From 1st June to 31st October 2000 the first World Exhibition will take place in Germany. Under the slogan "man-nature-technology" it will attract nearly 40 million visitors from all over the world to Hanover and to the different Federal States during a period of five months. International companies, institutions, scientific centres and individualists will present an propose ideas, solutions and initiatives for a sensible future co-existence of man, nature and technology
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Starting from a competition of ideas on the national level with an independant jury, the Working Group "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Schleswig-Holsteinische Landwirtschaft e.V." won the competition with the challenging topic "Securing World Food Supply: Models from a European Top-Performing Region - Efficient and Environmentally-Friendly Ways Forward"The project was honoured by the jury as a future-oriented "world-exhibit" and will be included with the lolo of EXPO 2000 in the applications distributed world-wide. It will be presented to visitors from all over the wolrd both in the German Pavilion in Hanover (June to October 2000) and in the context of the Decentral Project in the Schleswig-Holstein Open Air Museum as from Mai 1999 to October 2000.
At the occasion of the World Food Day in 1997 it was pointed out that nearly 800 million people, of which 190 million children, are suffering from malnutrition. The dominating topic of the next 30 years will be the development of the world population and its long-term food supply. According to the FAO (Federal Agriculture Organisation), the world population will grow by two billion people to nearly eight billion until 2020.
In the next twenty-five years, food production has to be doubled in order to sufficiently supply the continouosly increasing world population - both qualitatively and quantitatively. Available areas of cultivation have to be used as efficiently as possible according to ecological requirements because the areas of cultivation should not be expanded at the cost of natural biotopes.
The Schleswig-Holstein Agricultural
Work Group has set itself the aim of developing agricultural
production systems for the production of
environmentally-protective and
residue-free food product. Five
agricultural institutes are networked
not only to each other and to
advisory and promotion institutions but
also to agricultural plants.
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In order to adjust the amount of nitrogen in wheat to demand, the grain which ist used as the basis of the experiment, conclusions have to be drawn on the yield potential from periods of vegetation an weather data with the help to computer models. Three hundred agricultural farms will use the model project for consultation purposes. |
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An increase in nitrogen fertiliser raises the protein content while at the same time, it results in a decrease in protein quality. Analytical examinations should result in an optimisation strategy here. A reduction in the use of pesticides (50-60 %) is the target of national monitoring by the integrated plant protection system Schleswig-Holstein (IPM) initiated by the Institute of Phytopathology. |
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Within the process of milk production only about 20 % of the nitrogen entering the system - in fertiliser, feeds or by natural processes - is recovered as milk and meat. Most of the remainder is lost to water and the atmosphere. To prevent these losses and improve the nitrogen use efficiency different production systems are investigated within an interdisciplinary project, initiated by the Department of Grass and Forage Science, Institute of animal breeding and husbandry, Institute of Animal Nutrition, Physiology and Metabolism and Institute of Agricultural Econmics. |
Summary of the Project Targets and Purpose of the World Exhibit "Securing World Food Supply"
The objective of the project ist the development of agricultural production systems to secure the sound, economically and ecologically responsible production of food in sufficient quantity and high quality with minimum contaminationof the environment. By way of example, environmentally compatible models are presented which werde developed scientifically and are being implemented in the crop of wheat to optimise yield in consideration of ecological effects.
The expo-project "Securing World Food Supply" consists of four different models:
1. Nitrogen Fertilisation Model
An essential "motor" of plant production is nitrogen provided sufficient water is available which may at the same time become a factor of combination for the atmosphere (N2O, NOx), of ecosystems (eutrophication) and drinking water (nitrate) through gaseous emissions and wash-out. It is the objective of the project to be presented to show by the model crop of winter wheat how N fertilisation can be optimised in view of yield and quality in plant production systems such that the N discharge with leachate and the associated contamination of the environment are minimised. The optimisation relates to different production systems with different factor combinations and stages (different soil treatment, different combinations of organic and mineral fertilisation, different use of plant protection products etc.) and to the adaptation to different climatic conditions of individual years.
To this purpose a computer model was developed for N fertilisation which allows conclusions to be drawn, already at an early stage in the vegetation period before the start of fertilisation and on the basis of previous climatic data, on the yield potential, the necessary N quantity and the optimum distribution pattern. In this way the N fertilisation can be ideally adapted to the plant requirements in terms of quantity and distribution, and losses can be minimised.
