Making a decision-support system for dairy farmers usable throughout Europe: the challenge of feed evaluation

As part of the EU research project Sustainable Organic and Low Input Dairying (SOLID; www.solidairy.eu), a decision support system called SOLID-DSS is currently being developed. SOLID-DSS is meant for strategic use on organic and low input dairy farms, which are usually characterized by their efforts to minimize external inputs, mainly feed and fertilizer, and to maximize the utilization of grassland, especially pasture. By simulating different management options on the farm and evaluating them with regard to the risk of feed shortages, SOLID-DSS shall offer support for strategic management decisions and help balance forage supply and demand. For ration planning on larger time scales, a linear optimization routine is implemented, which combines data from plant growth models with the herd’s requirements. As SOLID-DSS shall be usable in many European countries, the existence of several different systems of feed evaluation and nutrient requirements in Europe poses a challenge. Although the plant growth models used in SOLID-DSS are expected to be applicable in large parts of Europe, the parameters of feed quality they supply are limited. Therefore, the feed evaluation evaluation, which should be based on data supplied by the plant growth models in order to fully profit from the dynamic plant modelling, represents a constraint for the whole diet model in SOLID-DSS. Hereafter, our chain of thought regarding the challenge mentioned and the solutions we have found so far will be laid out.