Sustainability Report 2016 . 2017 51 An increasingly greater number of technical solutions are needed to manage cultivated land efficiently. The German agricultural sector is highly competitive in international comparisons. However, tough competition, more strin-gent environmental regulations and increasing requirements for food quality and environmental protection make resource-saving management more important than ever. In the process, more and more farmers rely on support from digital technologies. The trend towards high-tech agriculture continues to gather pace.AGRAVIS responds to these trends and challenges with consistent customer focus and high-performance process-es and product ranges. Changes in the market including the progress of digitalisation result in opportunities that require AGRAVIS to take concerted action. A clear focus on market and customer requirements means AGRAVIS sees favourable opportunities for sustainable, profitable growth. Strategic goals AGRAVIS’s long-term goals are:• Turnover of up to 10 billion euros • A net profit margin of around 1 per cent • Return on equity capital of at least 10 per cent (before tax on income).Hanse strategy programme AGRAVIS developed perspectives for the future with its multi-year Hanse strategy pro-gramme in Autumn 2017. Against a backdrop of increasingly fierce competition, the ob-jective is to become a consolidation and market leader together with cooperatives while offering optimum customer focus. Providing excellent added value and solution concepts should result in our customers being more successful. \"Hanse\" is a highly important future project for the whole AGRAVIS Group.Customer interests, customer requirements for AGRAVIS, and customer proximity are of paramount importance in the \"Hanse\" programme. The programme also incorporates values and goals such as trust, reliability, responsibility and success within the cooperative association. AGRAVIS also wishes to continue to excel as an attractive employer – open, courageous and efficient. Together with the Raiffeisen cooperatives, AGRAVIS strives, more than ever, to be the first point of contact for local agriculture.Generation of biogas from manure AGRAVIS has operated a biogas plant in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia, in cooperation with its partner Odas since mid-2014. This plant is largely \"fed\" with manure and dung, i.e. organic residues from livestock farming, and thus primarily aims to recycle nutrients while generating energy:• Input of around 96,000 tonnes of biomass per year in 2016, of which 56 per cent is farm manure and 44 per cent energy crops • Input of around 118,000 tonnes of biomass per year in 2017, of which 70 per cent is farm manure and 30 per cent energy crops In the final implementation stage, up to 80 per cent of the input may come from farm manure with the remaining 20 per cent provided by energy crops such as grass, silage maize and energy beets. 700 normal cubic metres of biomethane can be fed in per hour (Nm3/h) in full-load mode and the CHP plants can produce an average of around 750 kilowatts of electricity per year. The biggest advantage of the concept is, firstly, the reduced energy crop input and, secondly, decreased nutrient discharge in processing regions. The region around the biogas plant in Dorsten will thus no longer need a con- siderable cultivation area for energy crops. Moreover, the Münsterland processing region will be relieved of a large quantity of organic farm manure. The concept thus meets a major challenge of modern-day agriculture, namely the oversupply of agricultural areas with nutrients.