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Abstract: In the last decade the main goals of organic dairying have been to attain acceptable levels of milk production, increase opportunities for animals to perform species own behaviour, resulting in improved animal welfare and animal health, and minimize the use of therapeutic interventions, including the reduction of the (preventive) use of antibiotics. Maintaining animal health without the use of therapeutic interventions is a major challenge for organic dairy farmers. In particular, udder health remains a major problem in both conventional and organic farming. In the QualityLowInputFood (QLIF) project udder health status and management were assessed in different production systems and European regions. These studies suggest that good udder health can be maintained in organic or low-input farming management systems. Novel strategies to control mastitis were evaluated and the potential of using internal teat sealers for the control of environment-associated pathogens was shown. Also oral application of a herd profile based single homeopathic remedy combined with homeopathic silica had a significant effect on cows with a relative low somatic cell count before drying-off. Suckling systems in calf rearing, as an integrated management approach, did not result in better udder health. None of the studies presented identified new variables affecting udder health. QLIF studies also demonstrated the importance of comparing udder health parameters in contrasting organic, low input and conventional production systems, since clear differences in antibiotic use against mastitis could be identified not only between organic and conventional systems, but also among dairy systems used in different EU-countries. Although alternative treatments used in organic systems could not be shown to be fully effective, results suggest that the use of individual or combined alternative strategies to improve udder health on organic or low-input farms warrants further investigation. Based on the results obtained it is recommended that future research should focus on identifying the reasons for variability in udder health between organic farms that use different management protocols to identify ‘best current practice’ when carrying out this research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Studies within the QLIF project reviewed in this article suggest that organic or low-input management is more likely to result in milk with fatty acid profiles that are higher in α-linolenic acid and/or beneficial isomers of conjugated linoleic acid and antioxidants with up to a 2.5-fold increase in some cases, relative to milk from conventional production. These advantages are preserved during processing, resulting in elevated contents or concentrations of these constituents in processed dairy products of organic or low input origin. Much of the literature suggests that these benefits are very likely to be a result of a greater reliance on forages in the dairy diets (especially grazed grass). Since the adoption of alternative breeds or crosses is often an integral part sustaining these low-input systems, it is not possible to rule out an interaction with genotype in these monitored herds. The results suggest that milk fat composition with respect to human health can be optimized by exploiting grazing in the diet of dairy cows. However, in many European regions this may not be possible due to extremes in temperature, soil moisture levels or both. In such cases milk quality can be maintained by the inclusion of oil seeds in the dairy diets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]