The Role Of Animals In Organic Farming Farm animals are an essential an integrated component of most organic farms.

They make valuable contributions to the productivity and sustainability of organic agricultural systems. In addition to this strong economic bond among humans and animals in organic farming, there also is really a moral (and sometimes emotional) bond to animals as sentient and fellow beings on this planet. This imposes a responsibility on humans for the welfare of farm animals. However, the development of organic animal husbandry has been slower than the organic plant production. There are several reasons for this, historical and philosophical also as the fact that study on animal production frequently is much more costly and difficult to carry out compared to crop research. However, organic animal research has increased considerably in a number of European countries lately and resulting from this, improved efficiency and productivity may be expected in organic animal production, also as much better animal welfare. Theres a large interest in organic farming in Europe, each amongst politicians, customers and farmers. Organic agriculture is subsidized by the EU, and the Commission is presently working on an Action Plan for organic food and agriculture. Animals are an essential part of most organic farms and research to create much better organic systems is now performed in numerous European countries. Thus we can expect organic animal production to increase during the years to come. At the same time there are challenges and dilemmas that the organic movement and organic farmers must face and solve to enhance animal production and to preserve credibility and trust amongst customers, for instance in relation to animal welfare. In organic farming, agriculture is often referred to as an agroecosystem. An agroecosystem is a community of plants and animal interaction with their physical and chemical environments that have been modified by people to create feed, fibers and other goods for human consumption and processing. The objective of organic farming is to style a quilt of agroecosystems within a landscape unit, every mimicking the structure and function of local, natural ecosystems, therefore acquiring their resilience and sustainability. Ideally, the organic farmer manipulates the natural ecosystem to achieve sustainable production, utilizing an understanding of ecological relationships whilst trying to minimize the use of external inputs and harm towards the environment. Although its feasible to create agroecosystems with out farm animal, animal provide substantial benefits for system productivity and sustainability. For example, farm animal have an essential role in processing biomass and recycling nutrients. Organic farming systems with herbivores are generally much more productive than those without them. The animals can fill trophic niches that otherwise would not be utilized, for example marginal lands otherwise unsuitable for agriculture. However, to be able to create sustainable agroecosystems, the

animal component should meet particular requirements: 1. The selection of species and breeds must be adapted to crop production suitable for the area, to accessible resources on the farm or within the region, and to local agro-climatic conditions. 2. The number of animals must be balanced in relation to the feasible crop production and available resources. three. Rearing systems should be created to avoid harming the environment and to reduce the use of fossil power. Ruminants, such as cattle and sheep, have a particularly important role in agroecosystems since they procedure leguminous forage plants. These are the backbone of organic crop production because of their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. To acquire sufficient nitrogen in an organic crop rotation, about one-third of the crops should be legumes. In practice this indicates that organic animal production should be based on ruminants (and that these are fed like ruminants). In contrast, monogastric animal, such as pig and poultry, require high quality protein in their diets. These animals may be considered as competing with humans for food, a minimum of towards the extent they use protein sources suitable for direct human consumption. Thus, it is sometimes argued that monogastric animals ought to be regarded as marginal in organic farming, primarily to be fed on agricultural wastes. They also can contribute to the agroecosystem by creating helpful services, like biological weed or pest control. Development approaches for organic animal production in developing countries has to be based on realistic and practical scenarios. First, one should recognize the limitation and complexities of export market for animal products, whilst there exists greater market opportunities for organic animal products locally, for instance indigenous chicken meat and eggs. Practical approaches for organic farming ought to be based on and developed from locally existing animal production systems which already have close resemblance to prescribed organic practices, such as those mentioned earlier for ruminant and indigenous chicken production. The local standards and guidelines for organic animal farming ought to be initially regarded as and developed from such existing animal husbandry practices. Further development of such standards will probably be a continuous process based on practical experiences gained from production, processing, and advertising of the resulted organic animal products. The Good results of the promotion of organic animal farming at national level will depend on many important factors including government policies and legislative supports, socio-economic infrastructure, farm training and extension as well as other technical supports. anime