December 23, 2013
EU launches US$16 million research project on sustainable farming
A grant of €11.9 million (US$16.3 million) has been awarded to PROHEALTH, a consortium of 22 academic, industry and private enterprise organisations from 11 countries, led by Newcastle University, to explore new ways to ensure the sustainability of modern animal production.
Launched at a meeting at Newcastle University, the project focuses on exploring ways to increase production quality, limiting environmental impact and preserving profitability for the farmers, and those who live from animal food production.
It draws its members from the UK, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Switzerland. With broad expertise and geographic representation, it is ideally positioned to address the scientific challenges involved, derive meaningful epidemiological data, evaluate test interventions across diverse real-world systems, and propagate outcomes.
PROHEALTH will address production diseases of pigs and poultry (broiler and egg-laying chickens and turkeys) raised in a wide range of intensive systems across the EU.
The complexity, causality, extent and risks of different diseases and their interactions will be examined under field conditions. Epidemiological and experimental approaches will be applied to investigate links between genetic predisposition (animal) and environmental stressors (housing, nutrition, management), in addition to the dynamic influence of environment on disease.
