Innovation for Sustainable Sheep and Goat Production in Europe

Innovation for Sustainable Sheep and Goat Production in Europe (iSAGE) is making the European Sheep and Goat sectors more sustainable, competitive and resilient. These improvements come from strong collaboration between industry and research institutions.

Project Aims:

To enhance the sustainability, competitiveness and resilience of the European Sheep and Goat sectors through collaboration between industry and research.

The project basis is a strong collaboration between industry and research institutions. In this collaboration, the sheep and goat sectors in Europe are identifying the challenges and opportunities. Together industry and research partners are thoroughly assessing the sustainability of the sector and developing strategies to respond to the identified challenges and opportunities.

iSAGE will assess the sustainability of the sheep and goat sectors in Europe in the light of future challenges such as climate change, food security, resource use efficiency and rural deprivation in marginal regions. Following the sustainability assessment, iSAGE will develop strategies to meet or prevent these challenges. Such strategies will include all levels of industry including farmers, local populations, consumers, processors and retailers. Industry and research working together will ensure that relevant issues are addressed and the project outcomes are applicable in practice.

Within this, the seven project work packages aim to:

Provide a holistic sustainability assessment of European Sheep and Goat systems.
Develop an in-depth understanding of the interactions between the various, environmental, practical, socio-economic and consumer related issues affecting the Sheep and Goat sector.
Gather the most up-to-date scientific information on the impact of climate change and its impact on Sheep and Goat systems.
Design and test innovative management practices for sheep and goat systems.
Develop innovative population-level genetic resource management and breeding solutions to help the industry cope with future challenges.
Ensure that the knowledge and insights gained from this work are disseminated to stakeholders throughout the Sheep and Goat supply chains.
Ensure optimal co-ordination, management and collaboration between the 18 project partners to maximise the quality of the project outputs.

ORC's Role:

Leading Work Package 1 ‘Holistic sustainability assessment’.
Leading preliminary farmer survey task.
Leading retailer survey task.
Leading survey of best-practice within the supply chain task.
Leading literature review on climate change and small ruminants task.
Assisting with the development and testing of innovative, holistic production systems.
Assisting with the development of genetic resource and management solutions to help address current and future challenges.
Assisting with the dissemination of the knowledge and insight gained from this research, to a wide range of stakeholders.
Assisting with the coordination and overall management of the entire project.

Current progress highlights:

iSAGE Newsletter No. 2
iSAGE Newsletter No. 1
Article by Nicola Noble in ORC Bulletin No. 126, Autumn 2018 Sheep sustainability research findings beginning to emerge
Article by Marion Johnson and Lisa Arguile (ORC), Nicola Noble (ORC/National Sheep Association) and Wendy Jones (National Sheep Association) in ORC Bulletin 129, Autumn 2019 Flock Health Clubs – have they been a successful initiative?
Article by Marion Johnson, Lisa Arguile (ORC), Nicola Noble (ORC/National Sheep Association) and Wendy Jones (National Sheep Association) in ORC Bulletin 130, Winter 2019 Sheep grazing within arable rotations
Article by Lisa Arguile and Marion Johnson (ORC) in ORC Bulletin 131, Spring 2020 Sustainability assessment of sheep and goat farms; a comparison between European countries
Lisa Arguile and Dr Marion Johnson summarise the work conducted over the past four years in ORC Bulletin 132, Autumn/Winter 2020 Sustainable sheep and goat production – a holistic approach

Project leader and partners:

ORC is part of the consortium of 34 organisations from seven countries, including from the UK: the National Sheep Association, Scotland’s Rural College, AHDB and Yorkshire Dairy Goats.

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (project leader)
LEVER S.A. Development Consultants
Agricultural Cooperative of Pieria Sheep and Goat Farmers
Agricultural Livestock Cooperative of Western Greece
Luke- National Resource Institute Finland
ProAgria Association of Rural Advisory Centers
Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
L’Institut de l’Elevage (French livestock Institute)
Capgenes
Comite National Brebis Laitieres
European Federation of Animal Science
Universita Politecnica delle Marche
Istituto per la Certificazione Etica ed Ambientale
Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza / International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies
Instituto Nacional de Investigacion y Tecnologia Agraria y Alimentaria
Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
Basque Centre for Climate Change – Klima Aldaketa Ikergai
Carnes Oviarogon SCL
CABRANDALUCIA Federacion Andaluza de Asociaciones de Ganado Caprino de Raza Pura
ASSAFE
ARDIEKIN SL
Asociacion Nacional de Criadores de Ganado Ovino Selecto de Raza Manchega
Asociacion Espanola de Criadores de Ovino Selecto de Raza Lacaune
Nigde University
Ataturk University
Pan Hayvancilik Gida Sanayi Tic LTD STI
Red Rock Agricultural Pastoral Tarim Limited Sirketi
Gaziantep Ili Damizlik Koyun Keçi Yetistiricileri Birligi
Scotland’s Rural College
Organic Research Centre
National Sheep Association
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board
Yorkshire Dairy Goats

Publications:

Gambelli D, Solfanelli F, Orsini S, Zanoli R (2021). Measuring the Economic Performance of Small Ruminant Farms Using Balanced Scorecard and Importance‐Performance Analysis: A European Case Study. Sustainability, 13, 3321 https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063321.

Cubero Dudinskaya E, Naspetti S, Arsenos G, Caramelle-Holtz E, Latvala T, Martin Collado D, Orsini S, Ozturk E, Zanoli R (2021). European Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Red Meat Labelling Attributes. Animals, 11(2), 556 https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11020556

Mandolesi S, Naspetti S, Arsenos G, Caramelle-Holtz E, Latvala T, Martin Collado D, Orsini S, Ozturk E, Zanoli R (2020). Motivations and barriers for sheep and goat meat consumption in Europe: a means-end chain study. Animals, 10(6), 1105 : https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10061105

Paraskevopoulou C, Theodoridis A, Johnson M, Ragkos A, Arguile L, Smith
L, Vlachos D, Arsenos G. Sustainability Assessment of Goat and Sheep Farms: A Comparison between European Countries. Sustainability. 2020;12(8):3099.

Rose I, Martin-Collado D, Orsini S, Zanoli R, Yañez-Ruiz D, Zaralis K, Arsenos G (2019) Using the Multi-stakeholder Approach to Match Potential Innovations with Challenges Experienced by European Sheep and Goat Farms. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp 119-130.

Previous Relevant Work:

Sustainable Organic and Low Input Dairying (SOLID)

All sources of funding:

European Commission Horizon 2020-EU.3.2. – SOCIETAL CHALLENGES – Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy