Facilitating good practices exchange between farmers from Alba, Cluj, Bistrita-Nasaud and Mures counties

Study visit of students from USAMV Cluj-Napoca at the farm and factory of processing dairy Agrocarmolact, from Monor Village, Bistrita-Nasaud county

Practices on the ground Project is a proposal of HEKS/EPER Romania Foundation, in partnership with FAER Foundation to come to the support of producers, farmers, young students in agriculture and students from high schools with an agricultural profile, in the study of Pedology in their professional activity and not only that.

The project gets its full funding from Active Citizen Fund Programme, which is a part of the SEE Grants and Norwegian Grants 2014-2021, which has as a main objective the consolidation of the civil society, active citizenship and increasing capacity for vulnerable groups. These grants are collected from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

The project wishes to meet young practitioners in agriculture, respectively students which study the field and to bring to their knowledge various methods of maintaining soil quality, according to national directives and legal requirements, as well as European directives.

Considering that the formation of topsoil and recuperating land and soil quality are extremely slow processes, soils can be considered, in essence, non-regenerable resources. Because of this reason we consider the informational activity with students to be very important and a starting step towards raising general awareness of the necessity of preserving soil quality.

Through the field visit done, the students have received valuable information in regards to to their rights and obligations connected to maintaining soil quality for the protection of the environment and sustainable agriculture, practical and correct methods to administer farms so that these practices will help with maintaining soil quality and create sustainable crops on the lands own or just laboured.

Also, the participating students have received information connected to certain agricultural practices, which are a must for every farmer, practitioner in agriculture and producer. Implemented correctly, those practices can contribute both in maintaining superior quality and cost-effective production, as well as preserving the environment, by limiting unfavourable ecological consequences at a national, regional, and local level, for the short, medium, and long term.

The project takes place in 4 counties in Transilvania: Alba, Bistrita-Nasaud, Cluj and Mures, its objective being approaching the soil quality issue in agricultural holding from these areas, by also co-joining competent public authority in maintaining soil quality, but also involving civil society represented by young farmers and active producers, also, young students and pupils which study this profile.

Thusly, within the facilitation of good practices activity between farmers from Alba, Cluj, Bistrita-Nasaud and Mures counties, study visits to identified farms as applying good practices in maintaining soil quality, a group of 40 students specializing in IMAA, IMAPA, IMIT within the Economic Science Department of the Horticulture and Business in Rural Development Faculty, of the University of Agricultural Science and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj-Napoca have attended in a field visit to the farm and factory of dairy processing AgroCarmolact SRL (Monor dairy), Monor village, Monor commune, Bistrita-Nasaud county.

The students have visited the most modern cow farm in Transilvania, with an efective of 1700 head of Holstein cattle. During the study visit, Mr. Eng. Zdrenghia Vasile-Expert environment practitioner has presented and discussed aspects connected to farm management, digitalization of farm process, managing human resources and technical-economic indicators of the activity of this farm. The students had the opportunity of put into practice the theoretical knowledge, at AgroCarmolact farm from Monor village, because they have been presented with all the steps of soil preparation, feed and flows in the farm. They were presented also the milking component, the preparation and processing of the milk, which ends up as delicious, quality dairy products for the stores.

AgroCarmolact Farm has been chosen as a farm to organise study visits into, because of the managing practices on their activities, representing good practices models in ensuring soil quality identified and presented to students and farmers:

• Worked surface: 1100 acres
• Copping structure: 36% corn, 18% cereals, 34% sown meadows, 9% permanent meadows
• Agriculture type: classic, with short rotation, with plots with sown meadows
• Number of animals: 1700 cattle, out of which 1100 heads female
• Main production: milk. The farm does not sell any of its vegetal production, but it maintains the corn silo, herbage and 50-60% of the necessary cereals and corn
• Managing waste: the animals are raised in 2 farms: one for young bovine from 3 to 11 months old and the second one for cattle, heifers, and cows. The young bovines are kept on straw bedding, their waste collected periodically and stored in the concrete platform. The production farm animals are kept on rubber bedding, their waste being collected into a collecting canal and pumped towards the squeezing station where they separate the solids and store them in a platform with a storage capacity of 60 days, whilst the liquids are kept in a tank with a capacity of 1 million litres. From here the liquid is pumped in 2 lagoons with a storage capacity of 9 million litres from where is transported with 5 cisterns of 16-18 cubic meters into the field, on open season.
• Managing pesticides: the pesticides are stored into a special shed and are distributed according to necessities by the head of the mechanization sector. All packages are collected, rinsed, and then disposed of through SCAPA programme.

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