Rudolf Tornerhjelm never takes decisions lightly when it comes to his “farm” in northwestern Skane in Sweden.

Every morning when he looks out at his lands and forest Tornerhjelm is reminded that he is the fifth generation of his family – who are the “guardians” of what has been handed down to them since the 1800s.

According to Tornerhjelm it is his responsibility to leave “what I was given in a better way” to the next generation and he believes the path to achieving that lies in “sustainability”.

His approach to farming and land management is one of innovation – to be constantly looking for every new opportunity to develop and improve the farm and surrounding areas.

Currently, like many farmers in Sweden, one of the biggest challenges he faces is to find enough water to supply the crops grown on the farm which in turn will help to make sure that there are consistent yields.

Climate challenges are a key concern for Swedish farmers who have battled drought this summer and have seen an increasing focus from the Swedish government on biodiversity, sustainable production and carbon sequestration.

Tornerhjelm’s answer to this problem is to invest in a new irrigation system on his property that will, by 2025, deliver an irrigation system to around 500ha.

The new system will also be developed to deliver nutrition directly to crops when and wherever it is needed and be fully automated.

It will be a significant investment both in terms of capital, infrastructure and the land required to develop the system.

But then Tornerhjelm is not really anything like an average farmer or is his farm – which is located on the Wrams Gunnarstorps estate – anything like the average farm in Sweden.

There are almost 59 000 farms in Sweden, most have an average size of almost 50ha, the farm on the Wrams Gunnarstorps estate is 780ha, while the forest on the estate is 2,771ha and it also boasts a 17th-century castle.

Tornerhjelm plans to develop an irrigation system on his farm that could hold “200,000 cubic meters of water” when it is competed.

He believes this is part of the necessary groundwork for ensuring the “sustainability” of the Wrams Gunnarstorps farm and that it will also provide support for its partner farms for the next five decades.

He will receive a percentage of European Union funding towards the total cost of the project which could come come in at around €650,000.

Tornerhjelm firmly believes that developing the irrigation system is in harmony with the objectives of “conservation agriculture” which in turn could be instrumental in boosting the yield from crops grown on the farm.

Back in the 1850s when his namesake, Rudolf Tornerhjelm, was running the estate he was highly focused on developing a successful dairy operation.

Much of the arable land that exists today on the estate was previously forest, chiefly beech and oak, which was felled to create pasture for a larger dairy herd.

What this means for Tornerhjelm in 2023 is that the soil on his land has a very high clay content which makes farming difficult.

In 2016 the Wrams Gunnarstorps estate decided to change its soil management system with a new approach to drainage.

It moved to controlled traffic farming (CTF) and also a conservation agriculture (CA) system which transformed the soil on the farm by boosting the amount of earthworms present and delivering enhanced micro-fauna.

A CTF system is mainly about managing soil compaction and confining the area impacted.

Three years later the Wrams Gunnarstorps estate then decided that by partnering with neighbouring farms they could be part of an arrangement that could fundamentally reset the soil quality in the area.

It teamed up with two other farms in the area and created a partnership under LyRos lantbruk HN company to put “conservation agriculture” into practice with minimum tillage.

According to manager Jan Jonsson the soils on the three farms are “thriving” and their environmental driven approach makes the soils “much easier to work with”.

“Conservation agriculture is a system where you can keep something growing on the land the whole year around.

“We’ve successfully managed to eradicate some of the weeds we used to have problems with -particularly with black-grass and other species but now we have found that sometimes we don’t even need to spray every year.

“Previously we may have sprayed three times per season but the approach now is to minimally spray after sowing – with much less chemicals.

“We also no longer have a problem seeding the crops and it is much easier also to make them germinate,” Jonsson added.

He said that the soil management technique employed on the Wrams Gunnarstorps farm includes the use of a 12 meter wide seeder which can sow up to 900ha a day.

Jonsson also restricts all tillage to 4cm deep and claims that as a result this has delivered major improvements in how topsoil acts.

He said the Wrams Gunnarstorps estate also adopted “precision farming” techniques which is now used on the 1,945ha of crops -including winter wheat, beans, oil seed rape and oats – harvested each year.

He said this approach has helped to streamlined how the farm is operated and reduced the number of people that are employed on the farm on its day to day operations.

“By using precision farming we only fertilise each field where it is needed most.

“That has meant an investment in drone technology and GPS technology machinery but it is our intention to increase the yield per hectare in the most environmental way possible,” Jonsson added.

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