Protection and maintenance of permanent pastures

peer reviewedAll farmers receiving direct payments are subject to compulsory cross-compliance which includes standards related to the maintenance and protection of permanent pastures. Questionnaire techniques and spatio-temporal analyses demonstrated that the ratio of permanent pasture area to agricultural land provides a simple tool for monitoring and controlling the protection of permanent pastures at the regional to Member State level. Huge variations in the ratio across Europe were related to the importance of permanent pastures, the interpretation of definitions, sources of information used, differences in calculation, and the presence of protective and/or sensitive zones. Precautionary or complementary measures are in place in most Member States in order to prevent decreases in the ratio. The implementation of GAEC standards related to permanent pastures overlaps with the standard management requirements, national legislation and current agri-environmental programmes. The study advocates the establishment of a comprehensive geo-information platform consisting of a topologically correct inventory of all permanent pasture parcels in a 1:1 geo-referenced relation between IACS and LPIS; ancillary spatially explicit data such as orthophotos, remote sensing images and other thematic geo-databases; and, geodatabases with parcel information compiled for other monitoring purposes such as those within the framework of the Nitrates Directive or 2nd pillar support

[Different Ways of Diversification of Sugar-beet]

This sixth and last paper aims, on the base of a more and more abundant literature, at drawing up the inventory of non conventional products which can be obtained from the sugar beet and its by-products. Let us cite only: bio-ethanol, organic acids, amino acids, proteins, penicillin and other antibiotics, polyhydroxybutyrate, polyols (sorbitol and mannitol), sucroesters and sucroglycerids, enriched pulps, beet fibers and pectins... For each of these products, are successively described: manufacturing process, yield, uses and applications, producing firms, current production and outlook, and comments. The consideration of bio-ethanol shows that the orientation towards these new ways depends chiefly on the EEC decision-making authorities and on the main financial groups. Being given these uncertainties, the strategies of the beet producers remain very simple. They consist primarily in the adoption, with more determination than ever, of technical improvements, and, if possible, in increasing the size of their farm

[Economic-analysis of Beet Cultivation in Belgium .3. New Directions for Research]

First of all, the formulation of possible orientations for research requires to keep in mind the basic data of the problem, that is the future orientation of the CAP, and the general framework of resource allocation to the different research subsectors. The following ways seem to be particularly successful: (a) the further exploration of perspectives opened by the recent discoveries in genetics, (b) the coverage by the IRBAB (Institut Roayl Belge pour l'Amelioration de la Betterave) of non explored research subsectors by private firms, for instance the organization of comparative tests of any kind, the rapid and continual diffusion of research results and of any informations directly usable by the farmers, (c) a deeper interpretation, under an economic point of view, of experimental results, and (d) the perfecting of new non food products derived from the sugar beet and its by-products. Lastly, the fact that no correlation has been observed between the yields of sugar beet and the direct expenses incurred (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides) confirms the opportunity to pursue the efforts to reduce the production costs

[The Economy of Milk Collection .1. General-approach]

The first of two contributions deals with the economy of milk collection whereas the second describes some specific efforts made by the Interlait Group in view of optimizing milk collection. This first article gives a general approach of the problem. First of all the term "collection" is made clear and this activity is located within the milk production and marketing chain. The capital part of it in the restructurations to which dairy factories have been subject ever since they exist is pointed out and, finally and quite paradoxally, the rather humble place of milk collection inthe present strategy of dairy factories is indicated. Further on the following economic aspects are being dealt with: (a) the overall coherence of the system, (b) the analysis of milk collection routes, (c) the suitability of rearranging collections, (d) the outlines of an efficient management of the fleet of vehicles and (e) the greater flexibility with respect to the frequency of milk collections

[The Economy of Milk Collection .2. a Case-study]

In a concrete example some principles of the economy of milk collection are being applied to the S.C. Sud-Lait (SL, Recogne). This is not at all an exhaustive study of this subject. On the contrary, this study is limited to the aspect of minimizing the routes covered by milk transports. First, the models are expressed in tons-kilometers (TKm). The conversion into real costs (BF) shows the main problem of the milk receiving centres (RC) and of transferring milk into larger tankers in view of transporting it to the milk processing centres (PC) of Recogne and Dison. First of all, however, the authors deal with some preliminary notions in order to define the problem properly