• To improve the environmental friendliness of agricultural production.
• To increase the knowledge of farmers about the environmental impacts of their farms, the Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) process and how they can mitigate any negative impacts.
• To improve farm competitiveness and increase the responsiveness of farmers to consumer needs and environmental requirements.

• Executing Life Cycle Assessments for 60 farms in the Satakunta region. An LCA includes the evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions, eutrophication potential, land use and potential biodiversity losses. As key beneficiaries of the project, individual farmers were directly involved in the LCA process. However, other farmers, consumers and food companies can also access the findings of the project and the average LCA results at regional level to inform their decision-making in relation to improving the sustainability of the food system.
• Implementing workshops. In 2022, the project organised two workshops with farmers. The first dealt with the concept and basic principles of LCAs, while the second presented the preliminary results of the delivered LCAs. Two more workshops are forthcoming in 2023, targeted, as before, at farmers who have signed up as project participants. Other farmers are also welcome to attend the workshops.
• Producing an animation video about LCA. The key target group of the video were primary producers. However, the video also provides important information and know-how for anyone with an interest in LCA and sustainable food production.
• Producing a podcast episode about LCA: The project includes recording a podcast episode for farmers about LCA in 2023. The podcast episode will inform farmers as well as other people with an interest in LCA and sustainable food production.

• 20 LCAs have been implemented whereby 20 farmers have gained knowledge about the environmental impacts of their individual farms.
• 27 farmers have joined the workshops and gained knowledge about the basic principles of an LCA and the environmental impacts of food production.
• An animation video was produced and disseminated across a wide range of social media, thereby increasing the awareness and knowledge about LCAs on farms.
• The project has raised awareness and understanding about the sources of emissions. This led to an improved understanding and appreciation of the key role and opportunities of food production in reducing the environmental harm caused by human activity.
• At the end of the project (end of 2023), it is expected that a total of 60 farmers will have received relevant quantitative information about the environmental impacts of their food production to utilise this information to reduce any negative impacts.

• Despite the wide dissemination of project information across different organisations and social media, it was difficult to attract farmers to sign up for the project. Utilising personal contacts was essential. One recommendation is therefore to allocate sufficient time to contact farmers directly to ensure high participation rates.
• The existing tools and methods for conducting an LCA have proven rather difficult to operate, for example the assessment of the eutrophication potential is considerably time-consuming. Therefore, a recommendation is to allow for sufficient time when conducting an LCA to make the results more reliable. Alternatively, it might be beneficial to co-operate with those organisations that developed the LCA tools.
• While many farmers were already aware of environmental issues related to food production, they were nonetheless surprised to learn about the most prominent sources of emissions on their farms, which they had guessed quite differently beforehand.

“It is great to get numerical values about the emissions of my farm, so I can present these values to people when we discuss the emissions of farming.”

Participant farmer