Lizzy Parker, our Carbon Calculator Manager, graduated her PhD from the University of Sheffield on Monday 8th January. Her thesis was on the role of the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in the physiological and metabolomic drought response of barley (how symbiotic root fungi can alter the barley plants’ chemistry and whether this helps them survive droughts – although she found that it didn’t help all that much actually).
Congratulations to Lizzy from all of us at FCT!
(Image above: Dr Dave Davies from Silage Solutions presenting to Farm Net Zero at our silage event)
On the 5th of January, Farm Net Zero will be presenting in a session entitled “It Takes a Farm Community to be Net Zero: A Case Study from Cornwall” at the Oxford Real Farming Conference. We are very much looking forward to showcasing the fantastic work our Demo and Monitor Farmers are doing and look forward to seeing some of you there. Hannah Jones will be introducing Farm Net Zero Demo Farmers Andrew Brewer, Mike Roberts and Anthony Ellis, who will be speaking about their experiences of reducing their farm carbon footprint. The session will also include a recent film of some of the Farm Net Zero farmers talking about the benefits of being part of a community. The film will be available on the Farm Net Zero webpage after the conference. Learn more here
On the 16th November, Dr Dave Davies from Silage Solutions spoke at our silage event hosted by FNZ monitor farmer Phil Kent at Higher Carruan, St Minver. Dave took us through how to optimise silage production to reduce waste and maximise the quality and quantity of feed from the amount of fossil fuel used in silage production. We were also able to look at the Kent family’s self-feed silage clamp; and how this is saving costs and reducing emissions from machinery used for feeding cattle over winter. Learn more here
Self-feed silage in action
Dr Lindsay Whistance from the Organic Research Centre spoke at our event on integrating trees and livestock at FNZ Demo Farm, Blable near Wadebridge on the 27th September. Lindsay presented the results from a range of studies into animal behaviour in agroforestry systems and emphasised the importance of trees for optimal livestock performance through temperature regulation and feed value. Incorporating trees into the farm system benefits animal welfare and helps to reduce the farm’s carbon footprint. Learn more here
Attendees feeling the benefit of the hedgerow on a windy day
“Lessons Learnt at Erth Barton” on the 18th October summarised the work of Demo Farmer Tim Williams as he prepares to move on to new opportunities. Tim gave us a round-up of the successes and challenges he encountered during his time at Erth Barton, including introducing cattle rotational grazing of diverse herbal leys, pasture cropping and the use of compost as a soil health conditioner. We would like to thank Tim for his contribution to the Farm Net Zero project. Learn more here
Tim Williams and the power of plant roots
At the end of November, we organised a workshop for agronomists at Trethorne Leisure Farm where we were able to discuss some of the findings of the Farm Net Zero trials. This was a great chance to develop ideas and bring together the knowledge and experiences of agronomists and the Demo and Monitor Farmers. We had some excellent conversations on the results of the trials and the potential opportunities they present for farmers as the new Sustainable Farming Incentive comes into force. Learn more here
Agronomists’ meeting at Trethorne
Summaries of all these events, and many more, are available on the Farm Net Zero Project Resources webpage.
This year’s soil sampling is now complete and it has been exciting to see how the soil has changed since 2021. The soil carbon results are now being used to update carbon footprints, and it has been good to see some footprints reduced through soil carbon sequestration. We have a range of farm types on the project, to reflect the variety of farming found in East Cornwall. There are 4 market gardens, 10 dairy farms and 29 mixed livestock and arable producers (ranging from pasture-fed livestock to varying levels of cropping) on the project, and we hope to be able to pick out trends in carbon footprints based on farm type as we build the database year-on-year.
In September, Westcountry Rivers Trust held a Beneficial Bugs ID session at Community Roots market garden, near Porthtowan. On-site, there are many wild boundaries and herbaceous borders running across the beds to encourage pollination and provide year-round habitat for beneficial predators.
