Join UMR Herbivores!

This unit conducts research for a multi-performing herbivore husbandry, mobilizing the levers of agroecology.

It is organized into 5 research teams, a support team and a management team. You will work in the PERAQ team (Husbandry Practices, Robustness, Adaptation and Product Quality), where you will benefit from the expertise of researchers specialised in milk quality. You will interact with researchers from 2 other teams in the unit – Dinamic and Comete – who specialise in assessing the environmental impacts of livestock farming and the ecosystem services they provide.

You will carry out a critical analysis of existing indicators and methods for assessing the various dimensions of the intrinsic quality of milk (sensory, nutritional, safety, technological, commercial, etc.) and the environmental impacts and ecosystem services provided by dairy farms.

On the intrinsic quality of unprocessed milk, you will supplement the existing decision trees with new indicators adapted to processed dairy products not considered previously.

With regard to the environmental quality of milk from dairy farms, you will work and select more specifically existing metrics and methods for assessing the regulatory services provided by dairy farms.

This literature review will enable you to propose new concepts and associated methods for taking into account both the intrinsic quality of milk and the environmental quality of the farms that produce it. You will then test the proposed concepts and methods on data available within the UMRH, in particular those from the European INTAQT project  in which 80 dairy farms spread across Europe along a very wide intensification gradient were studied with regard to the various dimensions of the intrinsic quality of milk and their environmental quality.

Training and Skills Required: 

• Recommended training: PhD in Animal Science at animal or ruminant farming system level or equivalent
• Knowledge required: livestock system functioning, statistics, literature review
• Appreciated experience: milk quality, ecosystem services or multi-criteria assessment or LCA
• Skills sought: teamwork, rigour, creativity, organisational skills and autonomy

If you want to know more details about this offer, find it here.