2. Integrated Crop Protection System - IPM Wheat Model
As a result of the intensification of wheat cultivation, the economic significance of pathogens as biological reactions to changed crops has increased significantly. Yield losses resulting from disease epidemics reach up to 40%. Under these preconditions the application of chemical plant protection products in cereal crops has gained a high level of importance. In numerous cases, the frequent and non-selective routine application of chemical plant protection products used in agriculture for securing cereal yield can no longer be called ideal under economical and ecological aspects and may contribute to the unnecessary contamination of the balance of nature.
It is the objective of the project to be presented to demonstrate, by way of the model crop of wheat, how plant protection - and notably the use of fungicidal, active substances - can be optimised with regard to the protection of the yield potential and economical and ecological effects that the associated combination of the environment is minimised as far as possible. The model shall allow individual pathogens or pathogen complexes to be controlled at epidemiologically sensible points of time as a function of functional control thresholds, i.e. reaching optimum biological effects on the pathogen development by the lowest chemical input and optimum restriction of economic damage, combined with a low level of environmental contamination.
The integrated crop protection system IPM Wheat Model is a concept and approach which harmonises all the economically, ecologically and toxicologically acceptable methods in order to keep noxious organisms below their economic damage threshold. The conscious use of natural restriction factors (e.g. selection of resistant varieties and fertilisation according to demand etc.) is in the foreground, and the application of chemical preparations is restricted to what is absolutely necessary.
In principle it is the objective to make the necessary corrections in the cultivation system by maintaining or reactivating or changing natural processes with minimum external effort and to apply, as far as possible, a combination of compatible and synergistic phytosanitary / agricultural measures instead of a single sweeping chemical process.
3. Food Quality and Human Nutrition
The Institute for Human Nutrition and Food Science studies the connection between the intensity of production or treatment and processing and the quality of food such as a) influence of N fertilisation in wheat and heating of processed food on protein use and the effects of heat-related reaction products on the organism (absorption, excretion, biotransformation, toxicity).
b) effect of soluble bulk material (e.g. beta-glucance from cereals, inuline from cichoria, psyllium etc.) and the origin and processing of different food fats (especially rape oil) and fat-accompanying substances (plant sterols) on blood lipids and bile acid metabolism.
4. Optimisation of Nitrogen Flows in the Process of Milk Production in the System Soil-Plant-Animal
It has been shown that specialised milk cattle/forage-growing farms show relatively high levels of excess nutrients because of reduced nutrient exports which can be essentially above 200 kg N/ha/year for nitrogen. Especially at the typical forage-growing sites of the North German Sander areas this induces negative ecological effects. Against this background four different institutes of Kiel University initiated an interdisciplinary research project in 1997.
The basis of the studies ist the quantitative determination of nitrogen flows in the system Soil-Plant-Animal for different production intensities and management strategies at specialised milk cattle/forage-growing farms in order to derive optimised production strategies to improve the effciency of the conversion of nitrogen use to product nitrogen (milk/meat).
The project will be carried out at the experimental farm Karkendamm of the institute of animal breeding and husbandry. The entire farm area (140 ha) and the total diary cow herd (100 cows) will be involved in the project. The cows will be split into two groups. Group 1 will be feed on white clover grass pastures in summer and red clover grass silage (80%) and maize silage (20%) in winter. Group 2 will feed on intensively fertilised grass pastures in summer and on maize silage (80%) and clover grass silage (20%) in winter. To cover additional gradients in fodder cultivation, plot trials are carried out on both pasture land and land used for winter food production.
By analogy, further variants in the animal trial are evaluated especially in relation to the degradability of nutrients. For all variants essential characteristic parameters of nitrogen flows are determined in the system Soil-Plant-Animal and evaluated both under ecological and economical aspects with the objective of formulating sustainable site-adapted production intensities for fodder growing. The trials started in 1997 and be concluded in 2000.
Sites
The Open Air museum in Molfsee near Kiel serves as the main information office; the "green route" also begins there which takes you to the outside locations.
Click here for an
overview map.
If you wish further information, please
contact our staff.
View over the Museum:
The German Pavillon In Hannover:
Letzte
Aktualisierung VII/98
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