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Context

Designing the lowland dairy farming systems of tomorrow, in a context of high pressure on natural resources and strong market fluctuations, faces different issues: improving resilience to climate change, enhancing autonomy, recycling within and between systems, promoting the welfare of farmers and animals, controlling milk qualities, reducing environmental impacts while developing ecosystem services. Strategies based on resource preservation, circularity of elements and diversification of farming systems are all options for achieving this.

Missions

The objectives of the Systell team are to provide knowledge and develop innovations and decision support tools to increase the sustainability of dairy ruminant systems (cattle and goats) at the animal, herd and farm scales. Short- and long-term multi-criteria responses to global changes and management practices are assessed by combining experimental approaches, database analyses and modelling.

Research areas

The Systell team's research focuses on three interconnected areas:

• Life-long management of dairy herds and animals (feeding, longevity, reproduction, milk quality, etc.) to improve the resilience of the dairy farm (production, viability, workload, etc.).
• Diversification of feed resources at the trough and on pasture, in line with the principles of agro-ecology, to improve animal and dairy farm efficiencies, as well as welfare and health.
• Dairy farming serving the sustainability of agri-food systems (circularity, reduction of losses, climate regulation, water and soil quality) in a context of climate change.

Expertise and skills

Systell team members have developed in-depth expertise in the characterisation of the multi-performance of dairy systems (cows and goats) and of the impacts and benefits of various management practices.

• Reproduction and breeding of young animals.
• Feeding and feeding choices, resource use efficiency and nutrient flows.
• Milk composition and quality.
• Pasture and grassland management, carbon storage.
• Manure management and assessment of environmental impacts.
• Working conditions and workload on livestock farms.

This research draws on a wide range of methodological skills, including short or long-term experimentation, biological and biochemical analysis of a large number of samples (feeds, biological fluids (plasma, milk, manure…)), the use of sensors and precision farming tools, analysis of data sets, modelling and survey analysis.

Leader

Nadège Edouard
Tel. : (+33)2 23 48 50 55
Courriel : Nadège Edouard

People