In March 2025, the Climate Buzz, owned by the Agricultural Climate Company, will be on a tour of Trøndelag. The Climate Buzz will create a bit of a "buzz" about climate work in agriculture. Gunnar and Tove, who work with Nullslippsgården, were lucky enough to take the Climate Buzz to Snåsa, a municipality where farmers have been working a lot on climate work. The first stop was at Elise Bostad and Ola Rosdahl, who run a dairy farm with 550 tons of milk in its tenth year. Elise grew up on Gran and is committed to agriculture in Snåsa as a leader in the producer group. Ola grew up on a southern Swedish organic grain farm and has previously worked at Felleskjøpet. Both are committed to gaining knowledge from research and developing production on the farm with the most up-to-date knowledge possible.
Elise and Ola are committed to making the best possible use of the resources on the farm and achieving the best possible yields and crops given the conditions the farm has. And there is no doubt that they live up to the expression Good agronomy is climate smart. Here is good climate advice from Elise and Ola:
In general, we work on the basis that we want to extract maximum yield and harvest of the resources we put in in production. We want to have a high, stable milk production.
Good and correct roughage quality: We produce both zinc feed, heifer feed and dairy feed. 3 (4) mowings on most of the area ensure high dairy feed quality. The most consistent ration possible throughout the year. We also have a lot of grazing and are working to increase the summer milk share. We want to produce the feed ourselves. This will give us the best possible control over the quality and give us the best possible starting point for proper feeding and good yields.
Preventing disease is a good climate measure. Robust animals provide the best starting point for good production. We often check the animal welfare indicator. Elise also boasts of Snåsa's milk producers in general, who are very high on the scale.
Elise would like to see the calving age be under 24 months, which means less greenhouse gas emissions per heifer raised.
In the barn is SenseHub taken into use. Elise is very pleased as SenseHub means an extra hand to register heat activity and more easily detect when animals become sick. This is good climate work that also results in increased profitability.
Ola prioritizes time for good maintenance of machinery and equipment so that the equipment runs when it is the right time to do the work. He also believes that washing machines is a climate measure, since it is then easier to detect errors and deficiencies that can cause wrinkles during the season.
EANA shift is a solution that is indispensable for Ola. Here, all plans are made, the work is documented and the year's season is evaluated. The crops are recorded down to the smallest shift and a lot of feed analyses are taken. Ola is keen to find out why the crop was better or worse than expected and make changes based on this. One tip from Ola is to get the fertilizer out as early as possible in the spring, and preferably with divided mineral fertilization.
One observation the couple has made is the benefit of a circulation fan in the barn. In the summer heat, the cows really enjoy the air circulation that the fans provide. Elise also believes that this ensures that milk production stays up when it is at its hottest.
Finally:
Elise and Ola like the Agriculture Climate Calculator and would like to work more based on it.
Elise and Ola are considering switching from a wagon with a spreader to a hose spreader. This is a measure that means better utilization of livestock manure and thus reduced greenhouse gas emissions. For now, the investment cost and zoning challenges have limited this option.
They are also interested in alternative energy sources, but have not delved into this in depth, mostly due to uncertainty about the economics of this.
After the visit to Gran, the trip continued to Mediaas. The biogas plant at Mediaas will soon be completed. Trine and Jørn Magne Vaag and their son Bjørn Erik Vaag are looking forward to becoming more self-sufficient in energy on the farm. Klimabuzzen stopped by to take a closer look at the biogas plant from MMG. Biogas is a very effective climate measure and at Mediaas, biogas production will reduce the farm's climate footprint by 1/3.
The biogas plant has a capacity of 6,000 m3. The farm has 3,500 m3 of cattle manure itself, and will also receive chicken manure and pig manure from neighboring farms, so that there will be a total of 4,000 m3 of manure in the plant. Jørn says that in theory the plant should deliver between 150,000 and 200,000 kWh of electrical energy and the same amount of heat energy annually. The farm already has water-based heating, so there will be no major costs associated with getting the heat to the three residential units that are currently heated by the wood chip combustion plant. When the biogas plant is fully operational, the wood chip combustion plant will become a reserve. The cost framework for the biogas plant is 10 million, which Trine and Jørn believe will hold. – This will be a profitable investment for us! We extract energy, we get better manure and we get paid by the government because we help reduce climate emissions. Public support is crucial to the economics of the project.
Jørn has been curious about biogas for many years and has enjoyed gaining knowledge from Ingvar Kvande at NORSØK. The motivation for building the biogas plant is to become self-reliant, simply to build preparedness for the farm. – We want to be robust. Our income is reasonably stable, but we are so dependent on many other variables. By being self-sufficient in energy, we are more secure.
Jørn Magne and Trine also want to test whether biochar in the biogas reactor can increase gas yield and improve profitability. We at Mære Agricultural School look forward to contributing biochar to test this possibility. Trine and Jørn Magne have received Climate Advice through NLR and TINE and find it to be very useful. Together with the advisors, they came up with a list of measures that will have an effect on both the economy and on greenhouse gas emissions from the farm. They encourage all farmers to give their consent to the Agriculture Climate Calculator; – We must produce Norwegian figures for greenhouse gas emissions!