Project officer Zoe Smith said: “Even this late in the year, we turned up plenty of interesting specimens from different areas of the garden with our pooters.
We also looked at some companion planting within the polytunnels and participants made a bee hotel log to take home to support bees in their own gardens.”
A Soil Health Indicators session at Loveland, Penryn, in October also took place. Several enthusiastic people brought soil samples from home to analyse, as well as digging soil pits in the garden itself and comparing compacted areas on the track with less intensively used grassland areas.
We’re still looking for new locations to run climate friendly gardening workshops.
If you have an allotment, community garden or smallholding within east or central Cornwall you are proud of, and are willing to share your story, please get in touch with Zoe via [email protected].
A little insight into some of the fab field trials currently underway as part of the FNZ project:
Upcoming events:
You’ll find a full range of relevant events on our website.
Click here to view our full events page
We will be continuing to run a series of Farm Net Zero events in 2024, drawing on the needs and interests from the community of farmers. These will be advertised on our website and through this newsletter. If you have any suggestions for events we could run, please let us know.
As ever, if you have any questions or ideas that would further support the community of farmers that we are working with, please get in touch with the project team (contact details below).
All information about the project including upcoming events and resources are available on the Farm Net Zero website. If there is anything you would like to see featured please let us know.
This project, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, is a partnership between Cornwall College, The Farm Carbon Toolkit, Duchy College’s Rural Business School, Westcountry Rivers Trust, Innovative Farmers and Innovation for Agriculture.
Throughout the discussions, the new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) payments were referred to as a potential method of reducing the risk of adopting the practices trialled by the Farm Net Zero demo and monitor farms. This report will summarise the trials presented and the discussions that followed, including the views of the agronomists present at the workshop.
Cover crops can be useful for protecting soil by reducing erosion and nutrient leaching and preserving soil carbon stocks. In Cornwall’s mixed farming systems, cover crops can provide an opportunity for outwintering livestock in a cost-effective manner. Therefore, it is pertinent to think about the plant species included in a cover crop mix and balance up their soil health benefits with the potential feed value.
A Farm Net Zero trial was set up in winter 2021-2022, where five cover crop mixes of varying complexity were grazed by beef youngstock. Full details of the trial can be found on the Farm Net Zero Project Resources page here. The most diverse mix had the biggest improvement in soil quality, reducing compaction and attracting the most earthworms. In terms of feed value, any mixes containing black oats were the most popular with the cattle and had high dry matter, crude protein and sugars.
It was suggested that the SFI SAM2 “Multi-species winter cover” payment of £129/hectare could be used to support this practice.
FNZ Monitor Farmers, Malcolm and Catherine Barrett, have trialled different methods of establishing maize crops. In spring 2022, two fields were taken and divided into thirds – one where maize was established conventionally (plough, power harrow, drill), one cultivated with a Sumo machine, and one direct drilled with a Mzuri drill. The direct drill had the lowest fuel requirement and therefore cost. Cob weight assessments found that cobs were smallest in the ploughed area and highest where the crop was established after the cultivator. Soil sampling showed that organic matter levels dropped following ploughing, with worm numbers also reduced.
One further area of interest developed when Malcolm and Catherine noticed that the sprayed-out clover regrew in the direct drilled area. This could potentially provide nitrogen for any following crops, and so a trial was designed for the barley drilled after maize harvest. In this trial, part of the field had no nitrogen applied in order to observe any influences of the clover. Quadrat yield assessments found no significant difference between the full nitrogen fertiliser regime and the no nitrogen area and further analysis of grain nitrogen found that both the full rate and zero nitrogen well exceeded the recommended level for feed barley. This prompted discussions on the opportunities for reducing nitrogen fertiliser (and therefore reducing carbon emissions), with most of the agronomists present agreeing that this is achievable, particularly on mixed farms where livestock contribute to healthy soil. One suggestion from the group was that where soil is in good condition, nitrogen could be applied as a foliar feed direct to the plant because the healthy soil is providing good support for the plant roots.
