Grassland in a changing world

23rd General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation

Kiel, Germany August 29 - September 2 2010

The organisers of the 23rd EGF General Meeting and the German Grassland Society (AGGF) are looking forward to welcome you to Kiel from 29 August to 2 September 2010. We are committed to do our best to make the EGF 2010 conference rememberable to all of you. The mellow atmosphere of late summer provides a perfect environment for a successful arrangement and we promise that at this time of the year, some of the most beautiful sites of Germany will impressively present themselves showing their diverse landscapes as well as variable forage crops.

Forage crops, covering more than 40% of the agricultural land in Germany, have proved to play a very important role in maintaining landscape biodiversity, besides being the backbone in feeding many domestic animals, e.g. cattle, sheep and horses. Only recently have they started acting as a source for biogas production. Due to the increasing competition with alternative forage crops as e.g. maize produced for milk production, the share of permanent grassland is, however, decreasing in Germany. Thus, ecosystem services of permanent grassland beyond production functions play a dominant role in current discussions on the future of grassland and grass-arable rotations are discussed intensively in order to develop sustainable forage production systems for milk production.

The conference main topic
Grassland in a changing world
thus can be highlighted with a strong link to the German situation.

Link to the cenference web page.