RESEARCH REGARDING THE TYPOLOGY OF ECOLOGICAL SHEEP FARMS IN ROMANIA

References: 14th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM 2014, www.sgem.org, SGEM2014 Conference Proceedings, ISBN 978-619-7105-19-3 / ISSN 1314-2704, June 19-25, 2014, Book 5, Vol. 3, 353-360 pp

ABSTRACT
Romania has favorable conditions for practicing a sustainable livestock production and a special perspective in the European context for development in this direction. In our country a particular importance in ecological farming system has the sheep species. This species can to capitalize efficiently and sustainable the fodder resources and especially the large surfaces of natural grasslands. The purpose of this paper was to make a study at national level as regards the typology of ecological sheep farms. To characterize the typology of ecological sheep farms a study of the production system was conducted in 15 sheep farms certified ecologically, located in the counties Sibiu, Mures, Cluj, Arad, Ialomita. Evaluation of the production system from each farm was based on the completion of a special designed questionnaire followed by the centralization and processing of data by calculating the main statistical parameters. The results showed that ecological sheep farms taken in study are diverse in terms of number of animals held and land used, the average size of sheep farm being by 577.7 heads and the average area of land used per farm is 141.1 ha. The maintenance system of animals from these farms is extensively, based on the maintenance of sheep to pasture in warmer seasons and maintenance in shelters in cold season. Labor productivity is low in these ecological farms because the main farm activities are performed manually due to the lack of machinery, equipment and installations. However the adoption of ecological production system for sheep farms of extensively type, represent the practical way to allow them existence and continuity in the future.

Keywords: typology, sheep, ecological farms, ecological farming