Fossil-free food value chain

Emissions from food production must be reduced for us to achieve the Paris Agreement targets and stop climate change. At the same time, food production must increase to meet the needs of a growing population. Through innovation and collaboration, we can phase out the use of fossil fuels from the entire value chain for food and break the link between increasing production and emissions.

Today fossil fuel is often used in tractors, combine harvesters, mills, driers, and for the transportation of grain as well as for production of mineral fertilizer and other inputs. These areas of use can be converted to renewable fuels today.

Overall, fossil energy accounts for the largest part of total emissions from the grain value chain. However, there are also biogenic emissions that impact the climate, such as nitrous oxide leaking from farmland or from organic soils. To reduce biogenic emissions, other measures are required, such as efforts to further sequester carbon in soil, and cultivation methods that keep areas green with cover crops.

Phasing out fossil energy is an important part of making farming climate neutral. Since 2015, Lantmännen has changed energy use within various parts of the value chain. The bar chart shows our transition to fossil-free energy use within various areas in the value chain for flour from Swedish winter wheat, grown according to our cultivation program Climate & Nature. 

During the harvest in 2015, fossil energy accounted for approximately 80 percent of the total energy use. Since then, fossil energy has been replaced with renewable energy and today less than five percent fossil energy remains in the cultivation of winter wheat.

In 2019, Lantmännen and Yara began collaborating to launch one of the world’s first fossil-free mineral fertilizers. Instead of using fossil fuel, such as natural gas, to produce ammonia – the basis of fertilizer – mineral fertilizer is produced with green ammonia based on renewable energy from Europe, such as for example, Norwegian hydropower. The fertilizer accordingly has an 80-90 percent lower climate footprint. Already in 2023, fossil-free fertilizer is used in the cultivation of grain within Lantmännen's Climate & Nature program.

Fossil-free field work means that fossil fuels in tractors and combine harvesters have been replaced with biofuels. Since 2020, this has been a criterion in the Climate & Nature cultivation program.​

Lantmännen has worked extensively to phase out fossil energy sources for transport, drying of grain and milling. In 2023, only fossil-free energy sources will be used within  Climate & Nature. Lantmännen's goal is to have fossil-free energy use throughout its own production by 2025 in Sweden and Norway, by 2030 in the rest of the Nordic region and by 2040 throughout Europe.​​

Lantmännen's fossil-free grain value chain shows that the transformation of farming can be made already today. Collaboration is required to increase production and change food production on a wide scale. The market and politics must support the transformation and the increase in costs need to be shared throughout the value chain. ​

In addition to a fossil-free transformation, it is also important to reduce biogenic emissions, for example using new cultivation methods to capture and store carbon dioxide in farmland, as well as to protect and promote biodiversity. Within the Climate & Nature cultivation program, new measures are continuously being developed that contribute to these areas.

Lantmännen works with various actors in the food value chain to speed up the development of future fossil-free farming. This involves research and development, testing of new cultivation methods and making fossil-free alternatives available to the market. ​