Organic Knowledge Network on Monogastric Animal Feed

The overall aim of OK-Net EcoFeed is to help farmers, breeders and the organic feed processing industry achieve the goal of 100 % use of organic and regional feed for monogastrics, in particular pigs, broilers, laying hens and parents of broilers and laying hens.

In the last two decades, the market for organic food has shown steady vigorous growth in most parts of Europe, and this growth is still accelerating. A key objective of organic farming is the closing of nutrient cycles; however, this is difficult to achieve. To a large extent, feed and livestock production, in particular of pigs and poultry, are concentrated in different regions, and animal feed (especially proteins) has to be imported from far-away regions. In addition, organic farmers have difficulties in sourcing protein feed of organic quality. The lack of organic and regional feed threatens both the sustainability of organic agriculture as well as consumers’ confidence.

In order to contribute to the goal of 100 % use of organic and regional feed for monogastrics, OK-Net EcoFeed has 4 specific objectives:

1. The project will synthesize the scientific and practical knowledge available about organic and regional feed production for monogastrics;
2. It will create a European network of innovation groups to facilitate exchange and co-creation of knowledge among farmers, business actors, researchers and advisors;
3. It will collect end-user material and develop new tools adapted to the needs of farmers and business actors. All material and tools will be summarised in the EIP common format for practice abstracts.
4. Finally, the project will extend the OK-Net knowledge platform (farmknowledge.org) to include the topic of monogastric animal feed.

The project will build on the experiences of OK-Net Arable, which is a thematic network addressing organic arable cropping. OK-Net EcoFeed is a logic continuation of OK-Net Arable, making the bridge between feed cultivation over feed processing to animal production.

• This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 773911.

• European Commission, Horizon 2020

• IFOAM EU (SE, BE)
• Aarhus University AU/International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems ICROFS (DK)
• Organic Research Centre ORC (UK)
• Institut Technique de l'Agriculture Biologique ITAB (FR)
• Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL (CH)
• Bioland (DE)
• Associazione Italiana Agricoltura Biologica AIAB (IT)
• Donau Soja DS (AT)
• Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet SLU/ Centrum för ekologisk produktion och konsumtion  EPOK (SE)
• ECOVALIA (ES)
• Soil Association (UK)

• Willer Helga (Department of Extension, Training & Communication)

• Alföldi Thomas (Department of Extension, Training & Communication)
• Basler Andreas (Department of Extension, Training & Communication)
• Dietemann Lauren (Department of Extension, Training & Communication)
• Früh Barbara (Department of Extension, Training & Communication)
• Schlatter Bernhard (Department of Food System Sciences)
• Weidmann Gilles (Department of Extension, Training & Communication)

Work package leader

• Advisory & Training (Department of Extension, Training & Communication, FiBL Switzerland)
• Advisory tools (Department of Extension, Training & Communication, FiBL Switzerland)
• Animal Nutrition (Department of Livestock Sciences, FiBL Switzerland)
• Project communication (Department of Extension, Training & Communication, FiBL Switzerland)