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Commission on Horse Production (H)
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President Vice-Presidents |
Secretaries Martine Hausberger * Industry Representative |
Description
The Horse Commission is one of the oldest commissions of the EAAP. This Commission has been chaired by many presidents coming from different experiences, institutions, countries, etc. The key words that characterized the activity of the Horse Commission in the past were: Genetics/biotechnology, Nutrition and feeding, Management and Welfare, Health, Reproduction, Livestock and Sustainable Agriculture. In recent years, because of the new challenge of the Horse sector, other topics were considered: socio-economy and horse industry, equine education, therapeutic riding, equid milk production. All these activities were implemented by different working groups, starting with the Interstallion (born I the 80’s) and the Nutrition (born in 2000). More recently, in the last 10 years, the Horse Commission constituted 3 new working groups that concerned socio-economy, equine education and therapeutic riding topics. Each one of these working groups has a chair and some members. Moreover, some special activities were carried out as satellites of the Annual EAAP Conference. I refer mainly to the activity of the Interstallion WG and of the Nutrition WG; this last organizes a satellite meeting known as “European Workshop on Equine Nutrition - EWEN” held every 2 years in different European countries (the last was in Portugal and the next will be in Germany). The WG has a committee constituted by the chair and 6 members coming not only from research field.
In the last 10 years, the Horse Commission was strongly involved in the publication of EAAP Special Issues, Scientific Series, Technical Series and Proceedings of Conferences.
Special Issues in Scientific Journals
Nutritive Value of concentrates in horses, 2006, LS, 100, 1-170
Adaptability of Sport Horses to stressful conditions, 2005, LPS, 92, 99-182
EAAP Scientific Series
Proceedings of Conferences satellites of the EAAP:
Proceedings of the European Workshop on Equine Nutrition (EWEN):
2002 - Nutritional Systems for horses
2004 - The growing horse: nutrition and prevention of growth disorders
2006 - Nutrition and Feeding of the Broodmares
2008 - Nutrition and feeding of the performance horse
2010 - Impact of nutrition on Health and Welfare
2012 - Forages and grazing in horse nutrition
Livestock farming systems - EAAP 118
Product quality based on local resources leading to improved sustainability. Local animal resources and products in sustainable development: role and potential of equids, 2006, Wageningen Academic Publishers.
Conservation genetics of endagered horse breeds, EAAP, No. 116, 2005
Horse behaviour and welfare EAAP No. 122, 2007
EAAP Technical Series
“Working Animals in agriculture and transport”. 2003, Wageningen academic publishers.
The President of the Horse Commission is supported by a board constituted of 4 Vice Presidents and 2 Secretaries. The activity of the board is supported by the cooperation of industry representatives. The representation of the industries and of the breeders associations is important to give consideration to the practical application of animal science following the criteria “research meets practice”. In the past the HC board was chosen following the criteria: field of research, country, sex…. In fact, at present the board is constituted by 4 vicepresidents: Steven Janssens (Belgium; genetic, secretary of the Interstallion WG); Dorota Lewczuk (Polony; genetic); Markku Saastamoinen (Finland; nutrition, president of the Nutrition WG); Dominique Burger (Switzerland; vet. Practitioner); Eric Palmer (Industry representative, France, reproduction-cloning); 2 secretaries: Anna-Lena Holgerssons (SWE); equine education; Martine Hausberger (France, welfare, behavior). This kind of structure gave to the Horse C. the possibility to organize programs of the Annual Meeting more and more attractive using the following scheme:
- Hot topic session – top down session, devoted to researchers
- One day symposium “research meets practice” devoted to researchers and practitioners
- Challenge session proposed by the local organizers , breeders associations and industries
Horse Commission Future plans
- Emphasize the scientific quality of the program in the preparations of the annual meetings and to invite top scientists as speakers
- Develop an attractive few days program for different types of visitors with different needs
- Improve the cooperation with extra European countries (eg.: USA and South American Countries, developing a system of scientific exchanges involving also young scientists
- Develop a flexible program able to attract scientists, breeders associations and industry representatives
- Develop a system of scholarships for young scientists
- Continue the publication of scientific EAAP series finalized to a proper application in animal production to professionalize production methods
- Sustain the Horse website with emphasis to young researchers, practitioners and associations improving the “Horse mailing list”