In Argentina and Peru the livestock sector is important for the national economies as job provider in rural areas and major contributor to the GDP. Currently the sector is facing many challenges and limitations, but also big opportunities as the demand for products of animal origin is growing. These dynamics make the need for better trained livestock professionals, able to respond to needs and demands of all livestock sector stakeholders, apparent. Therefore the objective of EDULIVE is to strengthen the cooperation of Latin American universities with all relevant livestock sector stakeholders to ensure they offer demand-driven higher education and to increase their capacity in responding to the innovation needs of the sector.EDULIVE promotes the up-take of practical entrepreneurial experiences in higher education by developing mechanisms to formalize and improve cooperation between universities and other livestock sector actors taking selected sub-sectors as pilot cases (alpaca fiber and dairy in Peru, wool and sheep meat in Argentina). Using the knowledge triangle approach, diverse livestock sector actors, such as farmers´ associations, NGOs, private businesses, national research organizations and universities jointly develop cooperation mechanisms to make Animal Sciences curricula and research activities, more demand-driven and relevant. Graduates of improved curricula are better equipped to face future challenges and strengthen the competiveness of the livestock sector and contribute to economic development. Academic staff is provided with specific training and acts as multipliers in their home institutions. In addition, short-term visits of lecturers at European universities stimulate the exchange of teaching and research ideas across borders. EDULIVE fosters regional and cross-regional cooperation on capacity building in higher education between the EU, Argentina and Peru. Long-term sustainability is achieved through the participatory project design.

Total farm livestock population in Europe excrete around 1400 Mt of manure annually. More than 90% of manure produced is returned to agricultural fields. However, this is not being done in the most efficient and least leaky way. FERTIMANURE will develop, integrate, test and validate innovative Nutrient Management Strategies to efficiently recover mineral nutrients and other products with agronomic value from manure, to finally obtain reliable and safe fertilisers that can compete in the EU fertilizers market. FERTIMANURE focuses on “How to improve the agronomic use of recycled nutrients from livestock manure” to reconnect nutrient flows between plant and livestock production. Nutrient recycling relies not only in the technologies for producing bio-based fertilisers, but also in a better understanding and managing nutrients at the farm. The ambition of FERTIMANURE is to cover both technological approach for nutrient recovery and nutrient management. To this end, the technological approach will be covered by the implementation of 5 innovative & integrated nutrient recovery on-farm experimental pilots in the most relevant European countries in terms of livestock production (Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands), whereas the nutrient management will be addressed through 3 different strategies adapted to mixed and specialised farming systems: (Strategy #1) On-farm production and use of Bio-Based Fertilisers (BBF), (Strategy #2) On-farm BBF production and Centralised Tailor-Made Fertilisers (TMF) production and (Strategy #3) On-farm TMF production and use. A total of 31 marketable end-products (11 BBF & 20 TMF) will be obtained. The agronomic & environmental performance and their potential to replace conventional fertilisers will be assessed. Ultimately, FERTIMANURE seeks to provide an innovative circular economy model to favour rural development in agricultural sector by creating real synergies and links within farmers and other industrial activities.