agri, DG Sante, Copa-Cogeca and EUFRAS to an in-person presentation in the afternoon.
Maeve Henchion, Co-ordinator of BovINE at the network project’s final dissemination project meeting in Brussels, says:
“The BovINE network project has clearly shown that farmers are a significant source of innovation in their own right, and thus play an important part in finding and implementing solutions to the sustainability challenges they face.”
Presentations by partners focused on sharing good practices and solutions from research based on the project’s four themes of animal health & welfare, socioeconomic resilience, production efficiency & meat quality and environmental sustainability.
Solutions were identified by project partners to address the grass roots needs of farmers, and collated by the project’s thematic leaders and Network Managers across the nine European countries represented in BovINE. 340 good practices are now freely available for all to access on the BovINE Knowledge Hub (BKH).
DG AGRI’s Diego Canga Fano, newly appointed lead on Research, Outreach and Geographical Indications and BovINE’s opening guest speaker for the policy session said:
“DG AGRI recognises and appreciates the valuable work of BovINE in providing evidence-based knowledge to create solutions for farmers as well as insights for policymakers and all stakeholders. BovINE’s innovations will contribute to ensuring that livestock production plays its part in securing a sustainable and circular food system.”
The BovINE partners in Ireland are the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) and Teagasc.
Kevin Kinsella Network Manager for BovINE in Ireland said “The BovINE project has shown that by working closely together at national and EU level, farmers, researchers and advisors can achieve a lot more progress in tackling the sustainability challenges in the beef sector.”
The three-year EU funded BovINE network project ends on 31st December 2022.
Information on the research innovations and good practices generated by the network and the ‘on farm’ demonstrations arranged by partners are available to access on the BovINE Knowledge Hub (BKH). The project’s website provides links to a wealth of additional resources including animations, webinars and multi-language materials accessed via the country flags of the nine partner countries.
BovINE’s Project Manager Richard Lynch concludes:
“With targeted policy interventions, and support from farm and specialist advisors, the solutions identified by the BovINE network, and freely available on the BovINE Knowledge Hub, are ready for implementation throughout Europe.”