European Centre for Regenerative Animal Nutrition (EC-RAN)
Building a shared future for Regenerative Animal Nutrition
EC-RAN is taking shape within NUTRIFEEDS as a collaborative initiative to connect knowledge, expertise, methods, and stakeholders around a shared vision for Regenerative Animal Nutrition.
What is EC-RAN?
The European Centre for Regenerative Animal Nutrition (EC-RAN) is an emerging scientific and stakeholder network dedicated to advancing Regenerative Animal Nutrition through research, knowledge exchange, methodological development, demonstration, and collaboration.
EC-RAN is being developed as the long-term legacy of NUTRIFEEDS, building on the knowledge, expertise, technologies, partnerships, and practical experience generated throughout the project. Rather than creating a separate organisation from the outset, NUTRIFEEDS provides an incubation environment in which EC-RAN can progressively develop its scientific identity, community, methods, demonstrators, training activities, and future governance.
Its guiding principle is simple: start with knowledge exchange, not administration. By creating value for researchers, industry, farmers, policymakers, and other stakeholders from the beginning, EC-RAN aims to build the scientific credibility, community, and foundations needed for a sustainable European reference network.
"Start with knowledge exchange, not administration."
NUTRIFEEDS develops the science, methods, technologies and partnerships; EC-RAN transforms these assets into a permanent European network.
What is Regenerative Animal Nutrition?
Regenerative Animal Nutrition (RAN) provides the scientific and conceptual foundation of EC-RAN. It extends the principles of regenerative agriculture to animal nutrition, considering animal feeding not as an isolated activity, but as an integral part of interconnected animal, agricultural, environmental, and food systems.
RAN brings together three interconnected dimensions:
Animal & ecosystem health
A transdisciplinary approach that uses animal feeding to enhance animal health, welfare and resilience — in line with One Health and One Earth principles.
Circularity & efficiency
Integrates feed production and circular crop-livestock systems with precision nutrition to cut nutrient losses and reduce food-feed competition.
Regional balance
Aligns livestock farming with the carrying capacity of local agro-ecosystems, through balanced nutrient cycling and adaptive management.
EC-RAN Initiative within NUTRIFEEDS
During the project, EC-RAN will develop as the EC-RAN Initiative within NUTRIFEEDS, rather than as a separate institution operating alongside it.
This approach allows the initiative to build on existing NUTRIFEEDS activities, scientific outputs, meetings, dissemination channels, and partnerships while progressively developing its own community and scientific identity.
Regenerative Animal Nutrition provides the intellectual framework for this process. By extending regenerative agriculture to animal nutrition, EC-RAN positions feeding as a driver of animal health and welfare, nutrient efficiency, circularity, ecosystem health, and resilient food systems.
This positioning distinguishes EC-RAN from initiatives focused primarily on feed efficiency or regenerative crop production and provides a broader systems perspective on the future of animal nutrition.
NUTRIFEEDS as the EC-RAN Incubator
NUTRIFEEDS provides the environment in which EC-RAN can progressively develop and demonstrate its value. During the project, existing knowledge, expertise, infrastructure, and stakeholder connections will form the foundations of five core EC-RAN functions:
1
SCIENCE
NUTRIFEEDS experimental results, scientific concepts, and publications will contribute to building the scientific knowledge base of EC-RAN.
2
METHODS
Protocols, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), analytical methods, assessment approaches, and sustainability indicators developed through NUTRIFEEDS will contribute to a shared methodological resource base.
3
DEMONSTRATION
NUTRIFEEDS case studies, innovative feed concepts, and practical examples will provide the first opportunities to demonstrate how Regenerative Animal Nutrition can be translated into practice.
4
COMMUNITY
The NUTRIFEEDS consortium and the external stakeholders interacting with the project will provide the starting point for building a broader scientific and stakeholder community around Regenerative Animal Nutrition.
5
INFRASTRUCTURE
The expertise, laboratories, pilot facilities, and Living Labs available across NUTRIFEEDS will provide an initial infrastructure base for knowledge exchange, experimentation, and future collaboration.
The key operational principle is to avoid creating parallel structures. Wherever possible, existing NUTRIFEEDS activities will become the foundations of EC-RAN: stakeholder meetings can evolve into EC-RAN stakeholder forums, webinars can form an EC-RAN webinar series, project protocols can contribute to a methods repository, and NUTRIFEEDS case studies can become the initiative’s first demonstrators.
