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Demonstration Farms and Agri-Environmental Legislation in St Petersburg and Kaliningrad
Summary (to top) FULFILLMENT OF OBJECTIVES The project subject areas have been demonstration /educational activities to reduce pollution associated with run-off and emission from agriculture in the Leningrad and Kaliningrad regions. The demonstration activities in the Kaliningrad region are almost fully implemented, according to plan. In the Leningrad region, however, manure storage facilities and the field plot trials are as yet incomplete. In accordance with an agreement made with the farmers, the plans will be implemented by the forthcoming growing season. The main problem is that large-scale investments are needed to construct manure storage facilities on the more substantial farms and the farm owners have little or no possibility of co-financing such investments. Results of the Information, Training and Advisory part of the project:
OTHER EFFECTS OF IMPLEMENTED
ACTIVITIES CONCLUSIONS
Introduction (to top)
NAME OF PROJECT Baltic Agricultural Run-off Action Programme (BAAP) in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad BUDGET (SEK)
PROJECT MANAGER AND MANAGER FOR THE BEAROP TEAM
DEPUTY PROJECT MANAGER AND MANAGER FOR THE LRF TEAM
OBJECTIVE The project includes demonstration and educational activities to reduce pollution associated with run-off and emission from agriculture in the Kaliningrad and Leningrad regions. The project is focused on family farmers, experts and employees at large farms, teachers at Agricultural Schools, Institutes, etc., and to the population in the two regions. The proposed activities include education, extension service, information, water monitoring, technical and legislative support in connection to one demonstration farm in each region, one large Joint Stock Company in the Leningrad region and one family farm in the Kaliningrad region. These activities include the transfer of good agricultural practice, knowledge and technology, in a wide sense on farm management, water monitoring and legislation. The activities in the two region are presented below:
The project has been and will be carried out by an interdisciplinary team of experts called BEAROP (Baltic Environmental Agricultural Run-off Project) together with the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF). The Swedish consultants form, together with domestic experts, a team of experts in each region. These teams represent a wealth of experience and competence. The BEAROP team of experts is formed by experts from the Swedish Institute of Agricultural Engineering, JTI, the department of soil Sciences, and the Research Information Center at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the County Board of Upland. This team is responsible for the demonstration activities at the demonstration farms, water monitoring, education of teachers at agricultural schools in the Leningrad region, education of extension service advisors and information activities in general. The LRF team of experts is responsible for education of employees at family farms, and teachers at agricultural schools in the Kaliningrad region. LRF and BEAROP teams of experts are together responsible for the education of specialists involved in different areas concerning agricultural production and also for the production of educational material. Both organizations have their own project co-ordination. Seminars and workshops are organized separately for each organization. Some seminars and workshops, however, have been carried out together. Most of the production of the educational material has been done in co-operation. A Scientific Advisory Board governs the BEAROP team of experts. Members of this board are consultants, representatives from teams of experts and other experts with special competence. This level also includes an Accounting Service for the entire project. The executive level consists of one project manager and one deputy project manager for each participating country. The project manager has the overall responsibility for the entire project and is the leader of the Swedish team of experts. The deputy project manager is responsible for the running of the project in his country and also the leader of the domestic team of experts. The domestic team of experts is selected to have specific areas of interest just as the Swedish team of experts, which are:
All material and data have been transferred directly between the experts without passing the project managers. The project managers are controllers, who promote co-operation between all experts working in the project, allocate and distribute the resources, guarantee the quality of the work and are also responsible for delivery and quality of required reports. The project manager is responsible for the entire project and the deputy project managers for their respective countries.
Participating organizations/institutes (to top) Sweden The BEAROP team of experts
The LRF team of experts
Leningrad region
Kaliningrad region
SWEDISH TEAM OF EXPERTS
REGIONAL TEAMS OF EXPERTS St. Petersburg region
Kaliningrad region
Activities and results (to top) Demonstration farm in the Leningrad region The Plodojagodny farm is run as a joint-stock company and is an ex-state farm. Both employees and other people are owners. It is located in the Lomonosov region in a down-hill landscape a few km from the Gulf of Finland. The main production is milk, meat, vegetables and berries. There are three barns for dairy production with 50, 150 and 250 dairy cows respectively. On the farm there is a small dairy for the milk directly sold to consumers. The rest of the milk is delivered to a dairy close by, partly owned by the farm. The farm is equipped with normal Russian machinery for this type of farm. The manure produced is a type of semi-solid manure The manure handling system used today is not sufficient according to Good Agricultural Practice and to Swedish environmental standards both concerning machinery and storage capacity. The barn with 250 dairy cows has been chosen for demonstration purposes. The manure and urine from this barn will be used on about 500 hectares (ha) of arable land in the neighborhood of the barn.
