A Sustainable Intensification of the Swedish Cereals Production

Abstract: The natural environment will become an increasingly important arena for economic competition in the future. The growing world population and the increased global consumption raise concerns about the sustainability of the current and future use of natural resources. Due to the growing global population the production of agricultural crops and food security is high on the global policy agenda. The purpose of this study has been to investigate the opportunities for a sustainable intensification in the Swedish cereals production and how the Lantmännen cooperative, a company active in the whole cereals value chain can act in order to enable the intensification. The research was conducted as a descriptive case study. Given the comprehensive nature of the purpose of this study, we have studied the Swedish agriculture from a system perspective in order to get the comprehensive understanding of its complexity. The findings presented in this report are based on data from multiple research methods such as interviews with stakeholder in the agriculture, database search, and archive searches. We show in this study that a sustainable intensification of the Swedish cereals production can be realized through utilizing the existing unused farmland registered by the farmer as fallow for a number of consecutive years in a row, which can be described as acreage that is not used for crop production but is still kept in farmable condition. Our study has identified four barriers hindering the intensification; Single payment system, Leasing contract, Logistics and Investment costs. To overcome these barriers we argue that the RO PSS business model is appropriate. By using this model Lantmännen will be able to deliver four different types of values to the farmers. The first value is the intangible value of identity, which let inactive farmers continue to live on their farms while being able to focus on other sources of main income. The second value we name ownerless consumption. This value offers farmers with little capital to start up or expand their production without having to invest in new machinery and equipment. The third value we call safety, which is connected to the barrier of lease contracts identified and the distrust between landowners and tenants. The fourth value, specialization, gives the farmer possibility to leverage overall cereals bulk production by including niche crops. We conclude by arguing that the opportunities for an intensification of the Swedish Cereals production lie in delivering these four values.