Country
Belgium
Agricultural Area
27 ha
About ERS
- Lead: Centre wallon de Recherches agronomiques - CRA-W
- Contact: Mathot Michaël and Marie-Julie Parache
- Production System: Mixed crop-livestock system dedicated to food with production of meat from cross-bred dairy to beef, vegetables, cereals and other crops.
Thematic Areas Covered
Crops Management
Forage Production
Grassland Management
Herd Management
Manure Storage and Spreading
Description
The SPoT project is a systemic experiment testing the hypothesis that, relying on agroecological levers, mixed crop livestock systems can be a solution to climate (adaptation and reduced impact), circularity and feed food competition concerns. In long term (min 12 years) independent experimental trials with various share of permanent grasslands (70%, 30% and 0 % of the UAA), we test the ability of constrained production systems (organic farming, low inputs) to be productive (food) with low impact GHG emissions.
These systems contrast with historical regional systems, mainly suckler cows relying on feed from cropped land and external inputs (fertilisers, feed).
Characteristics
We focus on implementing and evaluating synergies and trade-offs between productivity, climate adaptation, and greenhouse gas emissions mitigation in the cases of mixed crop-livestock systems under organic farming label.
Within this framework particular innovations like crossbred male fattening relying on optimized diet from grassland and downgraded crop products and long and diversified crop rotation targeting direct food production are implemented.
In the future other aspects like optimized manure management or on-site fertility improvement (nitrogen fixing species, etc.) will be considered. Production performances and potential hotspots of GHG emissions within the system (methane from cattle and soil carbon) are monitored.
