Develop new land use systems

The way plant-based food is produced has a significant impact on the environment and our society. In the light of ongoing climate change and other global challenges such as the loss of biodiversity and the rising world population a further development of current production systems in small steps might not be sufficient. Instead the development of completely new production systems might become necessary. Innovations in the field of digitalisation and automation offer new approaches for this. Against this background, the Thünen Institute is researching new land use systems that can be used to meet global challenges in the long term.

The greenhouse gas reduction targets in agriculture can only be achieved if peatlands are rewetted to a considerable extent. However, the question arises as to how farmers can be persuaded to rewet their land. Scientists at the Thünen Institute are therefore determining the costs that arise when conventional drained farming is restricted or abandoned and are evaluating low-emission land use alternatives.

The planned expansion of photovoltaic systems on agricultural land may lead to land use competition with agricultural production in the future. The Thünen Institute is therefore investigating how this future demand for land will affect agriculture. Furthermore, it explores the question of whether and how food, energy and biodiversity services can be provided simultaneously in alternative use concepts to reduce possible competing uses.

Due to increasing extreme weather events, such as hot spells or droughts, it is assumed that the water supply in many regions of Germany will decrease significantly in the summer months in the future. This increases the risks of yield losses. The Thünen Institute is therefore working on concepts for future water management. These include the installation of water storage basins or the use of alternative water sources such as treated wastewater.

Technical progress in the field of automation and digitalisation could make it possible to carry out crop cultivation with autonomous small machines in the future. They could be used to develop crop production systems in which different plants are combined on a small scale and treated specifically according to their needs. In this way, natural synergy effects between plants could be used to a much greater extent, resources distributed more efficiently and negative environmental effects reduced. The Thünen Institute is working together with the Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) and the Technical University of Braunschweig on the basic features of such a crop production system.