Institut de l’Elevage

The French Livestock Institute (IDELE) is the French national technical reference and normative body in livestock farming systems. As a non-profit, non-governmental organization managed by livestock farmer’s federations, its activities encompass applied research, technical assistance and technology transfer in cattle, sheep, goats and horses husbandry sciences. The core mandate stands in innovation development and technical support towards livestock industry (farmers, breeders, supply chain) and their organizations. IDELE is the sole national ruminant technical institute accredited by the French ministry of agriculture. As an R&D organization standing at the crossroad between research (INRA) and the livestock farmer’s organizations (such as Races de France, Capgenes).

IDELE employs 248 people, mainly engineers, located in Paris headquarter and 12 regional offices. IDELE is organized into 5 departments (genetics and phenotypes, livestock farming techniques & environment, livestock and products quality, economy, farmers profession and society) and uses several instrumental platforms for extension services, such as: 12 experimental stations (like CIIRPO in meat sheep) conducting trials at animal, herd or farming system scales, farm networks generating technical and economic references for each breeding system (1,600 farms). IDELE chairs the ICAR working group on Sheep Goat and small Camelid.