DAIRYMAN

The DAIRYMAN project (an INTERREG IV B NW Europe project) aims to improve fertilisation and supplementation practices on dairy farms in order to boost their economic and environmental performances (reduction of the production costs, decrease of nitrate content in groundwater, to greenhouse gases emissions, ...).

Context

For the last decade, the dairy sector has been affected by an economic crisis which called into question farming systems sustainability. Therefore, farmers are currently adapting their resources management with the aim of reducing their production costs. At the same time, agricultural and livestock systems are subject to increasing environmental pressures. They are often pointing for their contribution to the increase of nitrate content in groundwater and to greenhouse gases emissions.

Objectives

In this context the DAIRYMAN project (an INTERREG IV B NW Europe project gathering Dutch, French, German, Luxembourg, Irish, British and Belgian partners and supported by the European Regional Development Fund) aims to improve fertilisation and supplementation practices on dairy farms in order to boost their economic and environmental performances. The partner leader is Wageningen University.

Expected results

The project is divided into three workpackages :

I. Carry out a survey of the current situation in dairy sector for the different regions involved in the project and analyse the conditions of application for the European Directives in regional legislation in order to identify alternatives that could take into account local diversity in terms of environmental conditions (soil and climate mainly) and farming systems.

II. Create a network of pilot farms gathering farms from each targeted region. This network will involve 129 dairy farms whose 21 from Wallonia. The Walloon farms will be selected and monitored by the CRA-W in collaboration with the UCL and AWE. Based on a SWOT analysis for each farm, an individual farm development plan will be drawn up for and with the farmers. The improvement of the farm system will be achieved thanks to management tools optimizing the use of inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides, feed supplements, etc.

III. Set up a network of knowledge transfer centres (KTC) in which innovations and risky practices can be tested before being transferred to the dairy sector. In this context, the CRA-W’s dairy herd and facilities will join the eight others knowledge transfer centres spread through the concerned regions. The Walloon KTC is located in the Liroux area of Gembloux.

Results obtained

A SWOT analysis has been carried out to assess the sustainability of the Walloon dairy sector. It highlights the importance to enhance efficiency and resilience of dairy farms. In fact, these ones are currently affected by the increasing production costs while the price of milk falls down. The two major ways for economical improvements are : a better input management (forage autonomy, reduction of the energy consumption, manure valorisation, ...) and a rise of added value of dairy products.
Environmental improvements (such as reduction of greenhouse gases emissions, increase of environment measures implemented by farmer and reduction of mineral balance) show positive changes in the dairy sector as well as in the other agricultural sectors.
For the social component, the high number of dairy farm cessation catches all the attention. It seems to result from the uncertainty of dairy sector, the loss of profitability, environmental and health standards more binding.
The dairyman project is also a network of 129 pilot farms. The farms are following from 2010 to 2012 around 5 themes:

Farm description
Mineral balance
Economic balance
Greenhouse gases emissions
Biodiversity

In average, the Walloon farms are characterized by an agricultural area of 93 ha including 17% of cereals, 13% of others crops and 70% of forage crops. The first analyses have shown a high variability around the average values. Indeed, a dairy farm, in the grassland area of Herve, based on grazing practices, is quite different from a farm localized in the Walloon Brabant which is mainly based on multi-crops and livestock. Therefore a functional typology is required to take properly into account these variations into a comparison analysis. The functional typology takes into account two parameters: the milk production by forage crop area (4 levels: <6500] ; ]6500-9000] ; ]9000-13000] and [13000l/ha) and milk production level by dairy cow (3 levels : <7000] ; ]7000-8500] and >8500l/VL). The Walloon farms are distributed into 9 of the 12 types which illustrates the high diversity of our farming systems.
Each farm is monitored by an adviser with who the farmer establishes a farm development plan for his farm. The latter is based on an overview drawn up at the beginning of the project. It highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the farming system and the way of improvement which could be implemented. The three main farmers’ expectations are: (i) ration optimization, (ii) manure valorisation through a better fertilization plan, (iii) reduction of energy consumption. These expectations lead to the choice of training programs and management tools designed by our European partners.
Within the Liroux-KTC , environmental and economic performances of two contrasted systems are assessed. The first one is a zero-grazing system with milk production based maize silage. The second one is a grazing system with high autonomy. Each system includes around twenty cows and hectares. Another experiment concerns the impact of legumes-grass association in crop rotation. In this experiment we assess in particular soil fertility and production cost according to three modalities: maize, legume-dactyl associations and a 6-years-rotation based on temporary grassland, maize, winter barley and winter wheat.

Contribution

CRA-W is the coordinator for the Walloon part of the project. The Centre is responsible for setting up the survey of the current situation in the dairy sector, creating a network of pilot farms and for the coordination of the knowledge transfer centre for the Walloon component. CRA-W is also the general farm performance assessment coordinator. Furthermore, it will produce a guide to promote diagnostic and implementation of a development plan for each farm involved in the project.