More efficient use of resources (e.g. land, labour, feed, fertilizer, fossil fuel and water) is one of the biggest challenges to face dairy farming in Europe, directly affecting competitiveness, social acceptability, environmental sustainability and biodiversity/habitats. Through the application of best practice, and practice-based innovation, EuroDairy aims to improve the efficiency of dairy farms in the use of resources, in order to increase technical performance, improve profitability and reduce environmentally damaging emissions to air and water.

"The resource efficiency use" was the theme of the EuroDairy Workshop organised on September 13 2017, on the experimental farm of Derval (Pays de la Loire, France).

Work done on the environmental optimization of the Derval dairy farm, combining automatic milking and grazing, was presented and discussed with a delegation from 9 countries. Topics included nitrogen use efficiency, the carbon footprint of the milk, and the on-farm practices to improve them.

More information on the workshop is available to download here: