Die Rinderhaltung im Ökologischen Landbau - eine tiergerechte ...

5. Summary
The cattle farming in the sustainable agriculture – a pro animal and environmentally
acceptable alternative?
The ecological way of management has been regarded as being 'unharmful to animal welfare'
and is considered 'environmentally acceptable'. The aim of this work was to analyse the cattle
farming in the sustainable agriculture on behalf of this characterization.
The German agriculture is undergoing a process of restructuring which includes a declining
development of the conventional agriculture and a considerable boost of interest in the sustainable
agriculture. Long-range international and national political decisions in agricultural
affairs and the behaviour of the consumer, which is also strongly influenced by the current
events, are taking part in these proceedings. The lawful basic standards for the ecological way
of management are fixed in the ordinance 2092/91/EWG. It contains essential elements for a
pro-animal and environmentally acceptable form of economy, i.e. reduced stocking rate, claim
of outside pen and bedded husbandry systems for the animals, closed farming cycles, groundbased
production as well as the renunciation to buy additional means of production. In the
progress of reflecting on the ecological cattle farming with the legal background in mind, it
was possible to collect crucial information on the insufficient general conditions.
The difficulties that arose can be parted into universal and system-immanent problems. Most
of the problems are of general character, which means the reasons lie partly in the state of the
overall economical circumstances (i.e. government funds) and partly in the farm structure
itself (specialization tendency: bigger farms related to kept cattle numbers and cultivated
area), but also in the husbandry conditions (tether conditions, litterless systems etc.) and management
(faulty consciousness and the special knowledge of the farmer). Only few of the
problems mentioned are to be called system-immanent which means their origin lies in the
general concept of sustainable agriculture.
Here are to put forth: deficit regulations in the ordinance 2092/91/EWG (i.e. spatial requirements,
housing conditions, special husbandry system), inconsequent transfer of preconditions
(i.e. supply of litter, guarantee of outside pen) as well as problems in the sector of animal
feeding (energy and protein supply) and animal health (i.e. population care models, development
of health plans, knowledge of alternative treatment methods).
142