Enquête sur l’évolution des surfaces agricoles dédiées aux prairies et sur la proportion des prairies pâturées en Belgique, au Luxembourg et au Danemark

The role of grasslands in climate change is important as they are generally considered contributing to GHG mitigation by playing a role of carbon sink (Soussana et al., 2010). The mitigation potential of grassland could be influenced by type of grassland, utilization including grazing intensity and rotational use of pastures. Furthermore, grazing has demonstrated several advantages as improving animal welfare (Burow et al., 2011), decreasing production costs (Dillon et al., 2005), preserving the landscape and the biodiversity (EAA, 2016) or having a good image on the consumer (De Olde et al., 2016).
It seemed thus useful to survey the dairy sector of the three countries to get an overview of the dairy farms, the role of grassland and grazing practices, of the perceptions and of the expectations of the farmers about grazing. It was the aim of this report.