OasYs system experiment - a Research Infrastructure interacting with stakeholders

• Forage diversification
• Year round grazing
• Browsed fodder trees
• Integrated livestock breeding strategies
• Multicriteria assessment

OasYs is an innovative system redesigned through a collaborative approach with various stakeholders. It relies on an agroecological approach, based on the diversity of the system’s components and their functions, and aiming to adapt a low-input farm to climate change. It is experimented at the farm scale on an INRAE facility. The forage system (90 ha) produces the fodder necessary to feed the dairy cattle herd (72 milking cows, and replacement heifers) without irrigation and with limited use of mineral nitrogen fertiliser, whatever the climatic hazards. The forage resources are diversified (including fodder trees) and priority is given to their grazing. The livestock breeding strategy is in coherence with the forage system, with two calving periods in spring and autumn, the extension of lactation length to 16 months and the three-way crossing of dairy breeds (Holstein, Scandinavian Red, Jersey). The system is evaluated in terms of its production performance, as well as its environmental and socioeconomic performance. It is a place for exchange with stakeholders.

Achievements

• The nutritive value of 31 tree, 14 shrub and 7 liana species has been assessed
• Diversity of grazing resources enabled extension of grazing period
• The increase of fat and protein contents offset the decrease in milk production
• The system allowed 1.5 labor units to be remunerated at a rate equivalent to the income of two minimum wage earners