On FNZ Demo Farm, Ennis Barton, some ground is let for vegetable production, when this comes back in hand Andrew Brewer wants to find the fastest method of restoring soil health and returning the fields to cattle grazing. In one of the potato fields, a variety of cover crops (eligible for SAM2) were undersown with ryegrass, clovers and plantain, these were then grazed over winter. Soil quality assessments found that mixes containing Westerwolds ryegrass had the most positive effect on soil aggregate stability. However, in the following summer the Westerwolds rapidly went to seed, which made managing grazing quality a challenge. Therefore, the next best cover mix was forage rape or rye and vetch. This is another example of considering the trade-offs of mixed farming when designing systems that optimise soil quality.
Some of the ground rented out at Ennis Barton is used for Savoy cabbages. Following a Farm Net Zero meeting looking at managing these “risky crops”, Andrew and the cabbage growers were keen to develop methods of reducing soil erosion between the cabbage rows. A trial was designed where a mix of low-growing, deep-rooted species (chicory, plantain, white clover and buckwheat) were intersown between the cabbage rows at the beginning of October after all cabbage hoeing was completed. This trial is still being monitored, but there are hopes that intercropping will protect soil from erosion, provide feed for livestock and also reduce the amount of disease/damage to the cabbage leaf from “soil bounce” after rain. Again, this could be eligible for the SAM2 SFI payment.
Grazing winter cereals was a common practice to manage plant disease, growth rates, fertility and livestock wintering. FNZ Monitor Farmer, Anthony Ellis, tried a return to this practice on his family arable and sheep farm during winter 2022-2023. Part of a field of winter wheat was grazed with ewe lambs, with the wheat grazed right into the ground. This allowed Anthony to reduce growth regulators and fungicide and slightly reduce the nitrogen applications compared to the ungrazed remainder of the field. Septoria was reduced early in the season, but there was less difference closer to harvest as the grazed wheat caught up with the ungrazed. Some discussion followed concerning how although this is an old practice, it is now possible to put some firmer figures on the carbon savings of reduced inputs from grazing cereals.
Overall, this workshop for agronomists provided an excellent opportunity to share some of the project’s results so far, and to learn from agronomists who work across the project region and further afield. The ability to work collaboratively with the wider agricultural community is very valuable and helps to ensure the Farm Net Zero project reflects as many farming systems as possible.
Wednesday 27th September 2023
The talk was hosted by Demo Farmers, Mike and Sam Roberts, at Blable, Wadebridge. Mike and Sam spoke about the different motivations for tree planting, with Mike being interested in trees with a useful end value (having experience of growing a small fir plantation on the farm) and Sam wanting to learn more about the benefits that trees can provide to cattle daily liveweight gain in their rotational grazing system.
Firstly, Lindsay explained that good welfare is about maintaining homeostatic equilibrium – or balance, both physiological and emotional. Most of an animal’s daily behaviour is about trying to maintain that balance, and farming should aim to support this wherever possible.
Lindsay spoke about three main themes of animal behaviour and welfare in agroforestry systems. The first was temperature regulation; if animals are too hot or too cold, then they will spend energy on trying to reach a balance. Where there is access to trees, animals are able to reach that balance faster as the trees provide shade and shelter from wind and rain. This is particularly important as climate change brings greater extremes of weather.
The second theme was the feed value of browsing on trees. Leaves on a number of tree species have been analysed and found to contain high levels of micronutrients and trace elements. This can provide additional benefits to the animal’s diet.
Finally, Lindsay spoke about the calming effect trees have. There is evidence that animals in woodland have better social relationships with less fear and aggression.
Overall, if livestock are in good welfare then they are able to use energy for fulfilling their potential. This improves efficiency of livestock production, which has benefits economically and for the farm’s carbon footprint.
