Finnish farmers with an interest in environmentally friendly farming participated in a seminar with representatives from the agri-environmental sector on a cruise on the icy Baltic Sea. TehoPlus, a national agri-environmental project, invited the farmers to spend their Valentine’s Day at a seminar discussing topics relating to effective agricultural water protection measures.
Sirkka Tattari, who leads the work package 5 on Comprehensive Assessment and Scenarios in Baltic Compass, presented the WP’s work in a presentation on the reliability of nutrient run-off models.
The participants were interested to know how well such models take into consideration soil properties and how can they make use of these models. Tattari explained that these models can take all these factors into account, even at a farm-level basis, provided there is enough detailed data available.
She was keen to find out whether the farmers would be willing to publish the amount of phosphorus they use so that researchers would be able to produce farm-level models. By modeling at a very local level, they would be able to identify which fields have enough nutrients in them already and which fields could use additional fertilization.
Other presentations in the seminar included Airi Kulmala from the Baltic Deal project where she explained how agri-environmental measures are regulated in the countries around the Baltic Sea. Kimmo Rasa from MTT Agrifood Research Finland challenged the audience on their phosphorus use by presenting evidence that fields can yield good crops without phosphorus-fertilization for at least four years, some fields with good enough soil could even skip 10 years.
TehoPlus, the organizer of the event, is a Finnish, government-funded, project aiming to improve water protection and water quality by preventing nutrient pollution.
All aboard! They’ve even got a Compass deck Photo by: Mia Välimäki
