Disruptive food production technologies contributing to reach the Finnish carbon neutrality goals

Food without Fields project focuses on development of disruptive food production technologies that have substantial potential to contribute to reach the Finnish carbon neutrality goals. “Food without Fields” stands for disruptive food production solutions that are not heavily dependent on agricultural lands. The solutions include 1) cellular agriculture technologies, i.e. harnessing microbes and plant cells to produce feed and food, 2) controlled environment agriculture for plant production, i.e. novel plant factory and greenhouse solutions to grow vegetables and protein plants, and 3) greenhouses with LED lighting to provide optimized growth environment for protein rich crops.

Regards to reaching the Finnish 2035 carbon neutrality goals, when compared to existing food production systems, these new solutions are expected to enable substantial reductions in GHG (up to 90%) and freeing land to other than agricultural use. The substantial reduction in land use (up to 95%) can enable returning the land back to natural state and reforestation with expected increase in biodiversity and carbon sequestration.

Project applies both systemic and technical level research to 1) evaluate the impact pathways of the new food production solutions, including value chain analysis and sustainability assessment with focus on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and land use; 2) develop the disruptive technologies of cellular agriculture, vertical farming and greenhouse solutions and pilot their potential via four Case studies; 3) evaluate the regional possibilities and barriers of the technologies in the three selected regions in Finland (Pohjanmaa, Varsinais-Suomi, Uusimaa); 4) engage the stakeholders to the new food production solutions to facilitate their implementation. To reach the goals the project will combine the cross-disciplinary expertise (agri-, bio- and food technologies, sustainability assessment, scenario building, co-creation and ecosystem work) of VTT and Luke and the expertise of regional stakeholders and industry partners (eniferBio, Fazer, SolarFoods, Valio).