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vor 4 Jahren

XtraBlatt Issue 02-2019

TITLE THEME 1 Aarhus.

TITLE THEME 1 Aarhus. Seges is mainly financed through subscriptions from its some 15,000 Danish farmer members. “Transporting farm manure over any sort of distance and/or delivering it to other farms, as we see happening in Germany or the Netherlands, hasn’t been allowed with us for a long time. Being legally required to spread on our own land proves a powerful motor for structural expansion”, he explains. application have been in place for around 20 years now in Denmark. Over this period the most different of concepts have been tried by politics. “Not all of those turned out practicable and a lot of money was spent. However, over the years regulations were adjusted and since 2017 politics, as well as expert participants, have together found a way that is certainly practicable”, relates the advisor. EASING REGULATIONS In recent years there’s been a marked reduction in farmland rents and farm prices: a major factor for individual farm expansion. Advisor Bjergmark and Niels Laursen agree that farmland rental in west Jutland 2013 stood at around 4,000 Danish krone (DKK) /ha, about 540€. Now, it’s down at between 2,000 and 3,000 DKK/ha, i.e. from 260 to 400€/ha. At first, this sounds paradoxical. After all, a rising demand for land would lead us to expect the opposite tendency. “But for various reasons some of the farms here have had very difficult years behind them. Many farmers have given up, so that a lot of land ended on the market. Now, though, rent level has stabilised”, reckons Erik Bjergmark. Among the difficulties influencing the abovementioned troubled times was certainly not only the Manure Ordinance, but this partially shares the blame, according to the discussion between Niels Laursen, Erik Bjergmark and Dan Hamann. Upper limits for nitrogen and phosphorus Background to the “easing” of regulations initiated by government in 2017 was firstly a marked reduction in ground water nitrate levels. Initially, levels had been too high. Secondly, the earlier limit to nitrate inputs proved detrimental to crop quality and yield, especially in cereals. The results hit prices for wheat growers in particular. There were also consequences for feeding value, particularly in pig production. More protein had to be bought-in. As milk producer, Niels Laursen saw, and still sees, no problem here, however. After all, a certain proportion of concentrate feed has to be bought-in anyway for milkers. And on his mainly sandy soils the only cereals that grow well are barley and rye, together covering approx. 250 ha. “Hereby we are not dependent on highest yields and are happy with the average of 7 t/ha”, he says. A further 150 ha are sown to maize, with around 100 ha down to grass. But what exactly is the regulatory environment for Danish farmers now? First of all, the limits of 170 kg N/ha and 30 kg P/ha for farm manure apply as before, whereby nutrient 8

2 3 availability is accepted as 70 % of the total so that effective application is around 135 kg N/ha. However – and here lies the important difference – present regulation is based more on crop requirement. “Up until 2017, a maximum 80 % of the optimum plant requirement was generally accepted from manure. Now, this limit no longer applies and we can orient our applications on actual requirement”, reports Erik Bjergmark. Based on manure nutrient content – and here fixed rates are simply used in calculations, with no legal requirement for sampling – Niels Laursen normally applies a good 20 m 3 /ha slurry as first dressing to his grass. A further 15 m 3 /ha follows the second cut. On maize, on the other hand, he applies a single dressing of 30 m³/ha slurry before drilling. Further plus points in this respect: the farmer can add mineral fertiliser so that a total of up to 300 kg N/ha is possible. Another positive aspect is the possibility of calculating manure application on the farm of production with account taken of soil type, uptake of crop and precipitation. This can push the application limit to as much as 230 kg N/ha. The aforementioned 170 kg N from farm manure must still apply as the calculated mean for the whole farm area, however. 1 The Laursen farm runs 420 cows plus 380 followers, housed in two barns. 2 Contractor Torben Kamp: “Precise documentation of applied manure is a legal requirement of the state.” 3 Contractor Hans Tobiasen sees controlled traffic on pasture, i.e. permanent tracks, as an opportunity to boost yields by as much as 7%. whereby “greening” doesn’t mean an absolute requirement for a well-grown intercrop. For instance, undersown grass in maize is used for preventing leaching post-harvest. Also unchanged is mandatory soil-incorporation for manure. Injecting slurry into pasture is not, however, definitely required under regulations, adds Niels Laursen who, anyway, sees this operation as unnecessary damaging grass roots. “In our case, the farm contractor uses the trailing hose system. However, the slurry is generally acidified with SyreN, thus limiting ammonium losses. This functions well”, he reports. SUFFICIENT YIELDS Remaining unchanged are, on the other hand, legal requirements such as winter “greening” or crop cover for all areas – Apropos pasture: here, Niels Laursen puts his faith, as do his neighbours, to a large extent on “arable swards”, i.e. maximum four-year grass leys grown within the crop rotation. “In this way we always have good, high yielding pastures”, 9