Nordic researchers gathered to learn from each other about mastitis and to establish new Nordic cooperation in the research field.
Read about the lectures and discussions here! (link not available)
Upcoming conference: Agriculture in civil defence
What mutual dependence does the society, total defense and agriculture have in a crisis situation? A conference is arranged on the subject in November, sponsored by NKJ.
Agriculture produces food, but can also add a lot of force in total defence. The machines, vehicles and knowledge in the sector can be of good use to for example extinguish fires or remove trees fallen over roads.
To do that, the agricultural sector needs fuel, water for the animals, electricity and so on in exchange.
The conference will discuss the needs on both sides to make cooperation possible and efficient.
NJF, Nordiska Jordbruksforskares förening, arranges the conference November 26-27 in Uppsala, Sweden. Here are some of the speakers:
Aud Sjökvist, the Swedish investigator of the efforts during the fire in Västmanland (Salabranden) in 2014. Former General Director of the Health services board of appeal.
Ivar Pettersen, Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Norway.
Jyrki Hakola, director of the Dept of basic Supply and Industry, National Emergency Supply Agency, Finland
Björn Kjörlof, Kungl Krigsvetenskapsakademin and former general director of Styrelsen för Psykologiskt Försvar och Pliktverket
There is a possibility to participate with a presentation or poster.
Contact:
Fredrik Fogelberg
+46 10 516 69 08
Website for registration and information (link not available)
NKJ Inside: “Change the food culture”
Meet NKJ board: Liisa Saarenmaa hopes for a more sustainable food culture in the Nordic region. In ten years, she believes that the food is produced closer to the consumer and that we eat other things than today.
Liisa is an alternate member of the NKJ board since 2000. In her view, it is the most important task for NKJ to give the Nordic perspective on agriculture and food research. As a whole, the Nordic research community gains a lot through cooperation. The national research get new approaches and there is a greater diversity and creativity.
– NKJ isn’t as visible as it should be, but still has an important role in the preparation of policy.
Bioeconomy
Liisa is working on various research issues at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Finland, nowadays focusing more on bioeconomy than on forestry, as she did before.
Before joining the ministry, she was at the University of Helsinki in Finland, at the faculty of forest ecology.
– My research was about rejuvenation and I used AI as a methodology in my doctoral dissertation.
Sustainable food
A crucial issue in agriculture and food research is, according to Liisa, sustainability. How can our food production and food culture in the Nordic region be sustainable, and how should we relate to the current climate change? The world’s growing population is also an important issue to consider in agricultural and food research.
In order to make the food culture more sustainable, Liisa thinks we must produce our food close to the consumer – ideally, it should be partly produced in our own homes – and eat less meat.
- In the future, insects become a common part of our food.
- New Nordic Food is a good example of how to apply national research results in the Nordic perspective. Food, with all its dimensions, becomes more important all the time because of climate change that forces us to change eating habits. That’s the most important thing, from my point of view, right now.
Writes books for her grandchildren
In addition to being sharp in Nordic bioeconomics, Liisa has another talent: she writes children’s books for her six grandchildren. And she also sails her boat together with her daughter and her family.
NKJ researchers help stopping devastating tree disease
Researchers revealed the genome sequence of a devastating tree pathogen. The disease threatens the Scandinavian broadleaf forests and this new knowledge can help stop it!
The new genome resource can be used in future population genomic studies for identification of haplotypes and alleles, and in identifying which effectors may function in infection of woody host plants.
The genome sequence presented provides a resource that can underpin further investigation into the mechanisms of disease caused by P. plurivora, a prevalent but little researched pathogen of important tree species. Our genome sequence of P. plurivora is consistent with the genome architecture of other sequenced Phytophthora species, and we found evidence for elevated ploidy, as can occur in Phytophthora species.
Causes huge economic loss
Plant pathogens belonging to the genus Phytophthora cause disastrous diseases and are responsible for multi-billion dollar losses in agriculture and forestry. Several Phytophthoras such as P. plurivora, P. alni, P. cambivoraand P. cactorum are now endemic problems in Scandinavian forests.
Despite causing diseases of different tree species in forest ecosystems, little is known about the mechanisms by which Phytophthoras invade and colonise trees, or the molecular interactions that take place between tree infecting Phytophthoras and host trees. Significant investment has been targeted to develop solutions for Phytophthora crop diseases, most notably for P. infestans and P. sojae.
Limited knowledge
By contrast, there has been divestment in tree biology, particularly the genomic and molecular skills. Consequently, we have limited knowledge about the infection biology of endemic and recently discovered pathogenic Phytophthoras that are an increasing threat to trees in Sweden and worldwide, and the tree resistance mechanisms that may control them. The overarching objective of our research is to investigate mechanisms of host-pathogen interactions and to identify ways to control diseases caused by tree infecting Phytophthoras.
