ABOUT US
"SUREPASTOR aims at increasing the resilience of the Mediterranean agro-pastoral sector, by introducing a series of innovative management approaches for sheep farming systems in areas where the sector is traditionally linked to the exploitation of marginal lands, improving its environmental, economic and social sustainability. The project will last 36 months and in the first phase the Mediterranean agro pastoral systems will be investigated, focusing on the relationships between sheep farming with traditional breeds and rangeland management. A preliminary analysis will be carried out in 4 Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt to make the state of art on farm characteristics, pastoral areas, small ruminants management and performance, local trends related to climate change, and social issues. This information will be then used to identify new management strategies (e.g. best practices, new technologies, digital tools) for their improvement in terms of climate change adaptation, resilience, environmental and socio-economic sustainability, gender and youth issues, market promotion. Models of intervention and promotion will be formulated in close collaboration with the farmers with a special focus on women and younger generations needs, leveraging technology and innovative agronomic managements to enable sustainable, resilient agropastoral farming. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) will be performed to quantify the impacts of the innovations proposed on the basis of also a modelling approach to estimate pasture productivities, stocking rates while maintaining the ecosystem services. The second phase of the project will be focuses in test and validate ad-hoc protocols based on specific needs of each case study country (at least 2 selected extensive sheep farms per each country, with a total of 10 pilot farms), leveraging on local or traditionally adapted breeds."
