PPILOW Italian National Workshop

The Workshop panelists – ©  photos AIAB

The PPILOW Italian Workshop entitled ‘Organic poultry farming without synthetic products: a challenge to catch’ was held on May 31st  Rome and led by AIAB in partnership with the University of Perugia. Over fifty participants attended the workshop including organic farmers, advisers and experts, policy makers, certification bodies, NGO’s representatives. The results of the PPILOW project were presented outlining the One Welfare approach as a driver of the project considering the ethical, social, economic and environmental dimensions of welfare. More specifically the discussion started considering the strategies to support organic agro-pastoral production systems, agroecological levers, sustainability assessment, research trajectories and the perception of animal welfare in consumers and actors of the value chain. The challenges expressed during the workshop were numerous, but participants agreed and emphasised the need of a holistic approach and a regulation framework supporting, and not hampering, the adoption of innovative practices tailored on organic and free-range production systems. Consequently, coordinated actions should be undertaken to showcase the benefits and positive effects on welfare of organic and low-input production systems and of innovative practices. With the appropriate support and collaboration between the actors of the value chain and institutions, animal welfare can become a driver of change supporting organic farming systems based on local and sustainable supply chains, complying with the manifolded dimensions of sustainability and Welfare. To this end the PPILOW project provided experimental results and tested with scientific approach on-farm, innovative and advanced practices tailored on organic and low-input production systems.