SusAn 117 Freewalk Develop economic sound free walk farming systems for animal welfare, health and manure quality appreciated by society

The FREEWALK project aims at developing improved farming systems for dairy farming. The project is a collaboration between researchers in eight European countries (Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway). In the project, we compare compost bedding pack barn (CBP) system to conventional cubicle housing (CH). In CBP systems, the cattle or dairy cows have access to areas inside the barn with a deep bedding managed in a way that facilitates composting processes in the bedding material. The housing system do not have cubicles. The system requires more area per animal, but the buildings can be made simpler. The compost bedding system potentially has some benefits for animal health and welfare, but the project has also uncovered some potential problems that needs to be addressed for the housing system to be a good and viable alternative to conventional systems. The method used to compare the two systems is multi-criteria analysis. The first step using this method is to define the criteria or indicators to be used in the evaluation of these alternatives. We used a group of experts to define the most important indicators to evaluate the housing systems: animal welfare, consumer opinion, ease of handling the herd, herd profit, milk hygiene, nitrogen efficiency. The relative weights of these indicators in the analysis, were decided by asking farmers what priority they would give each of these indicators if they were to decide on a new housing system for dairy production. In total, we got feedback from 230 farmers evenly distributed on eight European countries. There was large variation among farmers with respect to the relative priority assigned to the indicators used to assess and compare the two housing systems. The indicator given the highest priority by the farmers was animal welfare followed by milk hygiene. Next followed ease of handling and profitability. Nitrogen efficiency and consumer opinion were ranked as the least important indicator. The performance of CBP and CH with respect to the six indicators were evaluated using data from forty pilot farms included in the project. The pilot farms were in Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Sweden and the Netherlands, and these farms were equally distributed on the CBP and CH housing systems. The CBP had a higher performance score on animal welfare compared to conventional cubicle housing, but it should be noted that both housing systems had their strength and weaknesses with respect to animal welfare. CBP scores better on welfare indicators related to comfort around resting, but some farms with CBP housing system had significant issues related to cow hygiene. CBP performs slightly worse than CH with respect to the milk hygiene indicators used in this project on both the somatic cell count indicator and the cleanliness of the udder indicator. Farmers from both housing systems gave similar assessments on how easy or difficult it is to handle the cows in the barn. The mean score for ease of management was slightly higher in CH farms, but the difference between housing systems was not statistically significant. Consumers favoured CBP over CH when asked in a survey conducted as part of the project among 3693 consumers in seven European countries. Consumer opinion was the indicators with the largest difference between the housing systems. The CBP has higher annual costs compared to CH but the differences in total costs are nevertheless small. The largest difference is related to building costs which are estimated to be 30% higher for CBP as compared to CH. The larger requirement for area per cow in CPB is an important reason for the difference in building costs but it should be noted that there are large variations related to the choice of materials and technical solutions. There are also large variations in building costs among countries. The CBP housing system also has higher costs related to bedding materials and management of the bedding. The costs of bedding materials in conventional cubicle housing is about one third of the costs in CBP systems. CBP has lower costs related to mastitis and lameness when compared to CH but the differences are nevertheless small relative to total costs. In CBP systems, longevity of cows are higher and this entails lower replacement costs (i.e. costs for rearing heifers). The climate and environmental effects of the barn system are represented by the criterion nitrogen use efficiency. In the project, nitrogen and phosphorus calculations have been prepared based on empirical data from a total of eight farms - half with CBP and half with CH. The results indicate that the nitrogen efficiency is somewhat higher in traditional loose housing barns, but because the data base is small and the differences are small, we cannot draw definite conclusions about differences between the barn systems for this indicator.

VIRKNINGER FOR PROSJEKTET SINE DELTAKERE Prosjektet har vært nyttig for prosjektdeltagerne fra NIBIO. Både med tanke på å bli en del av et større internasjonalt nettverk og med tanke på å utvikle kompetanse. Prosjektdeltakerne fra NIBIO har fått økt kompetanse om tverrvitenskapelig forskning, multikriterie-analyse og fjøssystemer. VIRKNINGER FOR MÅLGRUPPER OG BRUKERE Et viktig resultat fra prosjektet er helhetlig vurdering av ulike fjøssystemer. Vurderingen inkluderer kompostfjøs som er et nytt og innovativt fjøssystem. Denne helhetlige vurderingen (gjennomført ved hjelp av multikriterie-analyse) vil være nyttig for flere målgrupper som mjølkeprodsenter, rådgivningstjenesten og politikere. Vi planlegger oppslag i Buskap eller Norsk landbruk basert på vitenskapelig publisering i prosjektet. Videre skal NIBIO skrive et notat som skal brukes i WP7 (ledes av University of Ljubljana) for å lage et policy brief.

Aim of this project is to further develop economic sound free walk cattle farming systems, which improve animal welfare and soil structure, utilize waste products and have public support. As innovative housing systems, the compost bedded pack barn and the cow garden are applied with a completely free walking and lying area and are compared with cubicle barns for reference. The bedded pack barn uses organic waste materials as bedding. It has the potential to elevate the welfare and longevity of animals and improve soil quality. The highly innovative cow garden has an artificial floor of several layers and is self-cleaning while separating manure and urine. Both housing systems are combined with grazing during the summer season. Our approach will deliver an integrated assessment of case farms spread over Europe, using experimental and modelling methods to evaluate systems performance. Housing as part of intensive and extensive farming will be examined in a holistic context, encompassing the whole farm: bedding, artificial floor, animal welfare, health, manure quality, soil structure, CPN-balances, and product quality. Greater insight in the composting process plays a crucial role in the success of the system. Societal appreciation of the Free Walk farming system and products is assessed at regional level. To integrate the results of the various research activities, a systems analysis and economic evaluation will be performed at farm, national and European level. The project consortium includes 8 leading research institutes plus 4 SME stakeholders all over Europe, providing a wide coverage of disciplines. This project targets the three call topics 'improve productivity, resilience and competitiveness', 'reduce waste and enhance environment', and 'improve on-farm practices enhancing consumer acceptability and societal appreciation associated with animal welfare and product quality.