PRR Project

Summary

The animal production industry is essential for ensuring food security, rural communities´ livelihood, and the territory´s occupation. However, it has faced challenges from those who want to undermine its survival as a high-quality food source industry. These challenges often use simplistic arguments about environmental, ethical, and health concerns. While climate change will require modifications to our food systems, these changes must be based on solid science and taking in considerations whole of the dimensions of the sustainability. Sustainable animal production research and teaching should focus on resource use optimization, improving feed quality and production efficiency, animal welfare, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, circular economy, rural livelihood, improving sensory and nutritional quality of animal source food, and sustainable intensification of extensive production systems.Given that ruminant production is a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, the professor should preferentially research strategies to mitigate the environmental impact of ruminant production systems. The candidate should also focus on promoting the role of ruminants as versatile and efficient users of fibrous agricultural co-products and as promoters of circular resource and economy use. The Animal Production and Nutrition Lab at CIISA currently prioritizes research on methane mitigation in ruminants and thus the new professor would easily be quickly incorporated in the team to contribute to ongoing efforts.The ideal candidate for the professor position will have experience leading research projects in animal production optimization and supervising PhD and post-doc students. The Professor should also be capable of integrating national and international research consortia and contributing to strengthening the team of the Animal Production and Nutrition Lab of the CIISA. This position is aligned with the main research priority of the Green Animal Production thematic line of the AL4AnimalS associate lab. Therefore, the AL4Animals will formally support it as a Green Animal Production Chair.Additionally, in his/her teaching role, the professor should be able to emphasize the importance of animal production to the veterinary and animal science students. The professor should have excellent communication skills to effectively communicate the role of animal production and animal products in sustainable food systems to a broader audience. The professor´s role is to drive research, teaching, and communication efforts related to animal production, contributing to developing rational and science-based societal solutions. This position is open to candidates who are passionate about sustainable animal agriculture, and environmental protection.