Download horse as a part of green economy

HORSE AS A PART OF GREEN
ECONOMY
Markku Saastamoinen
Natural Resources Institute Finland Luke
GEEC, Ypäjä 26.5.2017
GREEN ECONOMY
≈ Bio-economy, bio-based economy; bioenergy
instead of fossil energy sources, recycling, byproducts, carbon neutrality
• Responsibility; environment, climate, waters
• Well-being of humans and animals
• Sustainable and economic production and
businesses
• Environmentally sustainable production and
growth, clean production (environment friendly
thinking)
Sustainable production and growth
• Utilization of resources sustainably (land,
feeds, water, fuels, buildings, materials …)
• Sustainable
- feed production
- energy consumption
- waste/litter management
- purchases in the enterprise
• Recycling economy
- durable products
- reuse and recycling of products and materials to
consume less
- recycling of waste and nutrients
- renewable energy (biogas, manure utilization,
wind, sun …)
• Organic farming, mixed farming systems
- nutrients and carbon from horse manure
- organic fertilizers
- horse power e.g. in organic wine production
(or other field work)
- less fossil energy sources e.g. for fertilizer
manufacturing
HORSES AND GREEN ECONOMY
• Biomasses moving in the horse industry
- feeds; transportation, local feeds, protein
sources
- bedding materials; transportation, distances
(import/export), by-products
- manure; utilization, transportation
Role of the horse - benefits
• Biodiversity; grazing, forage production,
important socio-economic driver for land
management (carbon storages) (Poeplau et
al., 2015); cooperation with neighbour farms
with no animals (mixed farming systems, MFS)
• Manure’s nutrient recycling; cooperation with
grain farms with no manure (MFS), and other
concepts
• Bioenergy; manure as a biogas raw material or
fuel (burning) - concepts available
• Welfare, health of people (nature contacts,
green care and health services)
• Ecosystem services, services based on
ecosystems (e.g. tourism)
Role of the horse - drawbacks
• Horse tourism (like all tourism) increases
travelling and consumption of fossil fuels
• Deworming and medication may be
detrimental to biodiversity (secreting in faeces
and urine)
• Large consumption of water
Horses in the (local) food production
• Meat production – slaughtering of horses always
it is possible
- ethically and ecologically (environmentally)
sustainable way compared to other ways of
putting down (Saastamoinen, 2015)
- welfare-supporting issue at the end of a
horse’s life
- horse has relatively low ecological footprint
(Seppälä, 2013), low methane production
• Meat production based on raising meat horses
based on native/local breeds may support
these breeds, and thus diversity of horse
breeds and populations
• Also milk production (food, cosmetics)
supports native (cold-blooded) breeds
• Both horse meat and milk have potentials as
local food
Bio-economy horse farm/stable
•
•
•
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Local feeds
Manure utilization
Carbon neutrality
Other responsibility (animals, customers, staff, purchases …)
Can such a enterprise has some advantage
compared with “a conventional” stable?
• Efficiency
• Financial advantage
• Customers’ ethical views and choses – are they ready to pay
more?
What to do to get horse industry
“greener” and more sustainable?
• Attitude of entrepreneurs, workers, horse
people …
• Education and practices in reality of horse
schools
• Selection of training stables and farms by the
schools
• Advising in horse sector
Thank you!
Kiitos!
Web tool:
www.hippolis.fi/innohorse