Our role in helping to decarbonise agriculture brings many challenges, not least making sure that our underlying data and methodology are the best they can be, aligning with the latest science. We’re always striving to improve this, which is why, every year, we conduct an independent review of our Calculator to ensure we’re giving the most robust agricultural carbon footprints possible.
This year, the review of our Calculator methodology was conducted by the Carbon Trust and we’re pleased to be able to share their findings and keep our users updated as we update the Calculator in response.
In October 2023, The Carbon Trust conducted an independent review and gap analysis of the Farm Carbon Calculator against:
The following aspects of the Farm Carbon Calculator were covered by the review:
The review identified several strengths and areas for improvement to support the alignment of the tool with the above standards and guidance.
The Carbon Trust has received a detailed action plan of how FCT will enact these recommendations over the next 12 months (with the majority of improvements scheduled for release in April 2024). The Carbon Trust considers that the action plan addresses the points raised in the review.
The competition, run by Farm Carbon Toolkit and Innovation for Agriculture, finds and champions farmers and growers who lead the way in improving soil health and increasing the resilience of their farm business. The competition, which has been running since 2015, now supports a network of farmers and growers across the UK who are passionate about their soil and the innovations that safeguarding it can bring to their business.
Emma Adams, Senior Farm Carbon and Soils Advisor at the Farm Carbon Toolkit, encourages any farmer or grower who is prioritising the management of soil to apply:
The competition is open to all farmers and growers in the UK, regardless of system, enterprise or business size. If the impact on soil is at the heart of your decision making, with implemented practices driving improving soil health as part of a fully functioning farm ecosystem, this is the competition for you.
Online application forms are available via the Farm Carbon Toolkit website. Applications will remain open until 5th March 2024.
The winners will be announced at Groundswell 2024: The Regenerative Agriculture Festival on 26th-27th June 2024, with the top three farms hosting farm walks later in the year to share ideas alongside demonstrating their practices and approaches.
Deborah Crossan, Head of Soils and Natural Resources at Innovation for Agriculture, explains that the farm walks are a key part of the competition, as it gives others the opportunity to see how each winner has approached soil management:
Nothing beats digging a hole and looking at the soil in the field while hearing directly from the farmer how that field has been managed and seeing the impact it’s had on the soil structure over time.
This competition champions farmers who understand the importance of soil and are using management practices to protect and improve it. Crucially, it also enables others to learn from what they’re doing via the farm walks.
This year’s competition is once more kindly sponsored by Cotswold Seeds and Hutchinsons, with the top three farmers receiving a voucher for seeds provided by Cotswold Seeds.
For more information about the Soil Farmer of the Year Competition – and entry details – visit: Soil Farmer of the Year – Farm Carbon Toolkit
ENDS
Issued by: Emma Adams, [email protected]
Understanding the carbon dynamics of peatland is a complicated process that is ever-changing for land managers and farmers. Historically, peat soils and habitats have been understood as a carbon store, with peat itself being of extremely high carbon content. However, in the process of carbon footprinting it is required to understand all greenhouse gases associated with peatland (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) and the additional storage of carbon into these soils, a process known as sequestration.
Sequestration is the process of capturing carbon from the air and storing it within the land, through the process of photosynthesis. Within peatland soils there are additional layers of complexity when thinking of carbon storage. The waterlogged conditions of peat soils allow decomposing plants to accumulate, storing the carbon in the form of peat; this means that not only is carbon captured and stored via photosynthesis, but that there are direct carbon additions from the plant structures themselves.
Consequently, measuring peatland within the Farm Carbon Calculator or any carbon calculator can be complex – knowledge in the scientific community alongside methods of accounting are rapidly developing. However, the following methods can be used:
At Farm Carbon Toolkit, we know that planning for the future is vital to any business. That’s why we’ve been working hard to create a more formalised system of scenario planning in our Farm Carbon Calculator. And today we’re excited to unveil the new beta version of this functionality, which will give growers and those in the supply chain key insight into the management of their business.
