Future of Horses in Europe

The European Horse Network has released a June 2018 study on the future horses in Europe in light of horses seemingly being excluded from European Commission's plans for subsidies and planning for agriculture and farms.  The EHN counter argues that equines play an important role in European agriculture even as the scarcity of open land grows.

"Although horses are the smallest group of farm animals, the breeding activity for the 7 million horses (86 million beef/veal animals)is the one with the least adverse impact on nature and presents many opportunites [sic] for rural employment."

The report talks about the benefits of mare milk as opposed to cow milk (8 times more vitamin C and more digestible).

"There is a real renaissance of the working horse in vineyards, for instance, in France. High quality estates such as Château Latour or Romanée Conti replace tractors by horses, with remarkable results: young vines growing in a vineyard worked only with horses start to fruit one or even two years earlier than those growing in soils compacted by tractors. The roots of the vines go deeper, the soil structure regenerates, the water balance is improved and the biodiversity of soil organisms is increased."

Huum seems to me like benefits go from yogurt to wine....

Here's a link to the report.
https://www.feif.org/files/documents/horses%20in%20future%20agriculture%20policy%20beyond%202020%20-%20jun%2018%20(2).pdf
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