Partner Farms: Understanding the Importance of Grass-Clover in both Livestock and Arable Production

U. PRINS, J. DE WIT and T. BAARS
Louis Bolk Instituut, The Netherlands

Abstract
Partner farming is a concept of co-operation between organic farms specialized in different enterprise types (e.g. livestock and arable). As a partner farm, each highly specialized farm can benefit from the advantages of a mixed farming system without losing the advantages of its specialization.

With partner farms many issues are addressed that challenge the organic sector: reduction of conventional inputs (e.g. manure, concentrate feed), regionalized production, and traceability of inputs.

Grass-clover plays an important role in meeting these challenges, by building sustainable crop rotations for both livestock and arable farms, not only providing an essential N-input on arable farms, but also reducing weeds and serving as a product which can be traded for animal manure.

Viable solutions to the challenges of the organic sector can only be found by involving farmers in the projects and using a variety of farming system research techniques.

Source
Symposium No. 37 Proceedings, British Grassland Society, 2004
Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research
North Wyke, Okehampton, Devon, EX20 2SB, UK
Association of Applied Biologist & Colloquium of Organic Researchers

Posted March 2008