While it was previously possible to scenario plan in the Calculator, we’ve built brand new functionality that makes the entire process clearer and simpler to steer you towards achievable actions.
When planning for the future, it helps to be able to visualise the changes you want to make. Scenario planning can help you to plot a roadmap for your business, and see the impact that operational changes could have on your carbon emissions.
Here is a rundown of all the new scenario planning functionality in the Calculator, and how you can use it for key insights into your business.
In order to make scenario planning easier and clearer, there is now a ‘report type’ option in the Calculator – which will make it clear if the report you’re looking at is a standard report, a test, or a scenario plan. It also helps us filter out scenario plans from our benchmarking datasets.
There is now a ‘Scenarios’ button on the report results screen, which will bring up several options when you click it (see the screenshot below). When you’ve finished a report, use the ‘Scenarios’ button to start building your plan for reducing your footprint or explore how you could improve the sequestration potential of your farm.
Firstly, you’ll be able to choose preset scenarios that let you see the effect of changing business parameters. The presets are:
Selecting any or all of these options, and then clicking ‘Create Scenario’, will create a scenario based on the criteria you’ve chosen. You can also leave the presets blank, and just click ‘Create Scenario’, in order to build your own customised scenario plan building on the data you entered in your original report.
N.B. In time, we intend to make more preset options available – but the scenarios above represent fairly typical changes that many growers look to make, and so offer a useful starting point.
Once you have created a scenario, you’ll need to click ‘Edit farm details’ on the report page so that you can edit the date your scenario plan applies to.
Setting the date is important for our timeline and comparison views, which you can use when you’re ready to see the effect of your scenario planning.
If you’re building a scenario yourself, or want to change some details on a preset, then simply click ‘Edit data’ in the report results screen. Here you can make any changes you want in the same way as in a standard report.
There are two ways to access a report comparison – the first is through the ‘Scenarios’ button in the report results page – from here, you have ‘Scenario comparisons’ and ‘Scenario timeline’ options. These buttons will take you to the relevant comparison type – more on that below – for any scenarios associated with the report you’re working on.
Alternatively, you can also access comparisons by clicking ‘Dashboard’ and then selecting the ‘Comparisons’ sidebar button. From here, you’ll need to select the reports you want to compare – note that linked reports and scenarios appear next to each other automatically. Finally, select either the ‘Timeline’ or ‘Compare’ option – we’ll dive into what each of these options mean next.
Our Timeline and Compare views offer two different ways of visualising your data. In the simplest terms, ‘Compare’ shows you key metrics and KPIs in a tabular format, while ‘Timeline’ shows your progress over time and towards a net zero target date (2050 by default).
If you want a detailed, granular view of your business, emissions and sequestration, then it’s best to use the Compare view. If you are looking for an overview and direction of travel, you’ll probably prefer the Timeline view.
Click through the image gallery below to see some examples of the ‘Compare’ view data.
And below are some examples of what the ‘Timeline’ view will show you.
We’re excited to see how scenario planning will help businesses to reduce emissions and achieve their targets. Looking forward, in 2024 we’ll continue developing the Calculator, and as always our focus will be on helping farmers and businesses both track and reduce their carbon footprint.
You can always get in touch with us to find out more or let us know what you need from the Farm Carbon Calculator [email protected].
In recent weeks we’ve been working hard to revamp the benchmarking functionality in the Calculator. Today, we’re pleased to unveil a new beta version available for all of our users. Featuring an interactive graph and all-new metrics, you can now gain even more insight into how your business is performing.
The existing benchmarking function will remain in the Calculator for the time being, while we gather feedback on the new version. You can access the new benchmarking function from the ‘View results’ section of a report.
Our new benchmarking feature allows you to see how you compare against data from our Farm Carbon Calculator users going back to 2020. Currently, you can dig into 5 key metrics on the benchmarking page – these are:
Once you’ve chosen which KPI to look at from the drop-down menu, you can also choose a category to split the plot by. You can do this by farm type, farm size, region and reporting year.
