PERSPECTIVES OF SLOVENIAN ANIMAL PRODUCTION ARE IN SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Due to the karst and gravely agricultural land, Slovenia is very sensitive as far as the agricultural production is concerned. For this reason sustainable agriculture is most suitable, set on contemporary ecological, ethological, ethical and socio-economic requirements. The later apply also for animal production. Consumers are concerned about the over-all quality of animal origin products, which can best be achieved by sustainable production methods. Most legal acts and laws have already been accepted, providing fundamentals for the sustainable production methods to be put into practice. Integrated production is spreading rapidly in crop production, more than 50% of new orchards and fields for growing vegetables are included to integrated production control. 4.4% farmland is in ecological agricultural control, and 632 farms already possess the Certificate, which enables them to sell their ecological products, most of them being from animal production and mountain farms. The highest rank in ecological cattle production has the production of suckler cows with the trade mark “Pohorje beef”. Sustainable steer and copon production are also ranking high. The interest for sustainable farming of any kind of farm animals is increasing, mostly in case of cattle and small ruminant production.