By David R. Yáñez-Ruiz, CSIC

It is currently composed of six associations: Murciano-Granadina, Malagueña, Florida, Payoya, Blanca Andaluza and Negra Serrana. They include about 300 farms with goats and a census of more than 101,000 dairy goats. Such holdings are spread throughout the Andalusian region. Andalusia has over 1,100,000 dairy goats, representing approximately 40% of the national census. With over 235 million liters of milk, it is the largest producing area, with 50% of the Spanish production, which shows the importance of this species in Andalusia.

The main objectives of the Federation are:

• The representation, management and defense of the particular interests of the ssociations which is comprises, representing them in meetings that are conducted to collective bargaining, the approach of collective labor disputes, social dialogue and institutional participation in public organizations within labor administrations.
• The conservation and improvement of the goat breeder associations that constitute it.
• Promoting goat breeds represented.
• Access to all types of grants of local, provincial, regional and national character and in the European Union aimed at the preservation, enhancement and promotion of goat breeds in question.
• Promote professional, educational and cultural development in order to maintain and increase the level of preparedness and operational efficiency, optimizing the communication vehicles and systems around us.
• Contribute to the defense and promotion of economic and social interests which they represent.

CABRANDALUCIA develops many activities to achieve such objectives. Probably the most important is the organization of the Spanish National Goats Forum, which every year gathers specialists in goat production systems from many parts of the sector: farmers, nutritionists, veterinaries, cooperatives, policy makers, etc. This year the forum was held in Seville and dealt with issues such as the challenge of addressing aflatoxin contamination in feeds and milk and the opportunity in the sector to expand in new markets such as China and India, where an increasing demand of goats milk is occurring.

As part of the SOLID project CABRANDALUCIA’s role involved assisting and working together with colleagues at CSIC to undertake the rapid assessment tool as an exercise to evaluate the sustainability of ten dairy goat farms in Andalusia. This also included
holding two farmers’ meetings to discuss the outcomes from the assessment and to identify future research priorities within the project. As a result, CABRANDALUCIA and CSIC organized a one day workshop on ‘Nutritional strategies for the Dairy Goat sector’ at the Institute of Animal Nutrition (CSIC, Granada, 12 March 2013) where 125 people (including
farmers, advisors, scientists and local policy makers) attended.

We are currently involved in conducting the on-farm trials as part of WP 1 and 3 to evaluate the feasibility of introducing agro-industrial by-products in dairy goat feeding.

There are 150 Romanian Black Spotted cattle, of which about 80 are dairy cows. Animal housing is based on a free stall design, with centralized milking parlour and basic facilities for compound feed processing (grinder, homogenizer). The milk is marketed locally for the production of various dairy products (cheese, yoghurt, etc.).

The main purpose of the crop production is to provide feed for the animals, with the surplus being marketed as raw materials. On the 600 ha of agricultural land alfalfa, corn (both for silage and grains), barley, sunflower and oats are produced amongst other crops. In line with the farms attempts to provide protein from local sources, they also cultivate some pea and soybean crops. Therefore, the farm buys only mineral-vitamin premixes
and, when the prices are good, some by-products (brans, brewery wastes, etc.).
The farm uses a low-input approach with average milk production up to 5000 l / lactation, low levels of concentrates in the animal diets and low use of chemical fertilizers. However, the diets are properly balanced, the owners being aware of the importance of protein, mineral and vitamins; this shows that they are open to implement technical information
and novelties, which displays an innovative approach. Consistently, the owners are open to
running various projects – e.g. a SAPARD project for farm modernization in 2005.

The main role of Agro-Solomonescu in the SOLID project is to test the effects of several by-products in the diets of dairy cows, under farm conditions.

Thus, under the guidance of the Romanian research partner, the National Research-Development Institute for Animal Biology and Nutrition (INCDBNA), they will assess the effects of Camelina meal and grape marc on the yield and quality of milk, intake level, etc. Also, the effects on dairy products will be investigated, in the endeavour to develop new foods.

Also, Agro-Solomonescu is involved in the identificationof the research needs, dissemination of the results and assisted the Romanian research partner (INCDBNA) in performing the sustainability assessment of Romanian low-input farms.

Juvan Luomu Ltd. started organic milk production and processing in 1993. There are 8 dairy farms situated in South Savo, which produce the milk for the dairy. The

partner farms of Juvan Luomu have been organic for 10 – 22 years (mean 17 years). The farm characteristics are very close to the national organic average although the farm size is considerably larger (140 hectares) than the average (70 hectares).

Stocking rate of the farms is 0.51 animal units per hectare and annual milk yield is 7 800 kg. Juvan Luomu farmers form a tight group, which shares information and ideas together, and has operational cooperation such as purchasing of organic protein supplements. They have also actively participated in several R&D projects.

Juvan Luomu is the only dairy in Finland, which concentrates solely on organic products. The annual milk production is 2.5 million litres. The products include natural and flavored organic yoghurts, which are marketed under private labels for the main super market chains in Finland.

Juvan Luomu also makes close cooperation with another dairy, Juustoportti Ltd., which produces fresh milk products and cheeses, and takes care of their marketing.

The role of Juvan Luomu in the project is to contribute to sustainability assessment of the farms, on-farm research and knowledge transfer from the project to farmers and advisors in Finland. In the sustainability assessment, the highest mean scores for Juvan Luomu farms were achieved in Farm Business Resilience, Animal Health and Welfare and Nutrient and Soil Management. Farmers considered their farm profitability to be quite good and expected it to be the same or better in the future.

In Finland, farmers actively utilize the information from advisors, farmer magazines, seminars, the Internet and even from abroad. They make economic and other plans
for their farms and have good forward vision. All the Juvan Luomu farms had health care plans which were formulated together with a veterinarian and updated it regularly. It is also notable that soils and manures are analysed on all farms and computer based programmes are widely used for nutrient management planning and are completed with the help of an advisor.

As part of SOLID project, on-farm research will be conducted at Juvan Luomu partner farms. The topics elaborated in workshops will focus on on-farm produced protein
feeds and protein self-sufficiency. Higher clover proportion in leys, including lucerne in leys (not commonly used currently), faba bean in mixtures with whole crop cereal silage as well as blue lupin for feed are the topics to study. Studies are conducted together with the research partner MTT Agrifood Research Finland.