The Swedish cooperative Lantmännen Ekonomiska Förening has initiated a project labelled "Operation Blåljus" that includes an extensive program for closing down elevators. The number of elevators will be reduced from 92 to approximately 15 after harvest of 2007. The objective of Blåljus is to increase the price of grain with 10 öre/kg. A project has been initiated at the Lantmännen Grain division where the purpose is to provide the farmers with support in their decisions and practical advice how they can load a 35 ton grain truck on 30 minutes. The result from the project will serve as a support system to the farmer in his ambition to achieve cost efficient systems to load a truck with grain on the farm.

In order to produce grain in an economically rational manner numerous decisions have to be made. One of these decisions is what tillage system to use. The cost of the tillage system is a large part of the total cost in Grain production. Different tillage systems result in different distribution of fixed costs, operating costs and timeliness costs. The price of the produced grain and cost of inputs also affect the best way to produce grain.

The current situation for Swedish grain farmers facing a situation with decreasing profitability makes it necessary for the farmers to find ways of increasing the margins in their grain growing. Decreasing profitabilities along with Lantmännens closing of grain elevators contribute to the necessity for farmers to invest in grain storing and drying at the farm. By investing in capacity for drying and storage of grain on the farm it is possible to recieve a higher price on the grain sold due to the possibility to sell when the price is higher compared to the harvesting season. An investment in grain drying and storage with a relatively low investment cost that recently has appeared on the Swedish market is the grain stir drying system. This study contains a comparison of an investment in a grain stir drying system where the grain is dried and stored in the same silo and a conventional drying and storage system.

This master thesis was made to investigate the possibilities of using the Matlab-basedsoftware Basegrain to determine grain size distributions of erosion protections onhydropower dams. Basegrain is a photogrammetric tool developed to generate grainsize distributions and other information about coarse flood sediments by analyzing adigital photo of the stone bed. The investigation was made by validating the ability forBasegrain to assess grain size distributions of various materials smaller than the blocksused in an erosion protection by comparing sieving results or manual measurementswith the results obtained by the program. A statistical comparison was then made bycomparing the results from sieving and the program. The possibilities of using thesame method on existing hydropower dams were then investigated by determiningwhether the method was practically viable or not.The results showed that Basegrain generated grain size distributions for coarse gravelthat were very close to the sieving results.

Treatment wetlands been showed efficient for reducing pollutant in waste water. In Lajeado ? RS, Brazil the landfill has poor leachate water treatment. It is necessary to supplement the treatment plant because they need to reduce BOD, COD and nitrate of the water going to recipient. A subsurface flow wetland (SSF) can be a good choice.  In order to be able to design an efficient SSF it is important to understand how the grain sizes of a substrate affect the reducing of pollutants in waste water.

A common perception is that fungicide treatments increases yield, but that the nitrogen of the particular grain is diluted so that the overall removal of grain nitrogen from the field remains unchanged. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that a healthy crop reduces the risk of nutrient loss from agricultural land. The results from genotype and plant protection trials often show constant nitrogen content in the grain, although the yield has been increased. Results from such experiments are therefore processed in order to confirm this and show that it is no statistically significant difference between the protein content (and also nitrogen content) in crops which have undergone fungicide treatment compared to crops which remained untreated. The trials processed have been carried out in the southernmost part of Sweden and are distinguished to concern winter wheat production.The explanation to the results is that a healthy crop is able to maintain the biological functions of the plant in a more efficient way than a crop damaged by a fungal infection.

Dairy cows transform grass to milk with help from ruminal microorganisms that can digest indigestible fiber in their feed. The digestive system of the cow is adapted to a diet consisting of forage and disorders like acidosis, laminitis and abomasal displacement can occur if the feed contains too much starch. To achieve the highest production possible the cow has to be given a high amount of concentrate or grain as the difference in milk yield is significant, approximately 1000 kg energy corrected milk per cow and year between conventional and organic cows that are fed a lower versus a higher share of forage. If the cow shall be able to eat the same amount of energy from forage as from grain or concentrate the eating- and rumination time gets longer and she might not be able to eat enough, which will result in a lower milk yield and will make it harder for the cow to recover from the negative energy balance that originate from the beginning of the lactation. Fat and in a sense protein content differs also depending on if the cow is given a high or low share of forage..