Lastly, you can also filter the category, if you want to include or exclude certain data. By default, all categories are included but you can choose which data to focus on via the check boxes.
For example, if you are a small dairy farm in the South West, you may wish to only check boxes for “Dairy”, “Small (<100ha)”, “South West” in order to compare with similar types of farm.
In order to make benchmarking data easier to interpret, we used what’s called a ‘log transformation’ to be able to fit the range of data we hold into a simple graph. It is not easy to read the absolute value for a farm from the axis but it gives you a picture of the spread of the data so that you can see how your farm compares to others.
When you have data in your report to be able to calculate one of the key metrics, you will see your report’s value on the chart as a blue dashed line.
Rule of thumb: if your blue dashed line is towards the left hand side of the peak on the chart, you are doing better than most, while if it is to the right hand side of the peak, you may be doing less well for that metric.
The data for the new benchmarking feature comes from our own user-generated reports. This data has been carefully managed so as to exclude – among other things – duplicate values, outliers and test scenarios.
For example, reports for farms that have an area greater than 50,000 hectares, but no emissions or sequestration value, will be excluded from the result set. We will also exclude report names with fewer than 3 characters, or those whose names obviously mark them out as test scenarios.
Once any exclusions have been made, we perform some (minimal) cleansing of the remaining data. We may, for example, infer a ‘region’ value from the farm’s postcode. Or infer a reporting year based on the submission date (where there’s no other information available). Finally, we perform the log transformation explained above, in order to display the information in the most user-friendly way.
While every effort is continually made to validate and verify the underlying data, it’s worth keeping in mind that it will never be completely flawless. Nevertheless, the data is very robust and can help aid in planning and decision-making for your business.
Our carbon Calculator is regularly updated with new features, emissions factors and general improvements. We will continue this work into 2024, and are excited to see how these changes can enhance carbon reporting for farmers and businesses. We plan to update the farm carbon benchmarking data available annually.
On 21 Sep 2023, our Annual Field Day brought together alumni from the Farm Net Zero project in Cornwall alongside past and current FCT Soil and Carbon Farmer of the Year competitions. And we were grateful to Yeo Valley, Velcourt and First Milk who helped to sponsor the day.
The event was held at Hendred Estates courtesy of Julian Gold and the estate owners. The day dawned bright and sunny unlike the day before when you could have been forgiven for thinking that we were in the eye of a tropical storm!
Our delegates arrived ready for a 10am start and we were off to a flying start with Julian introducing his farm and all the practices he has been finessing for many a year.
Julian acknowledged that the timing of our event was pertinent with the news that Westminster is preparing to “back off” their net zero targets but he was clear that he will be carrying on as normal with his efforts to reduce emissions .
His analogy is of “Maintaining the factory premises”: if you run a factory to produce cars, you have to maintain the factory to be able to keep the cars rolling out. In the same way, farmers need to maintain the natural processes (natural capital) the farm relies on in order to keep being able to produce food (whether or not DEFRA or anyone else are paying!).
Julian highlighted that C sequestration can only get farmers so far in terms of net zero – they need to reduce their emissions and look to innovative practices to be able to keep C in the ground. He commented that as soil carbon levels rise closer to those under the hedges (optimum levels perhaps) his ability to offset emissions with additional carbon storage will be reduced. This is something pioneers in this space will need to consider.
Delegates were then sent on a circuit of the farm to join workshops on best practice grazing, livestock feed self-sufficiency and crop cultivation and diversity.
We have captured the nuggets from the workshop discussions below:
We heard from Rich Stanbury (Beef and sheep farmer from Exmoor), Andrew Rees (Dairy farmer from Wales) and Tim Williams (FNZ demo farmer).
