After I heard that two deadly accidents in farming 2003 were created by work with cattle, I got the idea of writing this degree project. So far there are not too many reports written about safety for the worker nor the animal. Therefore it will fit in with a report about safe handling of free stalled cattle. The Swedish Board of Agriculture would also like to do an information material about outside stalled cattle with this degree project as a background. The collecting of material was made by visiting farmers. The goal was to visit 15 ? 20 herds and when this is being written 19 herds have been visited.

Hunger is a problem in some parts of the world (www, FAO 1, 2012). The lack of food is often a result of insufficient knowledge in soil fertility management (Röing de Nowina, 2012). Ongoing hunger and malnourishment are quite prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa and are often combined with poverty (www, FAO 1, 2012). Farming is the most common occupation in this area and the farms are often small-scale farms with subsistence crops and a few cattle. The farmers who operate these small-scale farms are economically a weak group.

Since some years Linköping has invested in biogas production, mainly from offal's, residuals from food industry and Manure. The municipality goes for biogas in the local traffic and in all transportation. It is also possible for private car owners to run their cars on biogas. The purpose of this essay is to perform a cost-benefit analysis and examine if the project has been beneficial from a social point of view. The effects have been identified, measured and monetarily valued. The essay is limited to include the year of 2006 only.

Kenya is considered to be a developing country. This means that basic needs such as nutrition are not met for an extended period of time (www, Sida 1, 2012). Approximately half of the population is living under the poverty line (www, CIA 1, 2012). Agriculture is the largest sector in the country, employing 75% of the population. These are thereby directly dependent on the sufficiency of outputs received.

High levels of ammonia in grass silage have been up for discussion by Swedish advisers. One reason is that it is more difficult for the rumen-microbes to utilise high levels of ammonia. A low level of ammonia is also good because if the cattle can use more of the protein in the silage, they don?t need so much protein concentrate. That is very good for the economy at the farm, and it is also good for the environmental problems caused by high levels of ammonia. In this project, 24 samples of silage have been taken at 20 different farms in the south west of Sweden.

The coproduct, dried distillers grains + solubles (DDGS) from ethanol production based on wheat contains much rumen degradable protein and fiber with low digestibility. To compliment this quality in an effective way a grass silage low in protein and much digestible fiber is needed. The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of adjusting the crude-protein concentration and fiber quality of the silage when feeding DDGS and of varying the inclusion level of DDGS, when feeding the adjusted grass silage, on intake, milk yield and composition, faecal traits and feed efficiency. Four different total mixed rations were compared. The normal grass-clover silage had a crude protein content of 17,8 % and an NDF content of 46,2 % of dry matter. The adapted grass silage had a crude protein content of 14,6 % and an NDF content of 52,9 % of dry matter. The diets were formulated to have similar nutritional content except for A + 4 which had a higher content of rumen degradable crude protein and a lower concentration of NDF.

Ravelsmarks gård have now reached the stage when there are few options for the future. The options are either a construction of completely new farm buildings or a winding up of the milk production. Present on the farm today there is 65 dairy cows plus recruitment. 44 cows stand in long-stalls and 20 cows stand in short-stalls. The objective of this study was to examine the profitability of a completely new cowshed. In order to get costs for investments different milking systems and equipment for feedstuff have been compared. The systems in the investment budget have been chosen on recommendations from advisers, salesmen and on the basis on what is suitable for the farm. One system where a so-called mix feeder wagon is used for the roughage seemed to be best suited for Ravelsmark. The different prices obtained for the Manure well show that there are possibilities to decrease the investment costs.

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.

Global warming is a huge issue that humans have contributed to through over-exploitation of natural resources and extensive usage of fossil fuels. Now more than ever, we need to embrace a recycle thinking and reuse our waste, for example through producing biogas from our food waste. The purpose of this report was therefore to identify the energy usage and emissions resulting from the biogas chain which spans from Solna Stad to Uppsala Vatten. Furthermore, potential efficiency improvements were to be identified and proposed. This report focused mainly on the first part of the biogas chain that includes the collection of the food waste and the reloading process.

Phosphorus is essential to all plants and is taken up from the soil as the ion H2PO4 - (and to some extent HPO42-). Plant availability depends on, among other factors, the soil pH. In order to provide for plant available phosphorus, it is applied as mineral fertilizers and farmyard Manure. However, that causes phosphorus leaching from arable land to surrounding surface waters and lakes and contributes to the eutrofication. There are three types of soils in Sweden that are at higher risk of contributing to phosphorus leakage.

Structural rationalizations and regionalization of the agricultural sector in Sweden has lead to unevenness in thedistribution of plant nutrients. Nutrients are lost from crop producing farms as harvest products are sold, whilefarms with animal production often have Manure in excess of their needs. In addition to this the retention ofwater and nutrients in naturally occurring wetlands has decreased due to a reduction of wetlands in number andsize in the agricultural landscape. This increases nutrient levels in agricultural run-off and causes eutrophicationas well as nutrient losses from arable soils. One potential solution to both problems would be to store nutrientrichsurface water from agricultural areas and use it for irrigation of agricultural crops.

Structural rationalizations and regionalization of the agricultural sector in Sweden has lead to unevenness in thedistribution of plant nutrients. Nutrients are lost from crop producing farms as harvest products are sold, whilefarms with animal production often have Manure in excess of their needs. In addition to this the retention ofwater and nutrients in naturally occurring wetlands has decreased due to a reduction of wetlands in number andsize in the agricultural landscape. This increases nutrient levels in agricultural run-off and causes eutrophicationas well as nutrient losses from arable soils. One potential solution to both problems would be to store nutrientrichsurface water from agricultural areas and use it for irrigation of agricultural crops.

The economic prerequisite to many farmers in Sweden after the EU membership and the new agriculture policy has generated large demands on the farm management. Until year 2004 you got a grant based on what you had produced and not on consumer demand. In 2005 a new economic aid (Mid Term Revue) was introduced and the conditions has changed again. Due to this I have chosen to do a cost-benefit analysis on a case, to investigate if the present production is sustainable in the future. My conclusion is that the profitability is acceptable even if the farm has a high debt. But to make the production more profitable the products produced should be refined as much as possible at the farm, to get maximum economic return.

Rwanda is one of the poorest countries in the world and about 70-80 % of the population lives in rural areas. The land is strongly affected by land erosion which makes it difficult for the agriculture and food production. Agroforestry is a system where tree plantation is combined with livestock- and crop production. The system provides soil fertilization and binds the soil together. Some of the trees used in agroforestry systems are also used as fodder.

Investment costs for eight different type housing systems for dairy cows has been calculated in order to compare the building costs as a function of herd size, shelter type and automatization. A commercial calculation programme for building was used and complemented with prices of equipments specific for dairy cow building. Herd sizes were 120, 250 and 400 cows. The milking equipments were automatic milking system (AMS), parallel parlour with 32 stalls (2x16) and rotary parlour with 24 stalls. Shelter was either insulated equipped with automatic cable driven scrapers on solid alleys, automatic feed wagon on rails, or uninsulated with manual Manure handling and a tractor driven mobile mixer wagon on a drive-through feeding table. Building cost per cow or per kg milk was calculated using an average life time and 6 % interest rate and annual milk yield is 9 500 kg/cow and year. Structure effect 3-4 % higher for an insulated structure than in an uninsulated for 400 and 120 herd respectively. This is much lower compared to what is normally argued.