On the 3rd of April, the conference ‘Regenerative Livestock: profitability and sustainability’ was held in Salamanca, organised by the Meat area of C de Comunicación together with ISAGRI. The event, which was sponsored by Nofence España and Innogando, and supported by ASAJA and UPA Salamanca, brought together 50 people (researchers, advisors, farmers and stakeholders) to analyse the impact of rotational grazing and digitalisation on profitability, soil and livestock welfare.
Dr Roberto Ruiz, researcher of Neiker and leader of the LIFE GREEN SHEEP project in Spain, opened the meeting by sharing the experience his team has gained around regenerative rotational grazing.
Ruiz highlighted that dividing farms into small plots and rotating sheep every one to three days, which mimics the natural behaviour of herbivores in natural ecosystems, has important advantages on soil health and fertility, grass production and carbon sequestration. In fact, this is one of the main practices implemented in the framework of the Carbon Action Plan designed under the LIFE GREEN SHEEP project to mitigate the carbon footprint of the flock by more than 12%.
The conference also addressed the global challenges of the sector, the key role of digitalisation and new technologies (such as virtual fencing) in the future of livestock farming, and the usefulness of tools based on artificial intelligence to improve production efficicy and environmental sustainability.