Manure handling The farms goal is to use the manure produced as composted manure in the vegetable and berry production. Today the farm has started to build a composting plant about 200 m from the barn. This plant consists of one buffer area for the uncomposted semi-solid manure, one buffer area for peat and straw material, one mixing and composting area and a storage area for composted manure. The plant will serve 450 dairy cows. The economy of the farm does not allow investment in such a plant. Therefore, there is a large need for additional financing to establish a well functioning composting plant. From the beginning the BEAROP project wanted to support building a proper manure pad with a water sealed floor and walls to serve the barn for 250 cows. The Russian legislation does not allow building manure stores in connection to the barn. Therefore, this new manure pad had to be built near the previously temporary storage. Today, we have agreed to partly finance the storage of the decomposed semi-solid manure up to the limits of our budget for supporting the construction of the manure pad for the barn for 250 cows. The condition for our support is that the farm, together with our financial support, is able to finance a well functioning composting plant. Such a composting plant is under construction during this summer. The farm has just invested in a new Russian manufactured solid manure spreader so there will be no need for another one. Field plot trials and water monitoring Tile drained plots for field plot trials should according to previous agreements, be under construction at one of the fields serving the selected barn for 250 cows. The site will have six plots with separate collection of drainage water. The plots will be used for demonstration of different strategies to utilize manure and mineral fertilizers, showing the yield and the differences on the environmental impact. Demonstration farm in the Kaliningrad region The Tolmacliyov farm is located in the Rodniki settlement of the Gurjevsky district, approximately 8 km from the city of Kaliningrad. The farm was established in June 1990. The total area of the land tenure was from the start 20.7 ha, including 10.3 ha of natural hay fields on pondering areas. Today the farmer is running 40.7 ha. Land use on the farm in 1994 was as follows: 5 ha of potatoes, 0.5 ha of carrots, .1.95 ha of perennial grass, 10.3 ha of natural hay fields, 1.2 ha of barley, 0.7 ha of beet, 0.7 ha of cabbage. The number of livestock was in 1994: 7 cows, 6 heifers, 7 heads of young livestock, 1 horse, 4 pigs, 3 sheep. The farmer and his family live on the farm. Besides the residential house, there is 1 cow barn, 1 hay barn, 2 machinery sheds, 1 garage, 1 granary and 1 vegetable storage house. A second barn for 12 cows is under construction. Machinery belonging to the farmer
Manure handling The farmer is today building a new barn for 12 dairy cows ready to be used this autumn. The old barn, today used for dairy cows, will in the future be used for calves and heifers. Construction of the new barn will be paid by his own money. Today's technique needed to fulfill the requirements according to Good Agricultural Practice for manure handling, including storing and spreading is now in use on the farm. The BEAROP project has supported the farmer, according to our proposal, to build the manure storage, one manure pad and one urine pit covering the storage needs for animals in both the new and the old barn. The project has mainly covered costs for material. According to the plans we have invested in one solid manure and one slurry spreader. The new solid manure spreader is of Russian manufacturing. The slurry spreader is assembled by a Russian manufactured tanker with a pump and a Swedish manufactured spreading-boom with 9 m working width. Field plot trials and water monitoring Tile drained plots for field plot trials have been established in one field on the farm close to the barns. The site has six plots with separate collection of drainage water. These plots are since 1996 used for demonstration of different strategies to utilize manure and mineral fertilizers in crop production showing the yield and the differences on the environmental impact. Since 1996 nutrient content in the drainage water from one separate field is also monthly analyzed.
Dissemination of information (to top) EDUCATION ACTIVITIES Kaliningrad In October 1995, the education part of the project started with a seminar for administrators and experts. This was followed up with a number of seminars during the project period.
We have in total carried out 10 seminars with in total 232 participants in the Kaliningrad region. The seminars have been organized together with the Institute of Agribusiness. In Kaliningrad, there is an old advisory service based on the former agricultural structure. The project has tried to establish co-operation with that organization but has not managed to find a way to organize that kind of co-operation. Instead, the project has established co-operation with a former state farm which has been reorganized to a joint-stock company. The aim of the co-operation is to show how a modern advisory service could be organized.
