The PPILOW project meets the Organic Farm Knowledge Platform

– by Monica Coletta and Laetitia Fauconnier (AIAB)

Organic and low-input outdoor production systems require specific expertise and animal welfare is no exception: this has been at the basis of PPILOW project and of the advanced experimental results and set of practices selected by the National Practitioners’ Groups (NPGs). These were tested on-farm with a scientific approach and are now available as practice abstracts on the online Organic Farm Knowledge (OFK) platform.

The platform promotes productivity, quality and sustainability in organic farming across Europe by providing access to a wide range of tools and knowledge exchange among farmers, farm advisers and scientists. FiBL, IFOAM Organics Europe and ICROFS manage the platform, supported by a robust editorial board, with partners representative of the different European production contexts. Through a multi-stakeholder approach, the PPILOW project with its 23 partners in 9 European countries has worked at co-designing innovations based on the One Welfare concept to support farmers and advisors in guaranteeing high levels of animal welfare in organic and low input outdoor production systems. Specific and advanced practices, addressing the main animal welfare issues tackled by the project, have been implemented on-farm and uploaded on the Organic Farm Knowledge (OFK) platform as practice abstracts. Practice abstracts provide concrete advice based on the results of co-designed and on-farm implementations developed within the PPILOW project.

These advanced practices include:

• On-farm hatching in organic and low-input outdoor farms
• Dual-purpose poultry genotypes in organic and low-input out-door farms
• Mobile farrowing huts for sows and piglets
• Medicinal plants to limit parasitism and pathogenic bacteria in pigs

In the abstracts, practical recommendations and references to authors are provided. Use of the self-assessment tools (EBENE and PIGLOW) is recommended to assess the performances of animal husbandry in terms of animal welfare and monitor the evolution over time, particularly when new practices and changes in management are introduced. The two animal welfare self-assessment tools are available on the OFK platform: the PIGLOW app created for pigs (link PIGLOW APP), and EBENE app developed in the PPILOW  project for organic and low-input production systems (link EBENE (R)  APP). Both applications are designed to improve animal welfare using a multi-device platform with practical indicators. Furthermore, for PIGLOW (link PIGLOW MANUALS) 6 manuals are available with detailed explanations of the questions asked in the app based on the rearing period (Grower pigs; Finisher pigs; Sows management; Pregnant sows; Farrowing sows; Loading). Aspects like timing and frequency of the assessments, recommendations to carry out group or individual observations are also addressed.