Circular approach to Czech sheep wool
The circular concept is especially important for protecting our soil and ensuring life for future generations.
The importance of sheep farming in our country – farming and landscape, soil
Grazing of animals is, among other things, an activity that has significantly influenced the current appearance of the European landscape. Due to the transition to stable breeding in connection with the intensification of agriculture from the 18th century, grazing was abandoned. It therefore gradually began to lose its importance. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that the positive contribution of the free movement of herds to the environment was discovered, which changed its character significantly during that time.
According to conservationists, grazing and trampling of plants into the soil was the reason why grazing was banned until the 1960s. Later, however, research showed that sheep and goats moving around the area create ideal conditions for disrupting the entire lawn with their weight and hooves, and rare species - which would otherwise suffocate grass tussocks and resistant fast-growing plants - are given the opportunity to germinate. Controlled grazing of grasslands by flocks of sheep and goats returns the original species diversity of plants to the landscape areas and, consequently, also of animals. The diversity of grasslands allows sheep and goats to selectively graze, which supports the life of invertebrates , which have the necessary refuge in unevenly grazed areas.
Another significant value of pastoralism is animal manure and liquid feces , containing nutrients from the given location, which remain on the pasture, serve as fertilizer and thus contribute to fertile soil . During long-term mowing, mineral nutrient components such as nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, calcium and others end up, together with seeds for reproduction, in the resulting biomass, which is carried away from the pasture and nutrients and seeds disappear from the soil in a drastic way. Year-round grazing of animals, in contrast to mowing, allows the return of necessary substances in the form of animal excrement back to the soil at a given location. This closed cycle is evidence of a functioning local ecosystem.
