Agriculture today, especially in animal breeding and animal husbandry, is characterized by decoupled material cycles with high nitrogen surpluses, greenhouse gas emissions, competition for land, soil degradation and problems with animal welfare. Industrialization and specialization have driven these developments. Cattle farming in mixed farms for milk, meat and plant-based foods is one possible solution. So far, there is a lack of knowledge about the effects on ecology, economy and animal welfare of different levels of intensity of such production systems.

The aim of the LOEWE research-initiative GreenDairy is to develop innovative animal-plant agricultural systems that are both ecologically and economically sustainable and enable a special level of animal welfare and thus experience a high level of acceptance in society.

The project is based on the new research infrastructure of a digitalized dairy farming system at the Hessian State Domain Gladbacherhof of the Justus Liebig University Gießen, which has been a teaching and experimental farm for organic farming since 1990. This system enables the scientific comparison of so-called high-input and low-input milk production systems with digital animal identifcation, grazing control as well as automatic feeding and milking systems. Low-input systems with grazing and predominantly roughage from grassland have so far been considered the standard in organic dairy farms. Alternatively, in the high-input system with grazing, the animals are also fed with a high proportion of the farm's own corn silage and grain.