The e-ROSA project seeks to build a shared vision of a future sustainable e-infrastructure for research and education in agriculture in order to promote Open Science in this field and as such contribute to addressing related societal challenges. In order to achieve this goal, e-ROSA’s first objective is to bring together the relevant scientific communities and stakeholders and engage them in the process of coelaboration of an ambitious, practical roadmap that provides the basis for the design and implementation of such an e-infrastructure in the years to come.
This website highlights the results of a bibliometric analysis conducted at a global scale in order to identify key scientists and associated research performing organisations (e.g. public research institutes, universities, Research & Development departments of private companies) that work in the field of agricultural data sources and services. If you have any comment or feedback on the bibliometric study, please use the online form.
You can access and play with the graphs:
- Evolution of the number of publications between 2005 and 2015
- Map of most publishing countries between 2005 and 2015
- Network of country collaborations
- Network of institutional collaborations (+10 publications)
- Network of keywords relating to data - Link
The economic, environmental and welfare implications of alternative systems of accommodating dairy cows during the winter months
Pasture grazed in situ is one of the most competitive and sustainable feeding systems for dairy cows globally because of a low environmental footprint, the potential for excellent animal welfare and the relatively low cost in the production and utilisation of the feed. However, because of seasonal variation in grass production and inclement weather conditions, dairy cattle may have to be accommodated and/or fed off pasture. There are numerous infrastructural options for achieving this and the focus of the present paper was to review the research and discuss the merits of these alternate animal accommodation systems, focussing on the impact that they have on the environment, animal welfare and farm profitability relative to pasture-only systems. Research data showed that dairy cow welfare can be protected in a range of well managed alternative winter accommodation. In a temperate climate, such as that which pertains in Ireland, adequately fed adult cattle will not use extra feed energy to maintain body temperature whenaccommodated outdoors and exposed to the effects of wind, rain and low temperatures, as the heat produced from the digestion of feed is in excess of the requirement to maintain body temperature. The main welfare challenge of a wintering system in such conditions is to provide suitable lying facilities for cows to express normal lying behaviour and provide adequate feed. The primary economic focus of pasture-based systems should be to maximise the length of the grass-grazing season and, consequently, to minimise the period off paddock. Provided that body condition targets can be met, there will be minimal effect of wintering system on dairy cow productivity and the only economic differences will be in costs. The cost analysis should combine the capital costs of construction financed over its useful life and the annual operating costs, including labour.
Inappropriate format for Document type, expected simple value but got array, please use list format