The Norwegian Government has, in its proposal for the update of the long-term plan for research and higher education 2023 – 2032, launched two national «societal missions». One of these is sustainable feed. This topic is within NORSUS’s core competence and is a priority area for our institute. We work with this topic in several research projects. The sustainable feed «societal mission» is described as follows [our translation]: «The Government has set a target […]

The sustainable feed «societal mission» is described as follows [our translation]: «The Government has set a target that all aquaculture and animal feed shall be sourced from sustainable sources and contribute to a decrease of greenhouse gas emissions in food systems. Population pressure, pressure on land and resources and less reliable supply chains pose a risk to national food security. The societal mission on sustainable feed shall contribute to new and innovative solutions to exploit resources in a more efficient manner. In addition, the mission will give important contributions to the targets that Norway has set in the areas of climate, food production, employment, and value creation. The final setting of the main target and the quantification and further development of sub targets will be done in a design- and implementation phase in 2022/2023.

According to statistics, Norwegians consumed on average 54,9 kg meat per capita (estimate from Animalia) and 5,6 kg farmed salmon (estimate from The Norwegian Seafood Federation). There are several sustainability challenges associated with livestock production and aquaculture. The production of feed is associated with most of these challenges. The production of feed causes, among others, greenhouse gas emissions, reduction of biological diversity and social challenges in the production countries. Other challenges include land use, deforestation, resource use, use of chemicals, pollution of air and water and indigenous people’s rights, to name a few. Hence it is important to find out how feed production can become more sustainable.

NORSUS has conducted research on feed and sustainability in several projects, e.g. in the European (Horizon 2020) research project SYLFEED. In this project, the environmental performance of SylPro®, a high protein fish feed made from bacteria fed with processed wood, was calculated using LCA methodology. The analyses were done in accordance with the European standard “Product environmental footprint calculation rules (PEFCR) for feed for food-producing animals». Other important feed protein sources were also analysed with the same methodology and compared. The assessments show that SylPro® has a relatively good environmental performance compared to the other protein sources. SylPro® has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions but is does not have the best environmental performance across all impact categories. The assessments also show large variation in results for several of the other protein sources. This means that to make a valid comparison, it is important to get specific information on how the feed is produced and, based on this, calculate the environmental performance of competing protein sources.

NORSUS has conducted Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) on livestock and aquaculture production, e.g. in the ongoing research project Livestock . The feed has been extensively researched and the results show that feed production contributes significantly to the environmental impact for pork, poultry and fish. The research in this and similar projects has contributed to increasing the knowledge of the environmental impacts of feed production and enabled identification of measures aimed at improving the environmental performance of meat and farmed fish.

NORSUS will, in cooperation with research and business partners, continually develop projects to analyse the sustainability of sustainable production and consumption of feed and identifying ways to further improve its environmental performance.   

We at NORSUS look forward to contributing to new and innovative research in this field. We seek partners who want to participate in interesting interdisciplinary projects in the area of feed research. If you are interested, please contact Erik Svanes by email erik@norsus.no or phone 

Some of our feed-related publications can be found here:

Modahl, I.S., Brekke, A. (2022). Environmental performance of insect protein: a case of LCA results for fish feed produced in Norway. SN Appl. Sci. 4, 183. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-022-05065-1

Møller, H., Samsonstuen, S., Øverland, M., Modahl, I.S., Fjerdingby Olsen, H. 2022. Local non-food yeast protein in pig production–environmental impacts and land use efficiency. Livestock Science, vol. 260, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2022.104925

Brekke, A.; Soldal, E. & Johnsen, F.M. (2020). The consistency of protein sources’ environmental performance across LCI data sources and impact assessment methods. 12th International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment of Food (LCAFood 2020), 13-16October 2020, Berlin Virtually, Germany. DIL, Quakenbrück, Germany. Eberle, U., Smetana, S., Bos, U. (Eds.), 2020. Conference proceedings. ISBN: 978-3-00-067604-8. https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AP0nfW%5F0%5F6RRXRE&cid=E04FA834AFB66516&id=E04FA834AFB66516%2167672&parId=E04FA834AFB66516%2159394&o=OneUp

Modahl, I.S. & Brekke, A. (2020). Environmental performance of insect protein for fish feed. 12th International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment of Food (LCAFood 2020), 13-16October 2020, Berlin Virtually, Germany. DIL, Quakenbrück, Germany. Eberle, U., Smetana, S., Bos, U. (Eds.), 2020. Conference proceedings. ISBN: 978-3-00-067604-8. https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AP0nfW%5F0%5F6RRXRE&cid=E04FA834AFB66516&id=E04FA834AFB66516%2167672&parId=E04FA834AFB66516%2159394&o=OneUp

Brekke, A.; Soldal, E.; Modahl; I.S.; Johnsen, F.M. & Valente, C. (2020). Environmental performance of protein from wood compared to other protein sources. 12th International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment of Food (LCAFood 2020), 13-16October 2020, Berlin Virtually, Germany. DIL, Quakenbrück, Germany. Eberle, U., Smetana, S., Bos, U. (Eds.), 2020. Conference proceedings. ISBN: 978-3-00-067604-8. https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AP0nfW%5F0%5F6RRXRE&cid=E04FA834AFB66516&id=E04FA834AFB66516%2167672&parId=E04FA834AFB66516%2159394&o=OneUp