Here we present a draft genome sequence of P. plurivora, originally isolated from diseased European beech (Fagus sylvatica) in Malmö, Sweden. Compared to other sequenced Phytophthora species, the P. plurivora genome assembly is relatively compact, spanning 41 Mb.
Article – Draft Genome Sequence for the Tree Pathogen Phytophthora plurivora
Text: Ramesh Vetukuri, Kaia Ekegren
Ramesh Vetukuri is the coordinator of a SNS-NKJ network:
NKJ board meeting
SNS-NKJ network BioWiseTrans meets to enable bioeconomy
Enabling Sustainable Transition to a Biobased Economy – The BioWiseTrans Network meets for the 2nd time in Hamar.
18-20 June, BioWiseTrans partners Nordregio, NIBIO, LUKE, Oslo University and Karlstad University came together in Hamar and sorroundings for its second workshop. Like last time and importantly, different stakeholders from Norway, Sweden and Finland joined us.
Study the bumps in the road
The excellent program set up by Norwegian partners focused on the need to address and study conflicts and synergies in the ongoing transition towards a fully biobased economy. Foremost focusing on forests, the group of 15 researchers and practitioners jointly experienced and discussed balancing goals of economic uses (e.g. production), social uses (e.g. recreation and tourism) and environmental concerns (e.g. conservation, restrictions and regulations). Discussions were also fuelled through the bioeconomy strategy in Hedmark, county and municipal planning, usages of common land for forestry and grazing, outdoor life and forestry, second home developments, and a visit to the gene bank of the forest seed centre.
Both new and old
It is clear that the biobased economy consist of both new and old land uses within forests, agriculture and fisheries. To adopt governance and management practices to the current land, water and resource uses, it is important to use sustainable development as a basis. The governance structures in place together with local participatory processes have been more or less functioning for decades (not without conflicts and dialogues however). In the current transition process it is therefore important to ask the following questions: What to sustain? What to develop?
In addition to thought provoking discussions, the group also enjoyed a tour to the tallest wood building in the world, the beautifully and innovatively restored dome in Hamar, and dinner with a Napoleon touch and some farm produced beer.
Don’t change what is functioning
One of the most vivid memories remain from visiting the Åstdalens forest associations by the book example of management of the common land (with reference to Elinor Ostroms theories on common resourse use). The head of the board told the group about the ongoing negotiations between the land owners about how many cattle heads are going to be allowed per farm unit. A research project in the area also indicates the synergies between clear cuts in forestry and agriculture, as the cattle tend to prefer to graze on the clear cuts. This shows that there is no need to transform anything that is functioning.
The BioWiseTrans network also discussed its final conference to take place in Karlstad 27-28 March. Stay tuned for any updates in this regard.
Text: Elin Slätmo, Karen Refsgaard
Photo: Michael Kull
Fifteen ways to improve the Nordic bioeconomy
Nordic bioeconomy is heading towards a future with refreshed energy! Since Wednesday there is a strategy to lift and support every Nordic step for a sustainable society.
The new action plan gives the Nordic Region a still leading role in the work to create a sustainable society. It is meant to facilitate the transition from traditional agriculture and forestry to technologically advanced industries that optimize the use of biomass to access its full potential and create added value.
“We are facing a new era of bioeconomy where new industries can arise and jobs are created. If we do it in a good way, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture industries can benefit greatly from upgrading biomass to more valuable products”, said Sven-Erik Bucht, Swedish minister for rural development, to norden.org.
The Nordic Bioeconomic Panel has elaborated the strategy. The vision is to accelerate the development of Nordic bioeconomy through strong political support at both national and Nordic levels. The strategy has four legs:
∙ Competitive biobased industries
∙ Sustainable resource management
∙ Resilient and varied ecosystems
∙ Including economic development
The program identifies fifteen ways to work for bioeconomy (read about them in link below).
NKJ in new Nordic agri/food cooperation
NKJ will fund and take part in the work of the Nordic Food Partnership, a recently founded cooperation for synergies and exchange in the agricultural and food sectors in the Nordics.
June 1st the Nordic Food Partnership had its founding meeting. NKJ will fund the cooperation with 300 000 DKK. The chairman of NKJ, Nina Solheim Flæte, will also take place in the steering committee were also representatives from all Nordic countries will contribute.
The Nordic Food Partnership will gather key stakeholders of the Nordic food system to develop a common agenda for research, education and innovation. The partnership wants to identify common challenges and establish Nordic collaborations and synergy. It wants to be a unified voice to drive the transformation of the Food System in the Nordics, in Europe and in global interaction. There are a few areas where the challenges are the same across the Nordic countries and can be handled more efficiently together. The countries have world-class excellence in individual areas and it would be of great interest to spread and share this best-practices.
Except for the 300 000 DKK from NKJ, the Food Nexus Nordic will add 200 000 DKK. The administrative host will be RISE in Sweden.
