An integrated Italian research project on organic animal husbandry

Summary

In 2005, huge project of integrated re-search on organic animal husbandry was initiated in Italy. This research combines, for the first time in Italy, various disciplines in order to affront existing problems in the animal organic sector. The research will be conducted on 19 farms, located across South-ern, Central and Northern Italy, in order to fully rep-resent the climatic environments of the Italian penin-sula. The topics investigated range from a complete substitution of soy in animal feed to avoid GMOs, to the reduction of micotoxin contamination risks, to pasture improvement and to the use of animal breeds more adapted to organic production. The project duration will be 3 years, and is expected to provide Italian organic farm breeders the long-awaited an-swers to various questions.