Collaboration and knowledge sharing at Farm of the Future Viken

Lantmännen's vision Farming of the Future and Arla's FarmAhead, a program for the green shift on the farms, go hand in hand and are manifested in our new collaboration at Farm of the Future Viken. Viken is a dairy farm with 440 dairy cows and 450 heifers and calves as well as 365 hectares that are cultivated for crop production, mainly grassland. The farm that now supplies milk to Arla is a perfect arena for testing new methods and techniques for a green transition put into practice with the goal of creating sustainable and productive milk production.

Arla and Lantmännen have long had a dialogue about our shared vision for a more sustainable and profitable agriculture, where our cooperative business models provide good conditions for industry collaboration with consensus. Among other things, the report Farming of the Future – Beef & Dairy  has been jointly produced. Together we are strong. In many cases, we share customers and members, and we work for the best interests of the farmer with long-term sustainability and profitability in agriculture as our goal. Through the new collaboration, we can learn from each other's skills and get more out of the projects. Arla focuses on the milk tank and Lantmännen largely on the feed, now we can follow each other along the milk value chain and use our knowledge together.

Viken is a dairy farm with 440 dairy cows and 450 heifers and calves as well as 365 hectares that are cultivated for crop production, mainly grassland.

At Viken, important sustainability work is underway in several areas. One example is a project that will be launched shortly, and which will investigate practical opportunities for dairy farms to use methane-reducing supplements in the cow feed. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and methane emissions from cows' digestion account for a large part of the climate impact from dairy farming. The feed supplement is already available, and pilot studies have been carried out, but more practical user experience is needed. No two farms are the same, and different solutions are needed. The project at Viken will provide an example of how it can work. Among other things, it is possible to test different ways of giving the supplement and measure the effects on methane reduction. In previous trials, we have seen a 30 percent reduction in methane gas with the supplement, and the entire climate footprint from production is then reduced by 11 percent. It is therefore a measure that has major effects.

Another example of collaboration that is already underway at Viken is our feed efficiency meetings that are arranged jointly between Arla and Lantmännen. The meetings take place both physically and digitally, and all farmers are invited to participate and take part in new knowledge.

Part of the project is to investigate practical possibilities for using methane-reducing supplements in the feed for the cows.

The collaboration at Farm of the Future Viken opens many opportunities. It's important to have a location where we can show our members what we do with credibility. We want to create inspiration for our members to be able to improve production capacity at their own farm. Viken gives us an arena where we can test our ideas and see what works, and it feels great to be able to do it as a collaboration between two large companies.

For us at Arla and Lantmännen, who are participating in the project, it feels great to collaborate, exchange knowledge and learn from each other. Together we can achieve more. We both look forward to creative meetings where everyone contributes with different points of view.