Nov 24, 2025
Kick-off event for the Center for Sustainable Animal Husbandry on 28 November in Leipzig
What could the barn of the future look like? What do animal welfare and ergonomics in the barn mean? - The opening symposium of the Center for Sustainable Animal Husbandry, which will take place on November 28, 2025 at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Leipzig University, will address these and other questions relating to sustainable animal husbandry. Other topics at the symposium include stable climate and environmental compatibility, water and energy consumption in animal husbandry, holistic concepts for the construction, conversion and extension of stables and halls, stable equipment as well as automation and digitalization. In addition to a greeting from the Rector of Leipzig University, Prof. Dr. Eva Inés Obergfell, the program also includes a greeting from the Saxon State Minister for the Environment and Agriculture, Georg Ludwig von Breitenbuch.
"With sharply increasing demands on sustainability, energy efficiency, animal health and animal welfare, innovative solutions are needed to secure the future of livestock farming at the highest level while the number of specialists is dwindling," says Prof. Dr. Dr. Alexander Starke from the Clinic for Cloven-hoofed Animals at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Leipzig University, the chairman of the association Zentrum für zukunftsfähige Tierhaltung e.V. This was founded in July of this year at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg (TUBAF). Under the leadership of Freiberg University, researchers, private individuals and members of industry have joined forces to promote an innovation pool for the animal-friendly and sustainable barn of the future. It is therefore no coincidence that the TU Dresden and HTWK Leipzig are also represented in the association by scientists alongside the TUBAF and Leipzig University. These institutions will also be present in Leipzig on November 28 through representatives of the University Executive Boards.
Animal husbandry will only have a future in Germany if the requirements regarding animal welfare, ergonomics and environmental compatibility can be implemented in an affordable way. This requires legal framework conditions that enable creativity and innovations that are implemented on an interdisciplinary basis. The association, whose aim is to make a contribution to making animal husbandry in agriculture in Germany future-proof and sustainable, would therefore like to use the event on November 28 in Leipzig to address not only representatives of science and existing networks, but above all animal keepers, representatives of the authorities as well as stable equipment suppliers and construction companies from the field.