iGRAL - Innovative beef cattle Grazing systems for the Restoration of Abandoned Lands in the Alpine and Mediterranean mountains

Throughout the last decades, socio-economic changes have determined a dramatic agro-pastoral abandonment of Italian mountain areas, with a marked decrease in the number of livestock farms and animals reared. The reduction of anthropogenic pressures has changed traditional landscapes, reducing the area occupied by permanent grasslands because of natural reforestation processes. These modifications have negatively affected plant and animal diversity, as well as the ecosystem services provided by open habitats, such as food production, touristic attractiveness, and the reduction of wildfire risk. However, in recent years, a remarkable number of workers are moving to the agricultural sector, but one of the major problems which constraints the development of efficient agro-pastoral enterprises is land fragmentation. For these reasons, there is the need to find solutions 1) to land re-parcel and enlarge the territorial base for agro-pastoral holdings, and 2) to innovate agro-pastoral systems, by adapting them to current socio-economic and environmental context. A regulation system recently implemented in Piedmont Region is related to the creation of landowner associations, i.e. when landowners pool their land properties together to create a new territorial base, which can be managed by entrusting the sylvo-agro-pastoral management to one or more farms. However, even when pooled together, new pathways to manage these formerly abandoned lands have to be identified, to generate sustainable income and also for improving the provision of ecosystem services. In this research we aim to develop innovative beef cattle grazing systems based on the rearing of two different hardy breeds (Highland and Sarda breed), which are well adapted to the current environmental conditions of Alpine and Mediterranean mountain areas, characterized by high levels of abandonment and woody species encroachment. In different areas in Piedmont Alps and Sardinian mountains, we will implement low-cost pastoral practices such as the use of attractive points (e.g. strategic placement of mineral mix supplements and drinking troughs), to improve grazing-cattle spatial distribution and increase the consumption of poor quality forage with high woody plant cover, and weed control and overseeding to increase forage availability and quality. We will assess the selection for plant species and vegetation communities by cattle through GPS-tracking, as well as the effects produced by these grazing systems on plant and key-insect community composition and functional diversity. Moreover, the nutritional and nutraceutical characteristics (total cholesterol, fatty acid profile, antioxidants) of the grass-fed meat produced will be analyzed and compared with grain-fed meat. The potential economic value of grass-fed meat will be also evaluated to answer the increasing demand by the market for these high quality products. With a participatory approach, target groups of stakeholders will be involved in the project (e.g. landowner associations, institutions in the agricultural and environment sectors, representatives of farmers, policy makers, organizations and associations dealing with beef cattle systems) to facilitate the transfer of local grounded experiences and knowledge to other territories (cross-fertilization of knowledge).