COMITE NATIONAL BREBIS LAITIERES

Their core work

CNBL is the French national committee representing dairy sheep producers — a sector association that bridges the gap between farming practice and research. Their primary function is to organize and represent the interests of dairy sheep farmers across France, manage breed data, and coordinate collective actions for the sector. In EU research projects, they contribute as an industry partner bringing direct access to farming networks, real production data, and the practical knowledge needed to test and validate innovations on the ground. Their participation in both sustainability assessment and welfare technology projects shows they serve as a conduit for participatory research — enabling scientists to work directly with producers.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first project (iSAGE, 2016–2020), CNBL's engagement was broad and diagnostic — covering sustainability assessment, socio-economic factors, demographics, consumer trends, climate change, and breeding programs simultaneously. This suggests a sector-mapping role, helping researchers understand the full landscape of European sheep and goat farming. By the time TechCare began in 2020, the focus had narrowed sharply to small ruminant welfare and technology integration, reflecting a shift from understanding the sector to actively improving it through applied innovation.

CNBL is moving from broad sector diagnostics toward technology-focused welfare and value chain work, suggesting future collaborations are likely to involve precision livestock farming, sensor technologies, or welfare certification systems rather than pure socio-economic studies.

How they like to work

CNBL has participated in both projects as a consortium member, never as coordinator, which is typical for a sector association whose value lies in access and representation rather than research leadership. Their two projects have a combined 52 unique partners across 11 countries, indicating involvement in large multi-actor consortia — the kind where national producer bodies are specifically recruited to ensure industry uptake and on-farm testing. They are not a technical research partner but a sector gateway: working with them means accessing French dairy sheep farmers and their data.

CNBL has worked with 52 distinct partners across 11 countries from just two projects, indicating highly networked large European consortia rather than bilateral relationships. Their connections are pan-European across the sheep and goat sector, likely including research institutes, breed associations from other countries, and veterinary organizations.

What sets them apart

CNBL is a national-level institutional representative of the French dairy sheep sector, giving them a legitimacy and reach that no individual research group or company can replicate when targeting French sheep producers. For any consortium that needs to conduct on-farm trials, collect producer data, or validate outputs within the French dairy sheep industry, CNBL provides direct access to that community. They are one of the few H2020 participants who represent an entire national livestock commodity sector rather than a single farm, company, or research unit.

Highlights from their portfolio

• TechCare
  Largest project by budget (EUR 215,745) and the most applied in scope — focused on deploying real technologies for welfare management along the value chain, running through 2025.
• iSAGE
  Broader European scope covering the full sustainability landscape of sheep and goat production, notable for its explicit inclusion of participatory research methods and consumer trend analysis.