In this series, we look at the changes in management that farmers and growers are taking in response to a changing climate. We’re looking at the tips, techniques and approaches that are borne out of the lived experience of farmers and growers, in response to a changing climate driven by global heating.
FCT exists to help food and farming businesses to reduce their carbon footprint, but increasingly every farming business also is having to adapt to the climate that we now have. It’s therefore vital that food and farming does both climate mitigation and adaptation at the same time.
Pitney Farm Market Garden
Adam Beer and Rita Oldenberg run Pitney Farm Market Garden in Somerset, with 4.5 acres of organic vegetables, sold locally. They have been recognised as the 2024 Young Organic Growers of the Year https://www.organicresearchcentre.com/news-events/news/yofgy-winners2024/ and are very active in the organic growing movement.
Over recent years they have noticed a change in weather patterns, which has affected their farm in significant ways. Adam comments:
“The increasing frequency and intensity of high rainfall events coming with our changing climate are causing challenges in crop planning, and significant impacts on our soil. Soil erosion and water infiltration can be made much worse by heavy rainfall, especially in short amounts of time, as we’ve been experiencing.”
Indeed, research by EJP Soils shows that changes in rainfall patterns across Europe will be responsible for up to 23% more soil erosion by 2050. This could have very significant impacts on soil health, water quality and could lead to significant losses of soil carbon – the one major asset that farmers have to sequester carbon on their farmland.
The UK Met Office predict that rainfall will get more intense in both summer and winter over coming years and decades, in particular with very local variations; in other words, hard to predict and plan for.
Protecting the soil
Whilst we can’t influence the weather, we can respond to the weather patterns as we see them emerging. A good example is how we manage our soils, as this is so fundamental to food and farming. It is well known that leaving soil uncovered (in arable and horticultural systems) can lead to soil erosion, a decrease in soil organic matter, a loss of soil biodiversity, and other negative impacts on soil health and structure.
In turn, bare soil can have significant short and long term impacts on crop health, quality and yields. Water courses can end up being clogged up with soil and full of the nutrients that should be in our fields. Carbon can be oxidised and lost to the atmosphere, so that soils emit rather than sequester carbon.
Working out ways to change farming systems to be more resilient to these changes in climate will be critical for all farmers and growers. There are range of ways to build a more resilient soil, as Adam discusses:
“Over the last few years, we have changed our soil management practices. We’re working towards improving and maintaining soil health through regenerative principles. We’ve reduced tillage significantly, ploughing just one year in four now, and using pig tail tines as primary cultivation, with a power harrow. We’re also rotating some land with livestock and we’re very keen on keeping living roots in the soil as much as possible.
Importantly we’ve really increased plant diversity and soil coverage. We’re constantly undersowing crops, so 80-90% of all fields have a green manure of some sort. This reduces exposure of soil to the weather, builds fertility and increases biodiversity.
There are three rotations across the market garden. Fertility building leys make up about 20-25% of land in any given year. Here we’re using 10-15 different varieties, including clovers, and annuals or biannuals – no long term grasses, we prefer cereals like rye oats and barley, plus winter wheat. We’re aiming to put in more deeper rooted species such as plantain, buckthorn, chicory, yarrow.
We also add manures (from our landlord’s organic farm), the amount being crop dependent. But with Soil Organic Matter levels at over 7%, we don’t need to add too much manure, and increasingly the green manures are performing that fertility building role.”
The impacts
Seeing is believing, and farmers and growers tend to learn a lot from looking at each other’s farms and understanding what others do differently. Knowing when something is working can be self-evident to farmers, not necessarily needing research to back it up.
At Pitney Farm Market Garden, Adam describes the impact of the changes they’ve made:
“Water infiltration rates on the areas covered by green manures are so much better; it’s obvious just to look at. There is no standing water on the green manures, even after heavy rain, whereas in the wheelings and a few bare beds there is standing water. This is evidence enough to me that we’re doing something right.
Living plants cover the soil, reducing the speed and intensity that rain hits the soil. Roots help water sink into the ground, massively increasing infiltration rates and stopping the water running off the surface and carrying soil with it.
The healthier a soil is, with better aggregation, the faster the infiltration rate will be, meaning the larger amount of rainfall that the soil can deal with. We’re seeing good aggregation now in the top four inches of soil and lots of earthworms. We’re hoping that by introducing more deeper rooting species that aggregation will improve further down the soil profile.”
Bigger picture
When it comes to managing these issues of flooding and drought on a wider scale, Adam shares some thoughts:
“I’m coming to think that undersowing crops and ensuring the soil is covered, is actually an essential practice, not a nice add on. This is because of the increasing frequency and intensity of high rainfall events coming with our changing climate.
A lot of our agricultural soils in this country are in poor health. Many soils – particularly those under maize, are in very poor condition and have very little capacity to hold water. As the climate deteriorates, more and more farmers have to work harder and harder to produce crops, and do even more to protect our most precious resource, the soil, from harsher conditions.
Is the support, both technically and financially, in place to help farmers across the board to do this? Sadly, I really don’t think it is. The government doesn’t have a handle on it, and is not taking it seriously, which is really worrying. The climate crisis terrifies me on all sorts of levels. The impacts on global food supply chains and food security could be massive. We need to manage our soils better to both mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as recreating our food systems to build resilience in food and farming.”
Photo credits: Adam Beer
Author: Jonathan Smith