The vision of the Nordic Food Partnership is…
…“to build on Nordic strengths in order to drive the transformation of the food system towards a system that enables the production, packaging, distribution and consumption of safe, affordable and nutritious food with as little harm as possible. We will target the challenges of the food system, such as security, sustainability, health and knowledge provision in the Nordics, in Europe and in global interaction.”
These are the partners:
- ETL, Finnish Food and Drink Industries’ Federation
- Valio
- HK Scan
- LUKE, Natural Resources Institute Finland
- VTT
- Danish Food and Drink Federation
- Danish Agriculture and Food Council
- University of Copenhagen
- DTU
- Aarhus University
- Marinova
- Arla
- Matís
- NHO Mat og Drikke
- Nofima
- Sweden Food Arena
- Skåne Food Innovation Network
- Tetra Pak
- Lantmännen
- RISE
- Food Science Sweden
- Chalmers
- SLU
- Lund University
Don’t miss the IUFRO conference!
In september there will be a conference about Landscape Management in Prague.
The conference will be about new ways of gathering and processing data and remote sensing, the impact of climate change, modelling and how to bridge the gap between science and practice.
Kristina Blennow, professor of Landscape Analysis, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden, is one of the keynote speakers. Another is Lluis M. Plà-Aragonès, associate professor, Department of Mathematics and a Senior Researcher at the Agrotecnio Research Center at University of Lleida, Spain and Pete Bettinger, professor, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources University of Georgia, USA, is also coming.
Deadline for abstract submission is June 30.
- Read more about the abstract submission here! (link not available)
- Read all about registration and program here! (link not available)
New assignments for NKJ
NKJ got new exciting assignments and we are financing to eleven networks in 2017.
On February 6 last year, the seminar “Digitalization of agriculture – when and how is the big revolution?” was arranged by NKJ together with Partnership Alnarp, SLU. NKJ was also co-organizer of ICT Agris Conference 24 November 2017 in Copenhagen: “ICT-AGRI Conference on ICT and Robotics for a Sustainable Agriculture”. Digitalization is and has been a priority issue, and the emphasis in the latest NKJ call was digitalization. There is a lot going on in this important issue, and NKJ wants to contribute to the development.
In December, NKJ also attended a seminar on the reindeer husbandry. This was based on an report initiated by NKJ. The seminar set the course for the future of the reindeer husbandry.
During the year, NKJ continued the work for increased knowledge and Nordic cooperation in the agricultural and food sector, and these arrangements are part of this striving.
New assignments
Last year we also received new assignments. One came from Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation and the Nordic Council of Ministers and deals with the digitalization. NKJ will plan for activities in 2018 to bring the matter forward.
The Nordic Council of Ministers has also commissioned NKJ to coordinate a project on carbon storage in land. It will be exciting to develop and arrange activities on the subject!
Deepend cooperation
NKJ has deepened its cooperation with Food Nexus to strengthen Nordic contacts in the food sector. We are also co-applicants in an application to the Social Fund. The Swedish Farmers’ Association is the main applicant and we want to look at how we can supply the industry with labor.
In order to strengthen the Nordic position in agricultural and food research in Europe, we actively participate in European contexts such as JPI FACCE, SCAR and ERA-NETs.
Read the NKJ Annual Report 2017 (PDF)
The networks that have received funding from NKJ for 2018-2019 are:
- Added value to Nordic Baltic sustainable food research with quality and health perspective, coordinator: Gerd Vegarud, NMBU, Norway
- Nordic feeding recommendations for horses, coordinator: Rasmus Bovberg Jensen, NMBU, Norway
- Effects of extreme weather on agricultural production and environment, coordinator: Marianne Bechmann, NIBIO, Norway
- NORWAY – Nordic Ovine Research, Surveillance and Epidemiology, Coordinator: Clare Phythian, NMBU, Norway
- The Nordic Rye Forum, coordinator: Rikard Landberg, Chalmers, Sweden
- Healthy Outdoors for Sustainable Milk Production, Coordinator: Päivi Rajala Schultz, University of Helsinki, Finland
Together with SNS, NKJ finances in 2018-2019:
- NKJ-SNS 05: Advancing the bioeconomy transition in the Nordic Region (BioWiseTrans), coordinator: Karen Refsgaard, Nordregio
- NKJ-SNS 06: DIALOGUE BIOCONTROL – Improving utilization of biocontrol research for practical plant protection solutions in agriculture and forestry, coordinator: Ramesh Vetukuri, SLU
- NKJ-SNS 07: Neonectria cankers on trees – meeting changed climatic conditions and increased problems in Nordic horticulture and forest production by interdisciplinary networking, coordinator: Jorunn Børve, NIBIO
- NKJ-SNS 08: Genes4Change: Adaptation, mitigation and breeding of trees and crops for future climate, coordinator: Katri Kärkkäinen, LUKE
- NKJ-SNS 09: FiberTies – The use of fibrous materials from biomass, coordinator: Anne Christine Steenkjær Hastrup, Danish Technological Institute