|
1. Definition
|
Name
|
HUSBANDRY
INTENSITY
|
|
Brief
definition
|
Livestock
units (LSU)
|
|
Unit of measure
|
Livestock units (LSU)
per hectare of permanent pasture and meadow
|
2.
Position within the logical framework DPSIR
|
Type
of Indicator
|
Pressure/Driving
Force
|
3.
Target and political pertinence
|
Objective
|
This
indicator is a measure of the pressure on the land,
contributing to the evaluation of the desertification
risk of an area.
|
|
Importance
with respect to desertification
|
Intensification,
greater specialisation and livestock unit-enlargement
can have environmental consequences, which need to
be controlled to ensure the sustainability of agriculture.
High-yield fodder crops reduce the amount of land
needed for grazing animals, which can result in the
loss of permanent pastures. At the same time agricultural
marginalisation can occur from the field to the regional
scale: difficult areas within a farm, or whole farms,
may be abandoned. Regions with extensive systems or
small-scale agriculture are especially vulnerable.
|
|
International
Conventions and agreements
|
UNCCD-
Article 4
In
the light of their respective situations, the affected
country Parties of the region may take account, inter
alia, of the following thematic issues in developing
their national strategies for action to combat desertification
and/or mitigate the effects of drought, pursuant to
article 5 of the Convention: Achieving
food security and sustainable development and management
of agricultural, livestock-rearing, forestry and multipurpose
activities;
|
|
Secondary objectives
of the indicator
|
Evaluation of the trend
of permanent grassland and pastures areas, which are
generally farmed less intensively than cropland and
produce less nutrient surpluses.
|
4.
Methodological description and basic definitions
|
Definitions
and basic concepts
|
A
Livestock Unit represents the quantity of feed energy
needed by a reference animal (by convention, since
1977 a dairy cow with an annual milk yield of 3000
Kg) to cover its maintenance and production requirements.
The LSU is thus a reference unit common to the various
categories of animal and relates to their feed requirements.
The closer the feeding method of an animal is to that
of the reference animal (ruminant in low-intensity
production), the more pertinent the LSU. However,
for want of any other common unit, the LSU can be
used to consolidate statistics on animals of the same
species but of different ages, and can also be used
as a common unit for measuring livestock numbers,
as long as the limits of this theoretical unit are
taken into account when the data are interpreted.
Coefficients
of equivalence of the categories of animal
Equidae
(Riding and racehorses are included): 0.8 LSU per
head
Bovine
animals:
- Under one year
old: 0.4 LSU per head
- One but less than
two years, male and female animals: 0.7 LSU per
head
- Two years old and
over: Male animals 1.0 LSU per head Heifers 0.8
LSU per head Dairy cows 1.0 LSU per head Other cows
0.8 LSU per head
Sheep
(all ages): 0.1 LSU per head
Goats
(all ages): 0.1 LSU per head
Pigs:
- Piglets having
a live weight of under 20 Kg: 2.7 LSU per 100 head
- Breeding sows weighing
50 Kg and over: 0.5 LSU per 100 head
- Other pigs: 0.3
LSU per 100 head
Broilers:
0.7 LSU per 100 head
Laying
hens: 1.4 LSU per 100 head
Other
poultry (ducks, turkeys, geese and guinea fowl): 3.0
LSU per 100 head
Rabbits,
breeding females: 2.0 LSU per 100 head
Permanent
pasture and meadow is a component of Utilised Agricultural
Area (UAA). While surveys on the structure of agricultural
holdings provide accurate information about permanent
crops and arable land (the other component of UAA),
there is no overall figure for permanent pasture and
meadow on agricultural holdings covered by the surveys.
Common and rough grazing and rented grassland often
belong to local authorities or non-farming owners.
They are therefore missed in surveys on the structure
of agricultural holdings, which are defined by each
Member State above a certain size.
|
|
Benchmarks
Indication of the values/ranges of value
|
Ranges
of values defined by EU Code of Best Agricultural
Practice. For example, in the Basilicata Region of
Italy two values distinguished by type of land have
been identified. For disadvantaged land the value
is 2 LSU/ha (2,5 LSU/ha for Bovine Male Animals);
for other land it is 3 LSU/ha.
|
|
Methods
of measurement
|
See
"Definitions and basic concepts"
|
|
Limits
of the indicator
|
|
|
Linkages
with other indicators
|
Parallel employment, Farmer's age, Farm
size
|
5.
Evaluation of data needs and availability
|
Data
required to calculate the indicator
|
Information
on Livestock Unit and Permanent pasture and meadow
|
|
Data
sources
|
Agricultural
Census
|
|
Availability of data
from national and international sources
|
Eurostat New Cronos,
Land-use FAOSTAT
|
6.
Institutions that have participated in developing the indicator
|
Main
institutions responsible
|
University
of Basilicata, Italy
|
|
Other
contributing organizations
|
Universities
of Athens, Lisbon, Murcia
|
7.
Additional information
|
Bibliography
|
European
Commission - Eurostat (2000): Farm structure, Historical
results Surveys from 1966/67 to 1997
|
|
Other
references
|
|
|
Contacts Name and address
|
University of Basilicata
Prof Giovanni Quaranta
email: quaranta@unibas.it
|
|
