Adapted and Resilient OATS for northern periphery areas

Programme 2021 - 2027 Interreg VI-B Northern Periphery and Arctic

Date of latest update: 2025-09-24

Description

Description (EN):

lceland and the Northern parts of Scandinavia are scarcely populated and there are large distances between communities. Especially in the rural areas the economy is relying on few options that also include controversial industries such as mining industry. The development of new business opportunities is difficult due to remoteness and very limited number of research and development persons. Climate change will prolong the growing season in these regions and increase the potential of agriculture. Local farms could have an increasingly important role as employers and tax payers and the entire food chain can have significant employment increasing effects. Oat as an already important export crop and as a plant that thrives in cool climate would be logical choice to start increasing cereal production. Healthiness of oats and new oat products create demand for oat production and in the long run the conditions to cultivate good quality oats in the South may weaken. Thus we want to increase oat cultivation in Northern Scandinavia and in Iceland to create conditions for local growth in farming and cereal industry. However, the challenge is that extreme weathers, diseases and pests are also increasing and the different soils and longer day length also require adapted cultivars. Within the main project that will be planned in the proposed preliminary project we shall broaden the genetic basis of Nordic oat breeding and find genes that are required to introduce adapted oat material to the farmers within the northern periphery areas. The potential agricultural area is vast but the current market for cultivars is too small for a single plant breeding company to develop cultivars and the development requires a multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, all three plant breeding companies working in the area and the relevant agricultural universities are teaming up together for the first time ever to answer the oat challenges by using novel prebreeding materials and top edge technology.

Actual Achievements (EN):

Arctic oats formed a consortium of Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Irish experts from agricultural and research sector and made a plan for increasing oat cultivation in Northern Scandinavia, Iceland and western parts of Ireland. We recognized that the main obstacle for oat cultivation in all of these areas was the lack of optimal cultivars that would produce good quality yield and would withstand the harsh conditions. We also detected that there is need the increase awareness on how oat should be cultivated and we made a survey for local farmers and oat producers in order to determine what traits they require from oat cultivars and what it would take for them to start oat production. Through several online and one physical meeting our consortium was able to form a solid project plan had three spearheads: 1) increasing the needed traits to breed better adapted cultivars for NPA areas, 2) testing suitable breeding and cultivar material in NPA areas and 3) introducing oat cultivation and oat networks for local SMEs. By far there has been a sort of chicken and egg conundrum regarding the cereal production in Northern periphery areas such as Iceland, Northern parts of Scandinavia and Ireland. Since there has been no suitable cultivars, the farmers have not produced cereals and no cereal food industry has been developed and knowledge for cultivation is lost or has never even been accumulated. Furthermore, since there has been no market for cereals, there has been no market and no reason for the development of cultivars by plant breeding companies. Our preparatory project offers a solution for this and has now submitted a proposal named OatFrontiers for the 3rd NPA call. With the help of project funding the small plant breeders could get the tools and support needed to start developing suitable cultivars, the local research partners could start testing cultivar candidates and spread information about oat cultivation and use for the local SMEs. This could create a positive cycle that could lead to a development of grain industry in these areas offering new jobs and resilience to the society through climate adaptation.

Website: https://www.luke.fi/fi/projektit/arctic-oats

Thematic information

Agriculture and fisheries and forestry

Priority: (VI-B_NPaA_2) Strengthening the capacity for climate change adaptation, and resource sufficiency in NPA communities

Priority specific objective: RSO2.4. Promoting climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention and resilience, taking into account eco-system based approaches

Priority policy objective (Interreg specific objective): PO2 A greener, low-carbon transitioning towards a net zero carbon economy and resilient Europe by promoting clean and fair energy transition, green and blue investment, the circular economy, climate change mitigation and adaptation, risk prevention and management, and sustainable urban mobility

Type of intervention: 058 Adaptation to climate change measures and prevention and management of climate related risks: floods and landslides (including awareness raising, civil protection and disaster management systems, infrastructures and ecosystem based approaches)

Partners (2)

Lead Partner: Luonnonvarakeskus

Partner’s ID if not PIC: FI02446292

Department: Natural Resources / Plant health

Address: Survontie , 40500 Jyväskylä, Finland

Legal status: public

Organisation type: National public authority

Website: https://www.luke.fi/en

Total budget: EUR 27 950.31

Partner’s programme co-financing: EUR 18 167.70

Partner’s programme co-financing rate: 65.00%

Partner contribution: EUR 9 782.61

Landbúnaðarháskóli Íslands

Name: Landbúnaðarháskóli Íslands

Department: Department of cultivation and food

Partner’s ID if not PIC: Kt. 411204-3590

Address: Hvanneyri, 311 Borgarbyggð, Iceland

Legal status: public

Organisation type: National public authority

Website: https://www.lbhi.is/en

Total budget: EUR 20 656.73

Partner’s programme co-financing: EUR 13 426.87

Partner’s programme co-financing rate: 65.00%

Partner contribution: EUR 7 229.86

Partners map

Partners and Projects info

Agricultural University of Iceland

Adapted and Resilient OATS for northern periphery areas

Partners and Projects info

Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)

Adapted and Resilient OATS for northern periphery areas

Lead partner

Project partner

Summary

Project name (EN): Adapted and Resilient OATS for northern periphery areas

Project acronym: ARCTICOATS

Project ID: NPA0200072

Project start date: 2022-12-01

Project end date: 2023-05-31

Project status: closed

Total budget/expenditure: EUR 48 607.04

Total EU funding (amount): EUR 18 167.70

Total EU funding (co-financing rate): 65.00%

Co-financing sources:

ERDF: Amount, EUR 18 167.70. Co-financing rate, 65.00%.

Investments, deliverables, policy contributions

(bullets are inserted automatically and may be incorrectly placed)

Deliverables:

Preliminary plan for the main project
Feasibility study
List of partner candidates to invited to workshop
Agreement among partners
An application to the 3rd call of NPA.

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Financing programme

2021 - 2027 Interreg VI-B Northern Periphery and Arctic

Last month that data in keep.eu was retrieved from the Programme's website or received from the Programme

2025-09-24

No. of projects in keep.eu / Total no. of projects (% of projects in keep.eu)

65 / 65 (100%)

No. of project partnerships in keep.eu / Total no. of project partnerships (% of project partnerships in keep.eu)

310 / 310 (100%)

Notes on the data

Languages

Contact Form

Adapted and Resilient OATS for northern periphery areas

Description

Thematic information

Partners (2)

Partners map

Summary

Investments, deliverables, policy contributions

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

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