Maximino Portaña and his son Alejandro have a meat sheep farm with around 700 heads of Rasa Aragonesa sheep, located in the Aragonese Pyrenees near Jaca (Huesca, Spain), and included within the Cooperative OVIARAGON. They manage the natural meadows and lowlands of the area, as well as the mountain pastures in summer. The flock maintains a proper level of production thanks to the management of genetics, reproduction, dietary supplementation during periods of food scarcity, and good individual and collective production control through the SIRA reader and the Technical-Economic Management program managed by Oviaragón.
They have been participating in the LIFE GREEN SHEEP project from the beginning and in this interview they share their reflections.
Photo 1: Maximino Portaña with his flock grazing around Peña Oroel in Jaca (Huesca).
Source: Oviaragón
What’s your opinion on the implementation of these projects to evaluate the impact of livestock farming on the environment?
First of all, I think it’s great that such evaluations are being conducted to provide real and up-to-date data. Extensive livestock farming offers many environmental benefits and services, and it’s important to recognize and quantify the economic, social, and environmental costs.
How do you feel about Oviaragón, the cooperative you belong to, participating in these activities?
It is necessary for significant entities in the sector, like the cooperative, to get involved and disseminate these actions and results, making our work more visible to the society, general public and the administration, which largely remains unknown or misunderstood. We also lack a sector that, without the involvement of cooperatives like ours, which are committed to improving livestock practices, would be willing to undertake such measurements. It’s unfair that our extensive livestock farming is often demonized in the media regarding the emissions it generates, while other sectors like industrial, logistics (including energy generation, transportation, tourism, etc.) play a much more significant role. Society needs to be more aware that we produce food, which, let’s not forget, is absolutely essential.
Do you think large investments are needed to become more sustainable?
Not at all. If we produce more efficiently and in harmony with our environment and capabilities, applying ancestral techniques like grazing, we can demonstrate that we are already a sustainable activity that generates many products and services of all kinds. What’s new is that now there are methods and interest in evaluating these same actions from an environmental perspective. However, it’s also true that maintaining these livestock systems requires great human effort and often more money than the activity generates, which raises the question of where the necessary funds should come from.
Photo 2: Alejandro Portaña with his sheep in the barn. The importance of sheep farming needs to be better recognized to allow young people like him keeping on the activity.
Source: Oviaragon
After learning the initial results of your flock’s emissions, how do you evaluate them?
Understanding what innovations and how we can reduce these emissions in an economically viable and manageable way in terms of the necessary work is essential. We’ve realized that there is room for improvement in this aspect as well in our daily routines. For example, something as basic as by improving the efficiency of the feeding resources we have available so that the animal can better utilize the energy it consumes, thereby emitting less methane.
Do you think this is an opportunity to showcase the benefits of the sector?
Absolutely. The sector is interested and needs to present a more accurate and current image of who we are, the work we do, the costs in money and effort, and the benefits we provide to society. Most of the times, the society doesn’t have enough accurate and firsthand information about the importance of our sector, so they build a partially incorrect image, form distorted opinions and take actions based on it. This can be corrected with projects like LIFE GREEN SHEEP.