THEME | AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Agricultural research – benefits farmers and climate

Focus Denmark has visited Denmark’s leading research centre for organic food, livestock and plants. Some of the world’s most outstanding research in agriculture and food production is being conducted there.

By Inge Kjærgaard
Photos: Poul Madsen

Clean and orderly stable at Research Centre Foulum.

It lies in western Denmark, far from the capital where the major political decisions are made. But Research Centre Foulum is very much influenced by what is on the political agenda – and exerts some influence in return. There are currently about 3,000 ongoing projects, representing Denmark’s most outstanding research in agriculture – research which is being spread to the whole world.

Foulum has existed in its current form for nearly 25 years. A couple of years ago, it became part of the University of Aarhus, which now runs courses at the centre. On the 550 hectares that Foulum occupies, research is conducted in livestock, plants, biogas and much more besides. Walking between the various departments quickly racks up the kilometres, so some of our transportation was by car. Even if you walked at a brisk pace across the area that Foulum lies on, it would still take almost an hour.

In the middle of the whole area lie the administration and the research departments. This is where the staff do their daily work – meetings, introductions and presentations for researchers, politicians, educators, agricultural consultants and students.

Around this large building are all the livestock buildings housing pigs, cows, poultry and sheep, and lots of green fields. More than 600 people work here every day – some in rubber boots and boiler suits, others in ordinary clothes. Some of the staff, mainly researchers from abroad and PhD students, even live at Foulum. It is rather like a micro-society within society at large. They have their own livestock buildings, feed storage facilities and abattoir.

Research from Foulum is published in numerous international journals, so the knowledge generated here is spread around the world.

Cows are a focal point

Climate is an important research subject at Foulum, and cows are one of the new focal points. Because when a cow burps, which it actually does quite frequently, it releases considerable quantities of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas methane from its rumen into the air. That is not good for the environment. The research centre is in the initial phase of testing methane release by cows, with some of the cows enclosed in a tent for a period of time. This enables methane release to be measured, and various types of feed tested to see whether feeds can be formulated that reduce methane emissions.

The cows involved in this research are Friesians of a rather unique kind. Inside a special cowshed lives a small herd, each with a small hole on their left side into the rumen – what is called a rumen fistula. It sounds severe but the cows do not look troubled.

These cows are used to test feed optimisation and feed composition – but otherwise they live an ordinary bovine life – they produce calves, eat, burp and sleep.

“A visitor once asked, ’Do the authorities know what is going on out here?’” says senior researcher Torben Hvelplund. The answer is yes, the authorities do know about it.

“The operation itself is perhaps a little unpleasant, but it is carried out by competent veterinary surgeons and under sedation. During the test, the cows are given a bit more care than the others. They get a good deal of attention,” he says, patting one of them.

Some of the cows in the test shed also have two cannulas on the right side of their stomachs, one at the beginning of the small intestine and one at the end. This enables the researchers to divide the digestive tract into three sections and examine what happens in them. They can study how the feed is digested and formulate feed that fits to what happens in the various parts of the digestive tract – and so improve the exploitation of the feed.

“We have been able to improve protein utilisation by doing this type of research. It is about combining feeds to produce the best possible result,” explains Torben Hvelplund.

Top: The cow looks calm and relaxed whilst a researcher checks its rumen fistula.
Bottom: The opening of the rumen fistula.

Foulum gets research award

Another research area which has importance worldwide – and for which Foulum has received an award – is modern cattle breeding.

The essence of cattle breeding is to find a good bull and mate it with a good cow – and hopefully produce even better cattle by enhancing the positive characteristics in the offspring. The problem is that it is quite difficult to find a the bull that is better than the others. After many years research at Foulum, they have developed a technique of extracting cells from a blood sample just after the bull calf has been born. By measuring a number of indicators, it can be determined whether the calf is a good one and thereby eliminate the 90 per cent which are not suitable as breeding bulls.

