Grazing practices in three European countries: results of a survey in dairy farms

摘要

Grassland plays an important role in mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the agricultural sector by sinking carbon (Soussana et al., 2010). Thus, grazing is often essential for maintenance of grassland. Furthermore, grazing has demonstrated positive effects on animal welfare, production costs, landscape and biodiversity. However, grazing is decreasing in most European countries. For the project Life Dairyclim, a survey was undertaken in the three partner countries for a better understanding of grazing practices and of perceptions and expectations of dairy farmers. A questionnaire was distributed to dairy farms of south Belgium (BE), Luxembourg (LU) and Denmark (DK). Of 1,439 responses, 1,147 declared that lactating cows grazed (80%) but this result reflects different situations; 95% lactating cows were grazing in BE while this percentage dropped to 83% in LU and 37% in DK. This lower percentage of lactating cows seemed to be linked to larger farm surface, bigger herd size and increased milk yield. The opinion about benefits of grazing depended on the grazing practices. Grazing farmers were convinced of the beneficial effects of grazing on animal welfare (95.4%) and on landscape preservation (86.1%). Surprisingly, the positive effecton environment was mentioned in only 61.3% forms and even a negative impact was cited in 16.6%. Eighty six percent of surveyed farmers expected to continue grazing.