Good Practice - Project
La Lagunilla Sheep Farm diversifies and cooperates to improve sustainability
Brothers diversify their Spanish sheep smallholding with a package of CAP funds, strengthening the whole farm’s activities and sustaining its long-term resilience.
General information
Beneficiary type
- Farmer / land manager
CAP specific objective
- SO1. Ensuring viable farm income
- SO4. Agriculture and climate mitigation
- SO5. Efficient soil management
- SO6. Biodiversity and farmed landscapes
Intervention type
- Art 21 – BISS
- Art. 31 - Eco-scheme
Summary
So-called 'whole-farm' approaches help agrifood businesses make best use of the CAP when applying for and using such EU funds. The advantages of the whole-farm approach can be seen at a family farm in southern Spain’s dehesa agroforestry system. Here, smallholder brothers sought to improve and diversify their dairy sheep business by growing organic green asparagus and transforming manure waste into commercial worm humus.
Such crop and market diversification created several key benefits for farm sustainability. It allowed for more efficient resource management, increasing the profitability of the family farm while contributing to the resilience of agri-environmental and agrifood systems.
Farm actions receiving the CAP support included organic production, modernising a milking parlour, installing a new high-capacity feeding belt, cooling ventilation for 300 lambs, 24 new milking points allowing 48 animals to be milked simultaneously, slurry pit compliance, and value-chain cooperation.
Results
The combined CAP support resulted in:
- Milking parlour improvements, creating better working conditions for the staff, increased animal welfare, and improved milk quality.
- A new feeding belt, ensuring animals have better access to daily feed rations.
- The concrete slurry pit complying with laws on manure management.
- Diversification into asparagus crops providing complementary income for the livestock business while also improving soil productivity.
- Transforming manure into commercial humus being assessed as an interesting circular action to eliminate a potential problem and to obtain added value. 1 kg of earthworm humus can be produced by the brothers from processing 5 kg of manure. They sell their humus to greenhouses in Seville, Huelva, and Almeria.
Promoter
Hermanos Ruiz García (Antonio y Andres)
Funding
CAP Strategic Plan support: 23 409 (EUR)
Art. 21 – BISS: 10 548 (EUR)
Art. 29 – CRISS: 1 432 (EUR)
Art. 31 – Eco-schemes: Dairy sheep farming 7 956 (EUR) + Organic agriculture (asparagus) 3 473 (EUR)
Context
One effective strategy for farmers to make the best use of the CAP is by adopting 'whole-farm' approaches that encourage farmers to optimise coordinated inputs across all operations. By assessing the entire farm system rather than isolated components, farmers can identify synergies and reduce waste, leading to cost savings and improved productivity.
A coordinated schedule of EU funding can also allow for greater flexibility in financial planning. Whole farm applications enable farmers to access multiple funding sources simultaneously or sequentially. This multifaceted funding strategy enhances financial stability and reduces reliance on single income streams.
Additionally, whole farm approaches foster innovation among farmers as they experiment with new techniques and technologies across their entire operation. The collaborative nature inherent in whole farm management often leads to knowledge sharing among neighbours and peers, facilitating continuous improvement in sustainable practices that align with EU competitiveness goals.
Advantages from whole-farm approaches can be seen from Spain’s La Lagunilla livestock farm in Pozo Blanco, which is run as a smallholding by brothers Antonio and Andrés Ruiz García. They combined a package of CAP interventions for dairy sheep farming, ranging from: the basic income support for sustainability; the complementary redistributive income support for sustainability; the organic agriculture budget; and the eco-scheme funding for climate, the environment and animal welfare.
Their smallholding is within a fire-threatened dehesa agroforestry system. Its livestock consists of 800 animals of the Lacaune breed and 200 Merino ewes. Milk and meat are marketed through a specialised cooperative.
Objectives
Coordinated farm support sought to:
- Improve profitability by working with the philosophy of cooperation throughout the agri-food value chain and life in rural areas.
- Expand the milk/sheep ratio per year, increasing the productivity and profitability of the smallholding.
- Promote cooperation in the food value chain through participation in livestock and agricultural cooperatives, incorporating agricultural diversification activity.
- Optimise labour effectiveness and job satisfaction, countering depopulation threats.
- Improve environmental benefits from livestock farming by using by-products such as manure. This reduces the volume of organic waste products generated by livestock farming and revalues the products.
- Favour the maintenance of the natural environment of the dehesa as a Mediterranean agroforestry ecosystem (agrosilvopastoral system), where caring for the landscape and biodiversity also has a great impact on fire prevention.
Activities
This whole-farm good practice use of CAP funds for small farms helped make the following activities happen:
- Maintenance of the sheep milk production.
- Agricultural production of organic asparagus as a measure to diversify the activity of the family farm.
- Expansion and improvement of the functionality of the milking parlour.
- Installation of a production belt to feed the process in the central hall of the milking parlour on the farm. The feeding belt allows the 400 ewes that are milked daily on average on the farm to be fed adequately.
- Adaptation of a suckling room with a capacity of 300 lambs, which is equipped with cooling ventilation.
- Installation of 24 new milking points with rapid exit, which allows 48 animals to be milked simultaneously and significantly reduces the time invested in this task, optimising the production process.
- Constructing a slurry treatment pit, extending a concrete layer on the floor of the milking shed.
- Acquisition of agricultural and livestock inputs, supplied by the farm shop.
Main results
This wide-ranging package of CAP support resulted in the following wide-ranging outcomes:
- Improvements in the milking parlour led to increased animal welfare and milk quality as well as better working conditions for the staff.
- A new feeding belt had a positive impact on animal welfare, enabling a more agile and homogeneous distribution of feed. It ensures animals have better access to daily feed rations.
- The slurry treatment pit with concreted floor ensures compliance with laws on manure management in livestock farming.
- Diversification into asparagus crops provided complementary income for the livestock business while also improving soil productivity.
- Transforming manure into commercial humus was assessed as an interesting circular action to eliminate a potential problem and to obtain added value. 1 kg of earthworm humus can be produced by the brothers from processing 5 kg of manure. They sell their humus to greenhouses in Seville, Huelva and Almeria.
Key lessons
- Whole-farm business strategies encompass a holistic view of farm management, integrating various aspects of production, environmental stewardship, and economic viability.
- The farmers optimised their productive capacity and the available labour force in rural areas.
- Their projects encouraged cooperation among livestock stakeholders and improved the farm's market positions for its products, strengthening its importance in the food value chain.
- The time spent on animal welfare and improving the genetics of the breed was optimised well.
- Production and profitability increased as the animal welfare of the herd improved.
- Generational renewal in family farming became more attractive.