IMproving the resilience of pArmiGiano rEggiano supply chain - LIFE

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

BACKGROUND

Maize currently accounts for about 42% of the cereals used in animal feed for the production of Parmigiano Reggiano, one of Italy's most important dairy products and one of the world's most famous cheeses with an European Union (EU) Protected Designation of Origin  (PDO) label. 

However, maize is increasingly suffering from the impacts of climate change, in particular high temperatures and drought conditions over the summer period, which drastically reduce its yields. In addition, the contamination of maize by aflatoxins is spreading, also as a potential  consequence of the climate crisis, often making most of the local production unsuitable for Parmigiano Reggiano supply chains, forcing farmers to import grains, frequently from outside Europe. To improve the resilience of the Parmigiano Reggiano supply chain it is, therefore, a priority to test both alternative crops, with similar nutritional values to maize such as sorghum, and appropriate rotation schemes with new feed crops.

 

OBJECTIVES

The project’s main objective is to extend resilient agricultural principles and the cultivation of resilient crops to a regional level, creating an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable model for producing Parmigiano Reggiano. 

The specific objectives are to:

- improve climate change adaptation capacities by adopting sorghum as a resilient crop, taking advantage of its adaptive traits to fortify yields against the main impacts of droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, and include it in the cultivation plans of the cooperatives involved in the Parmigiano Reggiano's value chain 

• optimise the agronomic performance of resilient crops by adopting improved agroecosystem management techniques – such as preserving soil fertility, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – to strengthen the link with the territory and the economic sustainability of the Parmigiano Reggiano supply chain
• increase the amount of feed produced in the PDO area, reducing farmers’ dependence on market purchases of raw materials
• evaluate the potential of dietary rations with alternative crops to reduce methane emissions and nitrogen excretion and to enhance the efficient use of feed and water by cows
• promote the concept of resilience across the Parmigiano Reggiano's value chain, both in a technical sense and improving the current narrative, in order to facilitate farmers’ transition towards the application of the proposed innovations. 
  

RESULTS

The project’s expected results are as follows:

- at least 15% of the maize within the Parmigiano Reggiano DOP – amounting to circa 6 000 tonnes or the equivalent to 750 hectares (ha) – will be substituted with sorghum grain as a raw material for feeding dairy cows

• implementation of LIFE IMAGE crop rotation plans in the same areas
• planned crop substitution will result in a reduction of water supplied via irrigation by 3 600 000 cubic metres (m3) per year and will necessitate an average maize water requirement of 4 800 m3 annually
• reduction of GHG emissions by around 1 356 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year, thanks to the substitution of maize with resilient crops, and the implementation of adaptive agricultural practices
• replication of the IMAGE LIFE approach applied in the mountainous regions of Auvergne, France, where Fourme d'Ambert and Bleu d'Auvergne cheeses are produced, involving 4 farms and 10 hectares of land
• optimised crop cultivation process for alternative crops and optimised grain quality both for feed and food use
• evaluation of the nutritional and dietetic properties of resilient crops – sorghum, wheat and sunflower – to be included in the farm rotation plan
• evaluation of animal response and milk cheese making properties and production, by collecting genotypes and analysing them for their chemical composition and in vitro ruminal digestibility
• formulation of a best dietary ration based on application of alternative crops
• a dataset of animal performance when fed with alternative dietary rations both at experimental and farm scale
• a comparative analysis of quantity of cows’ methane emissions when fed with alternative or conventional rations
• methodological guidelines for feed producers to formulate customised dietary rations
• identification of the best combination of resilience parameters and nutritional characteristics for feed usage to generate the best genotypes and crop varieties of the future.