Towards a simulation-based study of grassland and animal diversity management in livestock farming systems

In less-favored areas, livestock production involves the management of native vegetation as a resource base. A challenging issue in such systems regards the design of efficient and sustainable management strategies that make it possible to exploit the diversity of grasslands and herd batches over different time scales. This paper describes the conceptual approach that supports the representation and simulation of farm-scale models of grassland-based livestock systems in the SEDIVER project. It enables the coupling of species-rich grasslands and livestock models with sophisticated decision-making models. The latter embed a representation of management strategies that specify in a flexible and adaptive manner what activities are intended to be done. Once implemented, the SEDIVER model will provide guidance for a robust and improved exploitation of grassland and animal diversity at farm scale.