EGF Working Group “Grazing” 2022

Date: Sunday 26th June 2022 (10.00 – 17.00).

Location: Caen University, Campus 1 , Esplanade de la Paix.

Costs (organisation, room, coffee/tea, etc.): between 30 to 40 euros, and added to the global EGF General Meeting costs when registration. The lunch will be taken in the many small and friendly restaurants in the Caen City Center. The cost is to be borne by each participant.

Aim: The aim of the meeting is to learn from the experiences in projects and related activities, and to use these experiences to improve future collaborations. The meeting will consist of a limited number of short oral presentations followed by discussion sessions. If you would like to contribute with a short presentation, please contact the chair of the Working Group “Grazing” Agnes van den Pol-van Dasselaar (a.van.den.pol[at]aeres.nl).

Registration: The meeting is open to everyone. You can register when registering for the full meeting.

Main topics

The 7th meeting of the EGF Working Group “Grazing” will cover three important topics:

• State of the art with respect to grazing from 2010 to 2022
• Grazing and animal health
• Grassland innovation

Grazing and animal health

Grazing affects animal welfare. Welfare includes aspects that are relatively easy to measure, such as health, and also intangible aspects such as emotions and feelings. An important aspect of animal welfare is natural behaviour. Grazing literally provides the space for natural behaviour. But looking at health there are both positive effects of grazing and negative effects of grazing. We would like to discuss both the technical and ethical/socio-economic aspects of grazing in relation to animal welfare and animal health in a European setting.

Grassland innovation

Practice and science should work together to ensure the implementation of innovative systems on grasslands and to increase the profitability of European grassland farms and preserve environmental values. We would like to discuss the following items:

• ‘Best-practice’ innovations: examples of co-created innovations or new approaches that consider the adoption in grassland practice right from the start of the R&D process
• Methodology for knowledge transfer and co-creation in the grassland research and practice communities
• Developing innovation networks at local/regional/national/international level

The organising committee is looking forward to meet you in Caen!
Deirdre Hennessy (Teagasc), Johannes Isselstein (University of Göttingen) and Agnes van den Pol-van Dasselaar (Aeres University of Applied Sciences)