Up to now, bull calves have been selected for breeding from apparently good parents. When the bull is sexually mature, it is mated with a number of heifers and cows, its semen is also collected, frozen and stored for possible later use, and then the bull is slaughtered. Milk yield and health condition is then measured in the offspring; it is not until then that one can determine whether the bull actually was good. If it passes the test, its stored semen can be used. If it fails, that’s just hard luck in a process that takes four to five years.

“The new research will really make a difference. It will result in massive financial savings for cattle breeders around the world,” says head of communication Claus Bo Andreasen.

Live-reportage on fd.denmark.dk

Plant research is carried out both above and below ground.

Research focused on climate

Climate is at the top of the world’s agenda. This clearly shows in the research presently taking place at the agricultural research centre in Foulum

By Inge Kjærgaard

The flag is standing out horizontally from the flagpole at Research Centre Foulum. The air temperature is around 5ºC. Clouds are racing across the sky – from time to time snowflakes mingle with the squally showers. It is a very raw and chilly January day – a day when global warming is hardly front of mind. But it is very much front of mind at Foulum. There is a great demand for research into ways and means of curbing global warming. This type of research has entered a new era. Ten years ago, it was difficult to get financing, but now climate is at the top of the entire world’s agenda. Foulum’s research projects depend on the current political focus and what companies would like to develop.

Organic grazing

Organic farms in Denmark and abroad are growing – and so is the number of livestock. This necessitates larger pastures, but there are limits to how far a cow will walk between grazing and milking. On the other hand, the farmer cannot put cows out on the same pasture close to the farm year after year, because if the same crop (grass) is repeatedly planted, its nutritional value disappears. And using fertiliser to optimise pasture is not an option for an organic farmer. This is one of the challenges which Foulum has taken up.

Research is being conducted into how organic farmers can use fields close to their farms for grazing, and fields further away for crops, and how they can efficiently prepare fields for grazing. One of the research projects is seven-field crop rotation, where on each field a new crop is successively sown each year to avoid nitrogen leaching out of the soil. Nitrogen adds nutritional value to grass, and ultimately ensures good milk production from dairy cattle. It is also beneficial to the climate that nitrogen is taken up by the grass rather than remaining in the soil.

Subterranean plant research

Some of the plant research at Foulum is done indoors, and some outdoors. Roof sections mounted on tracks can run across large areas, so that the amount of rain and sun the plants receive can be controlled. Underground, there is a long tunnel, whose grey concrete walls are lit only by neon tubes. Down here, the researchers can take samples and examine the soil’s ability to reduce for example nitrate and pesticides.

Ingrid Thomsen conducts research into reducing leaching, so that nitrogen does not seep into the ground water. This can

be achieved by planting a pre-harvest catch crop such as fodder radish or rye grass. These crops grow very quickly and take up large amounts of nitrogen.

“We can feel an increased focus on climate. There is a lot of project work being carried out that has an environmental character,” says Ingrid Thomsen.

The research work at Foulum is being carried out both above and below ground – and when completed it could have considerable impact on legislation in Denmark – for example on how and what a farmer sows.

“It could have quite a lot of impact in terms of legislation. Right now there is enforced cultivation of post-harvest catch crops in Denmark to reduce nitrogen leaching, but the post-harvest catch crops have a longer growth period, which possibly could be replaced by more pre-harvest catch crops,” concludes Ingrid Thomsen.

Monitoring cattle from the office

When a cow becomes sick, the farmer must not supply milk from it. But with new systems where the milk is analysed at each milking, diseases can be discovered before they manifest themselves.

By Inge Kjærgaard

About eight years ago, a group of researchers at Research Centre Foulum applied for funding for a project to be run in parallel together with two companies. The objective was to find methods to continuously analyse cow’s milk. Torben Larsen, senior researcher at the Department of Animal Health, Welfare and Nutrition, Research Centre Foulum, procured the analytical equipment and robots that would assist him during the tests.

