Trust and mutuality are key success factors for regional cooperation between arable and dairy farmers (Network: the Netherlands | WU)
Trust and mutuality are key success factors for regional cooperation between arable and dairy farmers (Network: the Netherlands | WU)
The farmers in the MIXED network in the province of Drenthe in the Netherlands have already been collaborating for many years; their collaboration is based on mutual trust and principles of sharing, i.e. it is not based on purely financial interests.
Best practices:
1. Farmers jointly discuss new rotation options, such as crops that can be used for building materials.
2. Farmers openly discuss possible positive and negative implications of joint rotations, such as implications for soil quality.
Challenges:
1. Most extension experts and consultants are specialized into one sector, e.g dairy farming. There is insufficient knowledge on mixed farming systems.
2. With joint crop rotations, crop management planning is becoming more complex.
Opportunities:
1. Regional cooperation between dairy and arable farmers can fit in the concept of regional circularity. The concept of regional cooperation therefore receives increasing attention from society and policy.
Farmers perceive programs such as MIXED as very useful as they enable to work on tailor-made research questions, such as economic and soil quality implications of joint rotations in the NL network
The farmers in the MIXED network in the province of Drenthe in the Netherlands have already been collaborating for many years; their collaboration is based on mutual trust and principles of sharing, i.e. it is not based on purely financial interests.
Best practices:
1. Farmers jointly discuss new rotation options, such as crops that can be used for building materials.
2. Farmers openly discuss possible positive and negative implications of joint rotations, such as implications for soil quality.
Challenges:
1. Most extension experts and consultants are specialized into one sector, e.g dairy farming. There is insufficient knowledge on mixed farming systems.
2. With joint crop rotations, crop management planning is becoming more complex.
Opportunities:
1. Regional cooperation between dairy and arable farmers can fit in the concept of regional circularity. The concept of regional cooperation therefore receives increasing attention from society and policy.
Farmers perceive programs such as MIXED as very useful as they enable to work on tailor-made research questions, such as economic and soil quality implications of joint rotations in the NL network
MIXED - Multi-actor and transdisciplinary development of efficient and resilient MIXED farming and agroforestry systems
Ongoing | 2020-2025
- Main funding source
- Horizon 2020 (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
- Geographical location
- Denmark
Project Keywords
- Aquaculture
- Arable crops
- Organic farming
- Agro-ecology
- Crop rotation/crop diversification/dual-purpose or mixed cropping
- Biodiversity and nature
- Climate change (incl. GHG reduction, adaptation and mitigation, and other air related issues)
- Competitiveness/new business models
- Farm diversification
- Forestry
- Landscape/land management
- Soil