Extension service and information activities (to top) During 12-22 September 1995, extension specialists and some of the specialists working in the project from Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, altogether 16 persons, participated in a study tour in Sweden. The aim of the activity was to inform and educate the participants how an extension service programme works and how close the co-operation must be between farmers, agricultural schools, agricultural research, county administration, processing industries and extension service. Places and managers representing the above mentioned actors were visited in the counties of Uppsala, Orebro, Vastergotland and Stockholm. During 28 May to 2 June 1996, an environmental seminar was arranged for the extension specialists, administrators, researchers and other experts from St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), in Uppsala. Lecturers were engaged from SLU, JTI, LRF, the Swedish Association of Agricultural Societies and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Topics that can be mentioned were:
Also Alfa-Laval, Swedish KRAV and farmers with ecological production were visited during the arrangement. Together 13 persons from the Leningrad region and 10 persons from the Kaliningrad region participated. During 28 October to 2 November 1996, the BAAP team of experts in the Leningrad and Kaliningrad regions, totally 22 persons, participated in a study visit to Estonia. The visit was arranged by the Research Information Center at SLU and the Estonian actors in BAAP from BEAROP and LRF. The purpose of the visit was to establish an exchange of knowledge and experience concerning the Russian and Estonian activities within BAAP Consequently, lectures, meetings, demonstrations and discussions were arranged at the Tallinn Technical University, the Estonian Ministries of Agriculture and Environment, ETKL in SAKU, Janeda Center, Kabala demonstration watershed, the Estonian Agricultural University and the Institute of Rural Development in Tartu. Arrangements were also made in Rapla and Jarvamaa counties concerning regional policy and environment. The governors from both counties participated in these arrangements.
Agri-Environmental Legislation support activities (to top) All experts have been informed about the Swedish environmental legislation framework concerning agriculture. They have also been educated in the background and need of such legislation. In the project we recognized that there was no understanding from the federal administration in Moscow about the legislation activities in our project. Therefore, we felt that the project should not only have regional support but also have recognition and support from the federal Ministry of Environment in Moscow. During 11 to 13 October a seminar for regional and federal environmental authorities and experts was held at the "Svenska Garden" outside Moscow. The seminar was arranged and carried out by LRF and BEAROP in co-operation.
Problems in planned activities (to top) PROBLEMS IN GENERAL IN THE TWO REGIONS Farmers are very short of financing and much of our work has been dedicated to information on the importance of sufficient manure storage capacity and proper utilization of animal manure to save money. It is very expensive to build stores for slurry, solid manure and urine and as a rule the farmers can not afford such investments. There is accordingly a need for economic support or subsidies to farmers if the legislation states that they will have to build storage capacity enough to decrease the leakage of slurry, manure and urine. Transfer of knowledge in these regions must cover governmental authorities and administrations, regional as well as federal in Moscow, extension specialists, universities, institutes and banks. KALININGRAD In Kaliningrad the work has progressed very much according to plans. Very rapid development was noticed, especially when building up the farm activities. This is very much due to the enthusiastic co-operation from the regional authorities of agriculture. The project has been given both local money and moral support. Since agriculture still is regulated from the federal authorities in Moscow this co-operation resulted in reprimands and changes in responsibilities for our Kaliningrad colleagues. This points very much to the necessity to inform and find co-operation from federal authorities in agriculture and environment in Moscow. Invitations to a second seminar have been sent to the proper authorities on environment in Moscow. The information part of the project has not been fully implemented as planned due to lack of capacity of the local advisory organization. LENINGRAD REGION On the Plodojagodny farm in the Leningrad region, work has been running at a much slower pace. One reason is that proper contact with the local agricultural authorities was not made. This was outside the project and according to Terms of Reference should be have been done before the project started. Another reason for delays in the project is the difficulty to work on the large farms existing predominantly in Russia. Roads for decision are long and complicated and most important, the investments are much higher. The demands for investment on a 250 dairy cow farm in Russia in manure storage according to Swedish environmental legislation are so high, that our funds for investment simply are too small. To raise the rest of the funding locally has delayed our investment and building of proper storage facilities on the farm. Another problem in St. Petersburg has been the difficulty to find the proper agricultural regional authorities for co-operation in the project. The problem is now hopefully solved after visits to the regional Ministry of Agriculture and finding a person appointed by the vice minister this spring. The project has managed to establish a working extension service to the private farmers through the St. Petersburg Institute of Agricultural Engineering and Electrification for Non-Chernozem Zone of RF. The problem has been to reach the former state farms. These farms have not yet put the environmental issues on their agenda. |
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