Product development and building new collaboration around regenerative agriculture

Organisation: Hankkija

Time 2022–2026

Description:

Hankkija Oy is one of the leading agricultural operators in Finland with over a century long history in development of cultivation and animal husbandry practices, services and products, including machinery, horses, pets and garden appliances. The solutions provided are based on the scientific studies of Hankkija’s own specialists and senior scientists, combined with the most recent information and modern technology. The company strategy is based on the UN sustainable development goals and Baltic Sea protection has always been a part of the company work and mindset.

Hankkija Oy makes a commitment to the Baltic Sea Action Group (BSAG) for the years 2022-2026. The commitment is to work towards efficient solutions for measuring soil health status, improve soil health based on the scientific findings, promote the principles of regenerative agriculture, reduce negative environmental impacts, and to produce and provide publicly available services and products that will support these aims and initiatives.

1. Hankkija will add material of regenerative agriculture produced by the Carbon Action initiative to it’s ongoing, annual training seminars aimed both for internal and external audiences.
   The goal is to:
   1. provide Hankkija’s personnel sufficient knowledge and experience on regenerative farming principles and practice to able them to offer information forward to customers and to apply their knowledge on regenerative farming to product and service development.
   2. actively offer information of environmentally friendly solutions to the agricultural sector and improve the sector awareness of regenerative agriculture principals.
   3. develop the grain and raw material procurement criteria to better serve the commodities produced according to the regenerative agriculture principles together with the Carbon Action platform.

2. Hankkija SmartFarming -concept consists practices supporting regenerative farming. The priority of the concept is to bring new digital solutions to publicly extensive use in order to measure and improve nutrient utilization (decrease nutrient runoff), soil health, carbon sequestration – and yield. It will improve the processing of the collected data enabling more precise farming and routing of the farm machinery and equipment. In further development of the concept Hankkija will consider the principles of regenerative agriculture.
   The goal is to:
   1. enable new technology for the farms to measure the soil health and wellbeing. This will increase understanding towards the benefits of regenerative agriculture and the practices needed to improve the soil status.
   2. use modern technology in precision of timing and placing of nutrients in order to maximize the utilization of inputs.
   3. increase the diversity of species and varieties suitable for cultivation in the Nordic conditions through Hankkija’s own breeding programs and with the help of cooperative partners, and to (or therefore) increase the share of domestically available raw materials.
   4. increase the holistic and systematic approach in primary production through the optimized feed formulation for farm animals based on enhanced data collection methods and laboratory services, thus directly influencing on environmental footprint of animal based food production chains.
   5. increase animal health and lifespan through optimized feed and further development of modern feed solutions that at the same time meet the full production potential of the animal. A healthy, and thus productive and long living, animal will minimize the environmental footprint of animal-based food production chain.

3. Hankkija commits to be active in communicating on regenerative agriculture and its principles to its own personnel, cooperative partners and clients. Hankkija will – in its own cost – market regenerative agriculture in e.g. farmer events, Hankkija’s own publications, other marketing materials, webinars, and further events organized by Hankkija. In case of pilot farm initiatives for regenerative agriculture, Hankkija commits to take on part of the cost generating from data collection. Hankkija commits to support regenerative agriculture and is actively involved with studying the effects in practice.

With this commitment, Hankkija will join as an active member of the Carbon Action Platform which enables efficient cooperation between the different stakeholders in the field of Food production and development of its own operative measures for regenerative agriculture. In addition Hankkija commits to bring forth the activity of the Carbon Action Platform in its own public relations and marketing material.

The length of the commitment is five (5) years and the progress is evaluated annually with BSAG.