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Project Topic
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In line with the purpose to elaborate a new agro-food business model and promote Mediterranean local food products, the project aims to establish new knowledge and to explore the feasibility to obtain an innovative product that can contribute to improve human health and to face some of the challenges of the Mediterranean area. In this contest, polyunsaturated fatty acids take part in numerous physiological processes. Moreover, there is evidence that linen derived products (linen plant, linen straw, linseed, linseed bran) and some species of algae, rich in a-linolenic acid, the essential precursor of O-3, may have beneficial effects on human and animal health. An unbalanced diet in terms of O-6/O-3 ratio contributes to increase the cardiovascular diseases, obesity, diabetes and to reduce the human fertility, especially male fertility, in western Countries. On the light of this data, flax and algae supplementation in animal diet is a valid method to increase the productive and reproductive performances, the sanitary conditions of the farm and to produce nutritionally beneficial animal products such as rabbit meat. Finally, these innovative animal products, rich in O-3 and with reduced O-6/O-3 ratio, could be considered an innovative and valid functional food for the improvement of human health and fertility. Thus, the project has the following aims: 1 – to develop specific feeds for reproducing and growing rabbit based on the supplementation of linen derived products and algae, to reach a higher omega-3 fatty acids content in meat, and to assess the role of "omega-3 fixation booster"; 2 - to increase the fertility of rabbits to make more efficient the rabbit farming systems, including in hot climatic conditions also related to “global warming”; 3 – to improve the sanitary status in the rabbit farms through a higher resistance to infectious diseases, by increasing the immunological response of the animals and thus leading to reduce the use of antibiotics and to improve the animal welfare; 4 – to produce a new innovative, high quality and functional food (O rabbit meat) that can be produced by SMEs and can link local agricultural producers to urban, national, and international markets; 5 – to develop an innovative method of packaging that allows a prolongation of the shelf-life of the rabbit meat contributing to its commercialization in the domestic market and also for export (to reverse the import trend in the agricultural sector in some Mediterranean countries); 6 – to create a new market and supply food chain (O rabbit consortium) that includes under its disciplinary and logo, farmers, breeders and research centres that produce O rabbit meat as a guarantee of a high quality product and under the principle “from the farm to the fork”. According to the purpose to strengthen horizontal integration, the Consortium O rabbit includes the whole food chain that produces the innovative functional food: O rabbit meat. The research centers included in the consortium evaluate the quality of the O rabbit meat, the sanitary condition of the animals and their fertility. Another innovative aspect is the devise of a special packaging that can extend the shelf-life of the O rabbit meat. The dissemination of the results may contribute to the launch of this new healthy product in the market (vertical integration). The consortium and the O rabbit meat production may have a positive socio-economic impact for local market, exportation, and knowledge-based job. O Rabbit can increase the protein consumption in some areas and can concur to balance the diet O-6/O-3 ratio in other countries with beneficial effects on human health.
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