Quality of lamb meat in organic vs conventional sheep farming.

Summary

The specification of ‘Organic Farming’ on a product gives guarantees on the way is has been produced, but does not give any guarantees on his quality. There is however, an increased consumer demand concerning the products quality in organic farming.
The aim of this project is to compare the quality of lamb meat produced under an organic system vs a conventional system. The comparison will concern the sensorial and nutritional qualities. Another aim will concern the ability of some methodologies to be used to trace the production system (organic vs conventional) on the product or the animal.
The experimental design is :
-Comparison of male Limousin house-fed lambs produced under organic (12 lambs) vs conventional (12 lambs) farming. These lambs are fed with concentrate and hay indoors. The feeds are produced under organic vs conventional farming for the organic vs conventional treatments respectively, but the composition of the concentrate is similar as far as raw material is concerned.
-Comparison of male Limousin grass-fed lambs produced under organic (12 lambs) vs conventional (12 lambs) farming. These lambs are fed exclusively grass at pasture. The pastures are fertilized with 100 kg N/ha in the conventional treatment vs no N/ha in the organic treatment. It is likely that the sward and diet composition (proportion of legumes particularly) will be different between the organic and the conventional treatment.
To study the effect of production system sensu stricto and avoid potential bias, lamb growth rate is maintained at the same level in both systems.
-Measurement of the sensorial quality of the meat (longissimus dorsi) and carcass :
Panellists session for juiciness, tenderness, flavour of chops.
Colour of the meat and the fat and its evolution during maturation (spectrocolorimetry, lipid oxidation). Composition of the meat (DM, proteins, lipids, heminic pigment, soluble and insoluble collagen).
-Measurement of the nutritional quality of the meat (longissimus dorsi):
Antioxydant level (Vit E), malonedialdehyde content, Vit B12 level
-Measurement of the traceability of the production system (on different tissues and fluids: perirenal and subcutaneous fat, longissimus dorsi, plasma):
Near infrared spectroscopy, spectrocolorimetry, fluorescence analyses.