The ICAM develop a comprehensive audit model to improve the sustainability of rangelands.
The Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Issues (ICAM), to undertake a project design and implementation of a comprehensive audit model to improve the sustainability of rangelands Spanish, in a project of national character, which will last four years and a budget of EUR 208 621, financed by the Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs.
According to Europa Press reported ICAM sources, this, gaia gold, project will be developed until 2012 and was called 'Dehesa Innova: Design and implementation of a comprehensive audit model to improve the sustainability of rangelands Spanish', will geographical scope acting territories with presence of the paddock, that is, Andalucia, Castilla y Leon, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura.
The project comes after finding "seen the serious problem of sustained profitability of farming in the meadow, and, buy kinah, the risk of disappearance of this unique ecosystem" and the attempt to analyze the typology of the range present in those autonomous communities.
This initiative aims to design a comprehensive audit model, "encompassing the three pillars of sustainability, such as economic factors, environmental and social help owners and managers in making decisions about their holdings."
As a basis for achieving, mortal gold, this first goal, use the System Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning) which, according to sources, "but has not been implemented so far in this type of economic activity, if their common used with considerable success in other areas ", since these systems allow" a single system to integrate all functional departments of the farm, so showing the interrelationship of the economic, environmental and social. "
The general objectives of the project are "promoting the sustainable management of natural resources in these areas, providing the owner the results will have long-term environmental measures carried out in the short term, the contribution to the economic viability of farms, providing the manager a tool that lets you optimize the inputs; prevent depopulation of rural areas, contributing to obtaining a reasonable and attractive basic income in the geographic area of the pasture, or the adjustment of pasture to global change and social demands, putting in value the public services provided by these systems unique. "
Also, specific form, sought, inter alia, "a better manager training these agricultural enterprises, the recovery of the conservation status of habitats, facilitate the transfer of results to all farms."
The ICAM also noted that aims to "raise awareness of farmers, technicians and workers, the public function related to this field and society in general, the importance of conservation of this unique ecosystem that is the pasture."
The project highlights the meadow "is unquestionably a model of sustainable development," but recalled that the farm economy "depends largely on the availability and quality of natural resources, so it is also acomplex in its balance. "
He recalled that the employer of the meadow "must ensure the economic viability of their undertaking and only achieved this objective will be truly compatible and complementary environmental management, economic and social."
Need for balance
"The alteration of the balance between these three pillars endanger the maintenance of these natural areas," said the ICAM, for which "survival of the meadow itself depends, not only the continuation of agricultural activities, but that carried out following good management principles, consistent with the characteristics and limitations of the environment. "
I note also the situation where the pasture is, in the sense that "the inputs have been paying the current prices while the productions have continued to sell at prices of several decades ago, which seriously hampers the maintaining balances, also recall "the great difficulty in finding skilled labor to carry out the traditional duties of the pasture, resulting from the depopulation of rural areas."
Environmentally, the ICAM point between the complications that exist in the pasture syndrome factors such as the decay of trees, loss of pasture to scrub unwanted invasion or scarcity of the species composition of tree layer, which ensures the continuity of mass.