2023/11/17 by B. Rouillé, Rouillé, Benoit, Bertrand Bluet +21
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Agriculture and Rural Development Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.17180/ciag-2023-vol88-art11
French dairy systems (cow, goat, ewe) present an important diversity due to different feeding systems. Feeds consumed by the herds can either be human-edible (cereals, legumes, maize silage) or not (grasslands, rangelands). Energy and protein conversion efficiencies have been evaluated. The net efficiency approach allows to better consider the “feed-food-fuel” competition. Dairy systems are net consumers of energy and net producers of proteins, with better efficiencies for systems based on grass. At national scale, net protein efficiencies are respectively 1.16 for ewes, 1.12 for goats and 1.88 for cows. Net energy efficiencies are respectively 0.63, 0.54, and 1.00. Opportunities for technical improvement have been identified for all these dairy sectors due to a high variability. In order to popularize these results, innovation groups made up of members of the sectors and breeders have made it possible to better target the methods of dissemination of the main results of ERADAL. In addition, a set of support documents has been created and made available to everyone throughout the ERADAL project.