Animal health and pasture carbon dynamics in sustainability assessment of ruminant production systems
Informations
- Funding country
Norway- Acronym
- -
- URL
- -
- Start date
- 1/1/2021
- End date
- 12/31/2025
- Budget
- 811,800 EUR
Fundings
| Name | Role | Start | End | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FFL-JA - Research on agriculture and food industry | Grant | - | - | 811,800 EUR |
Abstract
The climate and topography make most of the arable land (67 pct) in Norway best suited for grass production. In addition, large areas are available in the outfields, traditionally utilised for grazing. Ruminants still have an important role for food security in Norway. The agricultural sector has signed a contract with the Government to reduce GHG-emissions towards 2030. SUSCOW is a cooperation between NMBU, other research institutions and agricultural industry partners. The project has to main parts; the importance of animal health status, and of C-sequestration in grassland and outfields to reduce GHG-emissions. The project will quantify the relationship between cattle health incidents in cattle and milk/beef production, to be further used in LCA and whole-farm models to calculate the effects of variable herd health status on the environment. Evaluation of system boundaries and extraction of health data from herd recording systems is in progress. Assessment of ecosystem storage of carbon in permanent pastures and outfields used for grazing will be performed across different climatic regions in Norway (WP3). Field work was conducted during summer 2021. Soil was sampled from 12 outfield locations used in suckler cow beef production systems with varying productivity. At selected locations, soil sampling was also conducted in outfields not used for grazing and cultivated pastures within the same plant community/parent material. At each location/land category, five plots were randomly selected for soil sampling at depth intervals of 0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm. A MSc student is working with this topic. All activities in WP3 are ahead of the timeline. Field work in WP4 (examine relationships between biodiversity, feed quality, and C storage as affected by long-term sheep grazing in alpine pastures) is moved to 2022. The process for recruiting a post doc has started. Results from this project will be made available for the agricultural industry if successful.