Thisis an experimental study of lipid residues within the field of laboratoryarcheology. Pottery was made in a time like manner and used to cook grain and Icelandmoss and exposed to an organized biodegradation experiment inside an incubatorfor later analyzes with the GC-MS-method. Tests were also taken from pottery,grain and Iceland moss that had not been exposed for a biodegrading attempt.The grain is a domesticated cereal and the Icelandic moss fungi-alga mix. Thetest results showed mostly saturated fatty acids, sterols and monoacylglycerolsof saturated fatty acids. Within the laboratory archeology, ergosterol has beensuggested as a possible biomarker for yeast and alcohol fermentation.

The purpose of this report was to compare two different options for expanding of an existing pig farm. For the time being there are low prices within the agricultural market of pig production, and it is interesting to see if it is worth expanding or not. The two different options this report is based on are: expanding from a herd with 50 sows in breeding gilt production to a herd with 100 sows in breeding gilt production (option 1), or expanding to a herd with 140 sows in breeding gilt production (option 2). The number of pregnant gilts produced per year will stay the same for both alternatives; about 300 pregnant gilts per year. The rest of the breeding gilts will be sold at a weight of 25 kg. The pigs that are not sold as breeding gilts (e.g. castrates, and female pigs that are too small or that have disorders) will be kept on the farm as growing-finishing pigs until 120 kg of live weight, and then sold to the slaughter house. By using the existing buildings, even after the expanding, the investment costs, and thereby costs for housing, were kept as low as possible.

The EU-project HEALTHGRAIN has suggested a new definition for whole grain which allows a small part of the grain to be removed during processing. By removing the outer part or the grain the hygienic quality will increase but it is not clear how the taste and colour is affected. So therefore in this study three different debranning methods, peeling, pearling and polishing, which remove the outer parts of the grains have been used on common and durum wheat. The dietary fibre and ash content, as well as germination was analysed in untreated, peeled, pearled and polished grains. The decrease in dietary fibre and ash was higher in grains that had been pearled compared to those that had been peeled or polished.

This study is one of five that has been done based on Lunds Energi?s planned investment in bioenergy. The plan is to build two large burners, at Örtofta, that?s going to be supplied with biofuels. In this study I take a closer look on the profitability when you choose to sell your cereal as bioenergy. I?ve been calculating with selling the straw from the grain crops and winter rape, selling the rye weat as whole crop and fertilize the hemp with sewage sludge.

The Swedish processor Findus contracts approximately 500 pea producers annually to secure the company?s supply of green peas for human consumption. A production contract, which has had roughly the same design for decades, regulates the relation between Findus and the pea producers. Agriculture is typically a risky business. The main sources of risk in agricultural production are production risk and price risk.

There is an uncertainty in the market for grain forcing the meat/milk producers to review alternative feeds to a larger extent, in order to get control over the feed costs. This has led to that the meat/milk producers need to have a good knowledge regarding how the different feeds influences the animals and which technical equipment to use for handling. For those that produce their own feedmix, there is a need to put interest in new crops and their characteristics to be able to get the knowledge of what is required for their own production. It is beneficial to keep an open dialogue with advisors to be updated in new crops and new technology for feeding. When mixing feed at farm level, the legislation is not very clear since it the target group is large scale mixing plants. We have brought up the most important rules and regulations from the EU parliament Council as well as the ones from the Swedish Board of Agriculture (SJV), regarding feed mixing on farm and factory level. We have studied beans and pea at two different moisture levels, in order to evaluate how the moisture level affects the distribution of particles when milling with a plaitmill and a hammermill.

The last years? financial situation has contributed to an increased willingness from the banks to handle risks. The most important risk to cope with is a risk that is related to a customer?s ability to repay loans. Forecasts indicate that in the future, Swedish farmers will be facing profitability challenges, which points to a need to reconsider the banks procedures considering risk management in credit granting for agricultural businesses.Today?s risk management will be given two complements in this study.

The last years? financial situation has contributed to an increased willingness from the banks to handle risks. The most important risk to cope with is a risk that is related to a customer?s ability to repay loans. Forecasts indicate that in the future, Swedish farmers will be facing profitability challenges, which points to a need to reconsider the banks procedures considering risk management in credit granting for agricultural businesses.Today?s risk management will be given two complements in this study.