Policy recommendations from the Fitter Livestock Farming cluster are available

Over the last 2 years, Feed-a-Gene and 5 other H2020 EU projects have merged in the Fitter Livestock Farming cluster for enhanced communication towards stakeholders. Policy makers have particularly been targeted. After the seminar "What R&I can deliver to support climate mitigation and adaptation in livestock farming" directed to policy makers, in Brussels, in November 2019, the cluster decided to write its policy recommendations in a policy brief. The hot topics are the following:

• have research groups and stakeholders working together to build Community and Impact. This could be achieved through EU incentives like "high level" topics -like livestock and climate change- to which EU projects should participate to increase their interactions with stakeholders. It could also be useful to encourage farmers to be involved in projects or clusters of projects.
• encourage sharing of knowledge. Incentives are required to facilitate incorporation of data from on-farm technologies.
• insist on the use of up-to-date technologies and techniques.The livestock industry must be encouraged to use more integrated technologies like precision farming, and more science-based decision support tools for reducing the environmental footprint. Farmers and producers should to be encouraged to use practical tools through targeted subsidies and the society should be better informed about the advantages that novel technologies will offer (e.g., in terms of environmental footprint, animal welfare, precision medication).

Click here to read the full policy brief