International climate research at IHA (Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences)

Janne Karin Brodin

The Research Council of Norway has approved grants of up to 17 million NOK (2 million Euro) for a climate research “push” at UMB (Norwegian University of Life Sciences).

Two three-year projects aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Both projects are international cooperative efforts, they are at the cutting edge in their fields and both are led from UMB Departments. One of the projects is led from IHA.

Odd Magne Harstad Photo: Janne Brodin

Professor Odd Magne Harstad heads the IHA project. The focus of this project is to increase value creation in Norwegian food production through reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. The economic frame is just below 15 million NOK (1,7 million Euro), with 9.4 million (1,1 million Euro) coming from the Research Council.

Cooperative effort
The project is a cooperative effort between Norwegian and non-Norwegian researchers. One Canadian and several Norwegian research institutions are engaged in the project, as are representatives of the agricultural industry in Norway.

The researchers come from UMB/IHA, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), UMB/IPM (Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences), UMB/IKBM (Department of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science), Bioforsk (Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research), NILF (Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute), The Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute and The Norwegian Meteorological Institute. The partners from the agricultural industry are TINE, Felleskjøpet Fôrutvikling (The Norwegian Agricultural Purchasing and Marketing Co-operation), Nortura and Animalia (Meat and Poultry Research Centre). These partners also contribute to the financing of the project.

Two sub-projects
IHA researchers have been working with Canadian researchers at AAFC for some time. AAFC’s competence on greenhouse gas emissions is extensive. They have developed a model to estimate net greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. One of the main goals of this project is to develop a corresponding model for agriculture under Norwegian conditions. “The model will take the important factors and their interrelationship into account in order to calculate net greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture,” says Harstad.

In the second part of the project, models will be developed to calculate methane emission from ruminants on differing feed rations. “An important aspect of this part of the project is to arrive at measures which can reduce methane emissions from ruminants,” Harstad concludes.

In addition to professor Harstad, a number of researchers from the IHA group on Ruminant physiology and nutrition take part in this research effort.

Researchers from the IHA group on Ruminant physiology and nutrition. From left: Erling Thuen, Odd Magne Harstad, Øystein Holand og Harald Volden Photo: Janne Brodin

Updated: 07.01.10
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