Improving livestock infrastructure for sustainable food production

Private stakeholders are crucial for the success of these infrastructures. Farmers, veterinaries, architects, engineers should be involved in their design, realization, and management. Researchers might be involved in test activities and monitoring initiatives to quantify the effects of various adaptation measures on animal health and production. Farmers have a key role, due to their knowledge of animal behaviour and specific site conditions and may inform the decision-making process.

Shade structures are quite simple to build and represent low-cost solutions also considering that they generally do not depend on energy resources to function. However, to obtain positive effects of shading, the design of shelters is important. The following factors are to be considered: thermal properties of the shading material, the features of ground to be covered; slope, location, orientation of shadow, and level of ventilation. If the shade structure is designed incorrectly, it may not provide the intended relief from environmental conditions and can actually worsen conditions. It may, for example, potentially limit airflow and increase moisture accumulation on the pen surface, if ventilation is inadequate. In addition, knowledge on animal needs is necessary to design shelters, fogging systems and cooling ponds. For example, there are limited scientific guidelines suggesting the adequate area of shade to obtain positive effects for animal health. If the shade provided is limited, and the herd is large, it can actually promote crowding, as animals seek shade. This may increase thermal discomfort by limiting heat dissipation. In the case of cattle, for which there are more studies, the dimensions that were indicated range from 1.8 to 9.6 m² per animal.

Although the positive wellbeing and behavioural effects of providing shade for animals are well documented, uncertainties in the economic benefits of this type of measures have been reported. This could be related to the heterogeneous types of shade structures, site conditions, animal categories and experimental designs that make different cases poorly comparable (Maia et al., 2023).

The costs of those measures are quite low, making this option particularly suited for small farms, with low investment capacity and extensive farming systems. Costs are related to initial economic investment, cost of maintenance, life span, ease of cleaning underneath, durability, deterioration of shade cloths. The costs of maintenance are supposed to be generally very low, involving simple operations of shelter cleaning. However, if ponds are used to satisfy drinking water needs of animals, they require regular maintenance to avoid siltation, anomalous algal growths and potential contamination events that can spread animal diseases. Costs may therefore also include expenses for water quality testing or for building fences to regulate animal access. Very small shelter, about 12mx4mx2.4m costs around 2000 euros; the minimum to build a pond, is 200 EUR per square meter.

The benefits of livestock infrastructural adaptations are quite immediate: reduction of heat stress caused deaths and the maintenance of livestock productivity rate.  

By improving animal health and welfare, this option also contributes to sustainable and economic livestock production, whenever it preserves traditional farming practices at risk from climate change. Shading and animal drinking water infrastructure favour the maintenance of grazing in silvo-pastoral systems. This system also helps to reduce fire fuels in wildfire risk prone areas and favours biodiversity and soil fertility through seed dispersal and nutrient cycling.

Animal health is regulated by the “Regulation on transmissible animal disease “ (2016). This single, comprehensive new animal health law supports the EU livestock sector in its quest towards competitiveness and a safe and smooth EU single market of animals and of their products.

For the management of livestock, the 98/58/EC Directive “concerning the protection of animals kept for farming purposes” is in force. This Directive lays down minimum standards for the protection of animals bred or kept for farming purposes. It concerns the animal staffing (skilled personnel that takes care of animals), their feeding, their accommodation, their health care (i.e. movement, freshwater supply, medicinal treatment).

The time required for the implementation of this option may include some permitting procedures (especially for creating large structures and whenever some environmental or landscape constrains exist) and the selection and design of the most suitable measures, involving both farmers and veterinaries. Then, the realization of a shelter or a pond, is quite fast (about 2-3 months). On the contrary, improving natural shade, by planting new trees, can take some years before they become effective in delivering their benefits.

Once implemented, adaptation measures covered by this option can last for many seasons and should be flexible enough to endure variable climatic conditions. Shelters’ lifetime strongly depends on the shade cloth materials and their structure. Cotton tarps, certainly among the most sustainable materials, are the most sensitive to atmospheric agents, such as sun, rain and wind. Aluminium- & zinc-coated galvanized steel roof, instead, can resists for many years. Natural shelters and ponds have longer or indefinite lifetime, if maintenance efforts are carefully considered.