Dairy farms are increasingly being called upon to pay close attention to sustainability in all its dimensions—environmental protection, economic growth, and social inclusion—and to demonstrate resilience in order to effectively cope with such challenges as climate change, extreme weather events, and the frequent, often unpredictable, fluctuations in prices of raw materials and production inputs. In this context, organizing and managing a forage system that efficiently utilizes farm effluents while also producing large quantities of high-value feeds for livestock can significantly enhance the resource-use efficiency of the entire farm system. This approach represents a virtuous example of circularity, one that can be applied to many farming operations in the Po Valley. Farms that have embraced this technical strategy have, within just five years, managed to drastically reduce—or even eliminate—their use of synthetic fertilizers. They have improved their nutrient use efficiency from farm effluents and increased their yields, in terms of dry matter, protein, and metabolizable energy per hectare of cultivated land. This topic is the focus of a recent scientific article that has been published in the European Journal of Agronomy. .

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