Sustainable Pasture Management

Abstract

Grasslands which are a major part of the global ecosystem, covering 37% of the earth's terrestrial area, have a signiicant contribution to food security through providing most of the energy and proteins required by the ruminants used for meat and dairy production. Grasslands are considered to have the potential to play a fundamental role in climate change mitigation, particularly regarding carbon storage and sequestration and for biodiversity preservation. This chapter provides an overview of the causes of the pasture degradation and some essential elements for sustainable management, which aims to improve the quantity and quality of pasture, mitigation of climate change and biodiversity preservation. Another point of this chapter is the grasslands with high nature value that nowadays is a top priority in the European legislation as the European Commission has conirmed that HNV farming will remain a key priority in 2014-2020. We present the situation in Bulgaria because it is one of the irst member state countries that have assessed HNV regions and put funding in place to support them.

Determining the nutrient content, energy, and in vitro true digestibility of some grass forage plants

“…Cereals are easily digestible by ruminants and offer a rich nutrient biomass. Moreover, they protect the soil from water and wind erosion thanks to their ability of developing dense grass (Sevov et al 2018). They are more resistant to grazing and have a better adaptation ability compared to legumes (Serin and Tan, 2009).…”

Evaluating Dominant Land Use/Land Cover Changes and Predicting Future Scenario in a Rural Region Using a Memoryless Stochastic Method

“…This change was especially strong in the first period (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007), possibly due to changes in the CAP, which led to a decrease in the areas under arable crops, in particular cereal production, and an increase in fallow land maintenance and natural pasture. These policies arose out of a concern related to land preservation in the context of rural planning, resulting, among other actions, in reduced dryland cereal cultivation areas, due to the recognition of the negative impact on soil depletion and erosion resulting from previous agricultural campaigns [53] and an international acknowledgement of the role of such areas in mitigating climate change [54,55].…”

Earth Observation Systems and Pasture Modeling: A Bibliometric Trend Analysis

“…Large areas in Australia, South America, India, and half of the pasture surface in Africa have experienced varying degrees of deterioration from grazing pressure and soil erosion [5,[17][18][19]. Meanwhile, pastures suffer from poor farming methods and long-term grazing and unsustainable stocking levels in sub-Saharan Africa [20,21]. In southern Africa, pastures have been over-utilized for livestock production and are often associated with intensive agricultural production systems [22].…”