Founded in 1872, CRA-W is a scientific establishment under the Regional Government of Wallonia. Approximately 440 employees, among which 120 scientists, work at the CRA-W to support the Walloon farmers, stockbreeders, horticulturists, forestry producers and operators in the agri-food sector. Scientific research is focused on four main areas: precision farming and livestock farming, risk management and understanding of products.
CRA-W beneficiates from an extensive expertise in developing, validating, and implementing spectroscopic solutions to support agriculture, with a particular focus on precision livestock farming tools to help dairy farm management. Over the years CRA-W has accessed to large spectral databases and has developed an original spectral standardisation process. It has developed multiple infrared models related to cattle production, encompassing diet characterization, milk quality, animal health, efficiency, CH4 emissions and welfare.
Based on this expertise, the CRA-W will develop tools to increase the resilience of small and mid-sized dairy farms by the integration of spectroscopic models and different sensors. Furthermore, CRA-W operates a dairy experimental farm, providing the opportunity to conduct trials directly related to the HoliCow project and to test the new tools.
Frédéric Dehareng, Scientific Collaborator
I am in charge of the dairy laboratory and the
research team of the CRA-W, specifically working on the development of
prediction tools using milk MIR spectra and finding solutions for standardizing
FT-MIR devices within the EMR network.
Clément Grelet, Researcher
I am working at the CRA-W’s milk lab with the
objective to provide new phenotypes from the MIR analysis of milk to the dairy
sector. In the past years I have been working on various research topics such
as fatty acids, minerals, biomarkers of health problems (energy balance,
mastitis, ketosis) in milk and blood, nitrogen efficiency, dry matter intake,
biomarkers of chronic stress. To enable international collaboration and the
transfer from research labs to the field, we developed at CRA-W the methodology of MIR
spectral standardization, which has been the topic of my PhD thesis.
Milk Lab Technical Team
The CRA-W milk lab technical team is composed by Mohamed El Morabit, Matthieu Dubuisson, Lora Renault, Alexis Fernandez, Petimat Kitaeva and Olivier Genard. The team is specialized in dairy products and especially in the milk matrix. They all have a great experience with chemical, sanitary and physical analyses of milk, both regarding main molecules and fine composition. The team has specific knowledge in creating interlaboratory study samples. Our lab is part of the Belgian reference for the monitoring of MIR instruments dedicated to milk payment, and is certified ISO 17025. The team is organizing the technical and scientific aspects of the spectral standardization for more than 100 MIR instruments in collaboration with EMR.