• NEIKER technology center has been participating since 2020 in the RUMIRES project, an initiative that seeks to provide livestock professionals with adaptation tools in the face of global challenges such as climate change
• The initiative, funded by the State Research Agency, and coordinated by CITA (Aragon) has analyzed the resilience capacities of the small ruminant sector in four case studies in Andalusia, Aragon, Extremadura and the Basque Country

Sheep and goat farming systems play an essential role in the biodiversity and socio-economics of rural areas in Spain. However, they also face a number of challenges, such as rising feed, fertilizer and energy costs, lack of generational replacement, labor shortages and global crises, which jeopardize their long-term viability.

With the aim of addressing these challenges, NEIKER has been participating since 2020 in the RUMIRES project, an initiative funded by the State Research Agency (AEI) and coordinated by the Center for Agri-Food Research and Technology of Aragon (CITA), which seeks to strengthen the small ruminant livestock sector in the face of these global challenges.

Specifically, the project, which held its final meeting this month at NEIKER’s headquarters in Arkaute (Vitoria-Gasteiz), has analyzed from a multidisciplinary perspective the resilience of small ruminant livestock systems of local breeds in four case studies located in Andalusia, Aragon, Extremadura and the Basque Country.

In all of them, various factors that improve the resilience of livestock farms have been identified through the active participation of professionals in the sector, who have shared their experience in the face of unexpected situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the war in Ukraine.

“We have collected information through quantitative methods, and also through interviews, surveys and working groups in order to identify indicators that allow us to measure the resilience of four small ruminant livestock systems, providing a clearer vision of the strengths of the sector and the areas where action is needed,” explains Nerea Mandaluniz, researcher at NEIKER’s Animal Production department.

Based on these analyses, practical strategies will be developed to strengthen the resilience of the livestock sector, both individually and at the global level of the sector.

Participatory workshops

This 2025, during its last year of activity, the RUMIRES project will focus on conducting participatory workshops to analyze future scenarios and sharing the findings obtained to the sector itself.

“NEIKER has participated in the project to analyze the latxa sheep production system with the aforementioned methodologies,” adds the researcher.

The project, which began in 2020, has the participation of NEIKER, CITA, the University of Seville, the University of Extremadura, the Polytechnic University of Madrid and the Complutense University of Madrid, in addition to various professional organizations in the livestock sector, such as Oviaragón (Cooperative Association of sheep in Aragón), Cabrandalucia (Federation of local goat breeds in Andalusia), Cooprado (Cooperative aimed at the milk market for the production of “Torta del Casar”) and the Protected Designation of Origin Idiazabal.