Animal welfare and energy production and account when utilizing locally produced wood chips and peat in circuit-based animal production

The ProLOCAL project aims at innovate technologies for animal housing and at the same time combining the hitherto mainly separated enterprises of forestry, animal husbandry, bio energy and organic farming. In today's animal husbandry there is a great dema nd for litter material. Litter and other types of flooring material are of high significance for the animal health and welfare and thus production quality and quantity, which consequently impacts on the overall management and economy.The rapidly increasin g interest for all kind of carbon rich material for bioenergy production based on renewable resources is expected to increase costs for wood, straw and other conventional bedding materials, thus threatening the already weak farmers economy. Recently, use of woodchips-based bedding material gains increasing importance within animal production. In combination with peat woodchips are suggested to provide an inexpensive but high quality source for bedding material. The ProLocal project is divided into four su ccessive WP's. The main research task of WP1 is the development of a new and improved bedding material based on locally produced woodchips and peat for increased animal welfare and more comfortable management procedures. WP2 aims to recycle significant am ounts of energy and nutrients from bedding material due to development of adapted anaerobic fermentation processes. WP3 determines nutrient turnover and fertilizer quality of the remaining biomanure with particular emphasis on organic farming in Northern Norway. Finally, WP4 calculates the overall resource and capital economy of woodchips-peat based animal production along the entire production chain. Consequently, the ProLocal project provides complex but integrated analyses along the whole production li ne from local forestry, farming and bioenergy production. Results from the ProLocal project will result in in ecological and economic benefits along the whole agricultural value chain.