Dairy and beef industries in Finland: Progressing pathways to carbon-neutrality by 2035
NC-GRASS 01
The overarching goal of NC-GRASS is to address knowledge gaps in Finnish milk and beef production and recommend changes at farm level using past and current experimental data so that the commercial farms in Finland achieve climate neutrality by 2035.
Our specific objectives are to:
- Synthesize ongoing and past research data published in scientific literature from Finland and other relevant countries, assess and improve sustainable intensification strategies of integrated grassland-livestock systems for dairy and beef farming systems by exploring options (a) for increasing carbon sequestration in soil, (b) reducing GHG emissions (CO2 and N2O from organic and mineral grassland soils and enteric CH4 from ruminants).
- Maximize sustainable impact by kick-starting a wider uptake of enabling, promising and scalable approaches, technologies (drones, remote sensing, GIS, machine learning), business models (marginal abatement cost curves) and policies as relevant to milk and beef farming in Finland with a focus on (a) precise soil nutrient management, (b) land use change impacts and (c) biodiversity enhancement.
- Verify and improve existing state-of-the-art biogeochemical models, harmonize them into a monitoring framework for estimation of GHG fluxes, quantify long-term sustainability of “business as usual” (BAU) and “aspirational” (ASP) dairy and beef production systems in Finland through integrated farming systems simulation.
- Empower Finnish farmers to allow them to make informed decisions through computer technology (mobile app development) and knowledge sharing in cooperation with all allied agro-industrial partners.
