Beef sector farmers, advisers, veterinarians, producers, suppliers, researchers and policy players from across Europe will gather for an online meeting to discuss the sustainable future of the sector on Thursday 2 December.

All actors and stakeholders in cattle farming and beef production are invited to attend the Beef Innovation Network Europe (BovINE) online meeting.

BovINE is an EU-funded network project focused on knowledge exchange to help address the challenges and drive the sustainability of the European beef farming sector and community.

Estonian host

The online meeting, which will be the second for the network, is hosted by Estonian partner Liivimaa Lihaveis.

“On behalf of Liivimaa, Estonia is delighted to host this BovINE meeting at such a critical point in the sector’s history,” said Estonian network manager Airi Külvet.

“BovINE’s network across 10 countries enables access to existing and developing knowledge to improve not only animal health and welfare, but also environmental sustainability and socioeconomic resilience of the beef farming community including production efficiency.”

Estonia’s Minister for Rural Affairs Urmas Kruuse will open the meeting with a keynote speech on Estonia’s perspective on sustainability and beef. This will be followed by a series of panel and knowledge sharing sessions.

Participation welcome

Ahead of Thursday’s event, BovINE’s Irish network manager Kevin Kinsella said: “All beef farmers and stakeholders are invited to register and attend online the very interesting sessions organised by our Estonian partners.”

BovINE project co-ordinator and head of the Teagasc spatial analysis, food and agri innovation department Professor Maeve Henchion outlined how “many solutions to the challenges facing the beef sector already exist”.

“Some are solutions farmers have come up with themselves and are already implementing on-farm, others have been developed by researchers and are ready to move from research into practice.

“We look forward to discussing [these solutions] with farmers, advisers, researchers and all representatives of the beef value chain at our forthcoming meeting.”

For more information, farmers are encouraged to visit the BovINE website.