EAAP 2024 (Florence, Italy) :: The world's largest congress on livestock science and research in the world.
09.09.2024
"Global Quality: environment, animals, food"
The annual congress of the EAAP (European Association of Animal Science; https://meetings.eaap.org) took place for the 75th time this year, this time in Florence, Italy. With the range of topics and the number of participants, it is the largest animal science congress in the world. From 1st to 5th September, 98 scientific sessions and nearly 1 800 presentations covering a wide range of topics in animal sciences were held. The eleven EAAP Study Committees prepared a diverse scientific programme, with individual sessions focusing on different areas of knowledge related to animal science, such as genetics, nutrition, physiology, animal health and welfare, precision livestock breeding, horses, pigs, insects, cattle, sheep and goats.
The Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, through the Faculty of Agrobiology and Food Resources, represents the Slovak Republic in the EAAP. This year at the congress the faculty and Slovakia were represented by prof. Ing. Radovan Kasarda, PhD., doc. Ing. Nina Moravčíková, PhD., Ing. Adrián Halvoník and Ing. Monika Chalupková from the Institute of Nutrition and Genomics.
Each year, the plenary session focuses on significant challenges facing research and advances in zootechnical research. This year, presentations were given on rethinking the relationship between humans and livestock. There were speeches covering sustainable development and the animal welfarist on the one hand, and the animal welfare movement confronted with views from the perspective of the food industry and the dilemmas of consumers. The plenary session featured a lecture by Dr. C.C. Metges on the impact of early nutrition and nutritional programming on pig performance and physiological parameters, incidentally this year's winner of the EAAP Leroy Award.
The EAAP congress is always a space for strategic discussions on the current focus of science and research and the creation of consortia and partnerships as well as an opportunity to meet friends, discuss interesting topics and form new friendships. At the same time, it is gratifying to see many young people at the beginning of their scientific research careers at the congress, for whom participation and the opportunity to present at such an event is a kind of reward and recognition of their work.
An important piece of information is that in 2025 a second EAAP regional meeting for Central and Eastern European countries will be organised in Krakow, which will take place from 9th to 11th April 2025.
For more detailed information, please visit the EAAP website (www.eaap.org), the Florence Congress (www.eaap2024.org) or the newsletter, which we are also preparing for you in Slovak (https://fapz.uniag.sk/sk/eaap/).
