Partner Farms: experiences with livestock farming system research to support intersectoral cooperation in the Netherlands
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For more than five years, the Louis Bolk Institute has been developing Partner Farms in cooperation with a growing number of, now more than 50, organic farmers. The Partner Farm concept, mixed farming at a distance, is aiming at the utilization of several advantages of mixed farming while retaining the farmer’s autonomy and specialized farm structure. While farming in the Netherlands is highly specialized, increased intersectoral cooperation is essential in organic agriculture, as legislation concerning the use of inputs of non-organic origin is tightening up. Experiences of the participatory research developing the Partner Farm concept are summarized, particularly relating to the exchange value of organic manure and grass-clover production.
It is shown that Partner Farms are a viable possibility to increase intersectoral cooperation, particularly exchanging grass-clover as ruminant feed from arable farms with increasing amounts of animal manure from livestock farms. Organic concentrate production at arable farms in the Netherlands is hardly an option, due to the low economic returns obtained, thus leaving organic pig and poultry farms few options other than producing animal manure mainly on imported feed. Also, grass-clover derived N did emerge as a realistic alternative to the limitedly available manure-derived N, with animal manure being hardly used on grassland but mainly on arable land. These development concepts are known in extensive Farming Systems but are unsusual patterns in intensive FS’s.
It is argued that these development concepts were not merely devised, but that technical, economical, practical and ethical implications were explored, thus producing results that are not only technically sound but also acceptable and applicable in organic agriculture. This was possible due to the simultaneous use of various research methods, in which farmers were closely involved in all stages of the research.