The project is still ongoing and when the senior researcher talks about it, the corners of his mouth slip into hiding in his moustache. He has worked together with the robots since the start of the project and has got to know them very well over time. They don’t chatter – but on the other hand they provide 600 milk tests per day.

“We really get a lot out of the robots. We have made hundreds of thousands of analyses in this project, and we have progressed far,” says Torben Larsen with a contented smile.

The research race

In Torben Larsen’s laboratory, systems
are being developed to analyse milk and thereby provide a health picture of the cow. In that way various diseases such as udder infection and metabolic disorders can be revealed. The milk is analysed while the cow is being milked. The system is controlled from the farmer’s office and immediately gives a warning if a cow is sick or is becoming sick. The milk analysis can catch some diseases as much as four days before the symptoms can be physically observed. The cow does not need to be taken out of production, because the disease can be prevented in time.

“When we started, similar tests were initiated in a couple of other places in the world, but they are no longer running,” says Torben Larsen.

Tests are often introduced in several places at the same time. To the researchers, it is about ’getting there first’, because the research project which is first to be patented or receives the best financial support, ’wins’. And the research group at Foulum won. It does not necessarily mean however that the research is wasted if you do not get there first. There is still an opportunity to publish the material, which can then be used by others.

System in use in the Netherlands

Based on the group’s research, an apparatus has been developed and put into use in livestock buildings in the Netherlands. It is important to the farmer, because as the herds increase in size, it is more difficult to get around them all and check how each animal is faring. By analysing the milk continuously, an eye is being kept on the cow, and the farmer can in many cases avoid the need to call out a vet.

“It takes many years to develop such a system. It has to be reliable so that the farmer is only alerted if there really is something wrong. Otherwise there can be too many false warnings. The system must know exactly what it must react to, and the farmer must know how to respond to a milk test,” says Torben Larsen.

From slurry to gas

Biogas production is an old technology, but it is on its way to a renaissance. With a new test plant, the world’s biggest, Denmark can once again get back in the driving seat of research

By Inge Kjærgaard

Research at the full-scale biogas plant at Foulum.

In the mid-1980s Denmark was a pioneer in the biogas area. But it was difficult to reap financial rewards, and the research lost its momentum. Now Danish biogas research is entering the arena again in the fight against climate change.

In 2007, a new biogas research plant was taken into use at Research Centre Foulum which represents a milestone in the development of new biogas technologies.

It is a full-scale plant that enables researchers to test new methods and technologies at a well-documented scientific level. Testing is still in its initial phase, but there is already considerable optimism.

The research being conducted in the new plant will have importance for the development of biogas in several areas. The aim is both to make biogas plants more efficient and to reduce the amount of liquid in slurry so it becomes more suitable as a fuel in biogas plants.

“The objective is to develop a new generation of more efficient plants, where we are able to get 10 to 20 per cent more energy out of the slurry,” says Henrik Møller, a senior researcher at the plant.

The research centre is also developing better equipment for process control of the biogas. It is important that the researchers can document the effect of the plant in order for biogas to seriously gain ground.

“We have to be able to determine how much less methane is discharged from slurry that has been through a biogas process in order to be able to document the ’climate effect’ of biogas plants,” he explains.

By looking at the entire process, it can be determined how much it costs to reduce CO2 with this technology. Up to now, no reliable figures on costs have been available, and the effect of reduced methane discharge from the slurry has not been factored in. Only a small part of the process has been looked at and so there is no complete picture of what biogas means in terms of benefits for the climate.

The tests at Foulum will make it possible to provide an accurate and qualified calculation of the effects of converting slurry into biogas. The government can then use the results in the overall climate accounts.

Today five per cent of livestock manure in Denmark is used for biogas production. That figure can increase significantly. It will not only be beneficial because energy and heat can be produced from biogas, but it will also benefit the climate because by converting slurry to biogas, less methane is released into the atmosphere. Degasification thus has a double role in relation to the climate.