Improving the resilience of equine farms

EUnetHorse, launched in 2023, is the first Horizon Europe project dedicated to equine animals. It is a European network for knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer learning between actors and stakeholders of the equine sector. Its overall aim is to improve the resilience of equine farms.

This innovative project seeks to bring significant advancements to the equine sector, fostering structural changes and implementing innovative work practices. In order to achieve this, it will set up specialised boards, extensive farmer consultations and comprehensive cross-country analysis, with its primary focus on engaging equine farmers, advisors and trainers.

The project’s overarching goal is to facilitate connections among various sectors such as sports/leisure, racing, agriculture and food production. This involves operating across geographical levels - regional, national and European - and engaging different stakeholder categories to instigate transformative changes into practice.

The project will disseminate best practices, tools and solutions that enhance socio-economic performance of farms, improve animal welfare and health, and promote the environmental sustainability of the equine sector. Several networking activities will take place, including cross-visits. Eight cross-visits will be organised where mixed groups of EUnetHorse partners, farmers, trainers and advisors from all EUnetHorse countries will visit one or two farms to encourage peer-to-peer learning within the equine sector. The first cross-visits took place in 2023. A network of trainers and advisors will be launched in the spring of 2024. This network will identify the needs of trainers and advisors in the sector, and the members will be fully involved in developing training kits to ensure that results obtained from the EUnetHorse project are directly usable and transferable to the equine sector.

The activities strive to: