Mi volt a megoldott kihívás/probléma?
Distressed by a series of earthquakes, animal producers in the mountainous areas of South-Western Marche (Central Italy) have been exposed to a socio-economic fragilization, including that of infrastructures. A majority of the farmer small holdings in these areas tempted to refurbish the lesioned productive units as they were before, however some farmers took the disaster as an opportunity to reconceive the structural and functional layout of stalls, laboratories and shelters to reboot their economic activities. At a greater territorial scale, this dilemma – to reconstruct or to try to build back better – is mirrored by decisions on infrastructures, such as slaughterhouses: rebuild the pre-existing industrial-scale structures, or find alternative solutions more adapted to the area? Mobile slaughterhouses (MS) may provide the service in multiple locations of the territory, moving closer to farms and animals, thus reducing transport costs and stress for animals, respectively, particularly useful in areas affected by bad road systems and scarce accessibility to remote slaughter facilities.
The MS hypothesis is being explored by the SAIMarche EIP-AGRI Operational Group (ÉS) in the Marche region, paralleled by the promotion of extensive breeding of a new pig genotype (Suino della Marca) suitable for free-roaming husbandry systems such as silvopastoralism. A MS prototype targeting mid-size animals (juh, goats and pigs) has been constructed and made available for the initial testing, taking into account both operational (access to the unit, stun and evisceration of animals, cleaning, cold-chain storage) and management (logistics, calendar for the itinerary service, költségeket, training of personnel, communication) aspects.
Two advisors, both veterinary professionals, are integral part of the SAIMarche OG, despite formally acting as consultants. One advisor focuses on the Suino della Marca breeding in sylvopastoral systems, providing indications on nutrition and welfare, while the second consultant deals with MS public health requirements and its compliance with veterinary inspection rules, in a dialogue with the veterinary Authorities.
Hogyan oldotta meg a problémát?
The SAIMarche OG is still ongoing.
While the initial phases of Suino della Marca pigs rearing raised no concerns and met interest among local and regional value chain operators, some technical issues are being fine-tuned to ensure the practicality of the MS. Különösen, an intense dialogue has been promoted vis-à-vis veterinary services to investigate its potential, regulatory consistency and viability.
The OG and its key consultant met both public officers and private practitioners to ensure regulatory compliance of both the innovative structures / Jellemző különbségek a tanácsadó szolgáltatók különböző kategóriái között a fókuszok és tevékenységeik tekintetében, to grant the operability of sanitary inspections and to pre-assess animal welfare conditions and biosecurity. Public veterinary services visited the slaughter unit and attended the MS testing, providing suggestions to improve technicalities and to grant consistency of protocols.
Room for improvement of the itinerant slaughterhouse service has been identified, not least in terms of its effective governance. It is however encouraging to ascertain the availability of local Institutions and Authorities to enable the approach, including through dedicated facilities made available in a few villages as well as contributing to set tailor-made procedures beyond business-as-usual conditions. This readiness of institutional actors to explore agile and innovative public services in a market-regulatory interface, provides a blueprint for the scalability of resilient solutions for animal slaughter.
Mi az innovatív a gyakorlati esetben?
The SAI Marche case presents two types of innovations:
- a new pig breed, whose genotype responds to the opportunity to raise animals under silvopastoral conditions, preserving animal welfare, complying with environmental requisites, saving costs and achieving (very) high meat quality
- a socio-technical innovation related to the MS and the provision of an itinerant slaughter service. MSs are uncommon in Italy and there’s no model for their layout or service delivery. A constructor engineered the prototype, granting operational functionality, accessibility for both animals and operators, refrigeration capacity and waste disposal facilities, in compliance with sanitary and labour regulations: the technological innovation (the MS engineering) proved to be a relatively easy task, although high in investment costs. The social and organisational innovations represent the biggest challenge in relation to constraining logistical and economic conditions to grant the itinerant slaughter service delivery.
Melyek a sikertényezők a probléma megoldásában?
Innovation 1: key has been the availability of the new pig genotype developed by the University of Camerino (OG scientific partner), resulting in prompt accessibility of piglets to farmers. Ráadásul, the previous technical studies and economic analyses carried out by the reference advisor led to a an easy-to-adopt business model for its rearing. Különösen, the rustic attitude of the breed allowed a quick pigs adaptation to the farming and management conditions resulting in favourable growth rates and quality standards.
Innovation 2: the MS proof of concepts at technical level and the initial positive testing do not solve the problem of accessibility to ordinary slaughterhouses, unless an effective business model is identified for the MS deployment at territorial level. azonban, as public sanitary Authorities are unfamiliar with the innovative, itinerant slaughter service, the official approval of both MS facility and protocols is an important achievement, notably in consideration of the ‘EC health mark’ granted to the MS prototype. Dialogue between public authorities, advisors and farmers in the operational group plays a key role in this
Tanulságok
A few provisional learnings emerge from the first implementation phase of the case.
– The importance of a varied OG composition, pooling together different competences and views that enable interventions and reflections on different actionable hypotheses.
– Advisors bring in hands-on experience and tend to bridge explorative theoretical approaches and daily practical needs/modus operandi: in the SAIMarche case this was achieved through a ‘leadership from behind’ attitude, meaning being influential without prominence.
– Awareness is crucial about the relevance of policy implications at both local (például. local development and investments, use of territory, priorities for economic viability of businesses) and national (például. alternatives to business-as-usual to achieve public health goals, contrast to rural exodus) and about the role of advocacy.
– The need of multifaceted soft skills in groups animation, társadalmi-relációs tárgyalás, out-of-the-box és stratégiai gondolkodás, amelyekhez hiányzik a képzés és a professzionalizáció, compensated by self-education and community learning on social dynamics facilitation.
– Usual buzzwords may acquire a more tangible meaning:
o Resilience: an earthquake-prone territory needs to re-think infrastructures, requires flexibility of interventions, should aim at social re-cohesion and new development models
o Sustainability: silvopastoral use of territory (and similar anthropic pressures) results as a valid alternative to its abandonment and rewildification (likely if socio-economic opportunities for farmers and entire communities vanish as a consequence of inner areas fragility, aggravated by seismic vulnerability).
– Transformation: the public health Authorities’ readiness to abandon a
regulatory comfort zone to embark in new procedures and outlets has a
transformative potential on governance.
– Látomás: this project, as many other valid innovations, may fail because of a lack of vision and missing capacity at local and regional governmental levels to build up a infrastructural frame where innovative devices and processes can be integrated in.
Milyen szerepet játszik a tanácsadó vagy tanácsadó szolgálat a gyakorlati ügyben?
Advisors played a key role enabling access to and/or full use of the OG innovations. Their role was foreseen as such in the project design, complementing the OG’s partners expertise, and they systematically took part to any internal meetings and public events, being functionally part of the collective endeavour.
The facilitating role vis-à-vis Veterinary Authorities of one of the advisors should be emphasised: the complexity of public health requirements, sanitary inspections protocols and animal welfare regulations requires proper and developed competences, including relational skills and advocacy capacity. The consultant provided advice during the construction and testing of the MS prototype and supported partners in their dialogue with the public Authorities, mediating solutions that fulfil both the SAIMarche partners’ and the Authorities’ needs.
Further to supporting the OG partners, advisors also contributed in drafting practice abstracts, to promote scale up and contextualisation of the SAI Marche innovations.
Áthelyezhető -e és/vagy alkalmazható -e más innovációs kihívásokhoz és régiókhoz?
Igen
Becsült átruházhatóság skálán 1 nak nek 5
(Becsült átruházhatóság skálán 1 Becsült átruházhatóság skálán 5 Becsült átruházhatóság skálán)
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A jó gyakorlatról szerzett tapasztalatok megosztásáért, Bármilyen kérdés és kérdés esetén a közelgő kiválósági órákkal kapcsolatban
Annette Habluetzel – University of Camerino
annette.habluetzel@unicam.it; 0039 320 4381264
Hivatkozás külső információkhoz