Rich Stanbury runs a beef and sheep system that previously included arable for feed but he has recently been able to take out all his arable land and move to an entirely home grown forage system with 150 suckler cows and 1100 ewes that are out all year.
He’s taken part in an Innovative Farmer’s Trial using a diverse forage crop mix as a break. They planted a field with kale on one half and a 16 species forage mix on the other half. Within three months, there was a visible difference in soil structure between the forage mix and the kale (that Rich could hardly believe). What’s more the forage mix provides diverse nutrition for the sheep and cattle – in Rich’s words, “the cows don’t just want to eat steak, they want peas and chips which is why the mix is good for livestock”.
Andrew Rees has a dairy herd that is now grass-based. He has transitioned the farm to spring calving and reduced his chemical inputs and artificial N fertiliser from 300 kg N/ha gradually and is on track to avoid all chemical Nitrogen fertiliser use next year. He has done this by focussing on diverse pastures but explained that small actions like bale grazing young stock and using summer forage mixes have been useful stepping stones whilst transitioning the farm.
Tim Williams grew up on sheep and beef farms in New Zealand before moving to manage a dairy unit in NZ. After managing farms in both the UK and back in NZ, he learnt more about rotational grazing using the Kiwitech system . Now he is contract farming in Cornwall helping to showcase a regenerative system for the Farm Net Zero project. The farm was previously arable land which had become severely degraded. Tim has transitioned this to a perennial system which started with the initial introduction of a 30 species mix cover crop and the grazing of a small suckler herd that has been built up with store heifers and pedigree Angus. Tim is aiming for 100 head of cattle but is building the herd gradually. He has been bale grazing for energy to be able to overwinter the calves. He is achieving 1 kg LWG per day for growing cattle on this diverse perennial mix.
What was the moment you knew your new approach was working?
Wasn’t a 16 species or 30 species cover crop expensive? How did you choose what to sow?
What does a perennial system look like?
We heard from Tim Parton (Green Farm Collective), Julian Gold (host farm), David Miller(Arable farmer from Hampshire)
This session focussed on the ways in which farmers could become more self-sufficient in feed production. The session was introduced by Stefan, who explained that feed was a global commodity which is at risk of global price fluctuations, particularly recently, which can cause significant economic challenges on farm. The session explored how growing different crops could help enhance crop rotations, benefit plant and soil biodiversity and how to reduce inputs on-farm (including fertiliser and antibiotic usage).
We heard from Michael Carpenter (Kelvin Cave) and Chris Berry (Devon farmer).
Michael highlighted the importance of making best use of what you can grow on your own farm, or trading with your neighbours, which will not only help profitability but also lower the farm carbon footprint. Discussions ensued about the importance of forage preservation and optimising milk from forage, highlighting the practical things that can be done on-farm to maintain quality including grass species, and numbers of cuts to minimise dry matter losses. Michael also talked about the benefits of crimped cereals, which provides higher dry matter yield per ha, a greater fibre digestibility in the seed coat before it lignifies, and more available protein in the cereal. As protein is a high cost (both economically and in terms of carbon) to the farm, cutting down the cost of protein is a good strategy. The NCS project was discussed which is aiming to provide practical information about how by growing peas and beans we can reduce the cost of protein and achieve economic, environmental and animal performance benefits. For more information on the NCS project please click here. https://farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk/2023/07/19/the-ncs-project-more-info/
Chris Berry farms 450 acres near Exeter, on dry sandy soil. Traditionally the farm was a mixed farm lambing Christmas and Easter, calving in the autumn and spring and growing cereals to feed back to the animals. As Chris came home he was asking a lot of questions about the system and its sustainability for the future. Having come back from New Zealand, Chris decided to change the system to become less reliant on subsidies.
The farm made the switch from lambing 700 ewes indoors and outdoors to one big flock of 7-800 New Zealand highlander ewes, and moved to an Angus breed on the cows to make the most of the forage based genetics. This was the starting point to transitioning the farm. At the beginning they were still using feed and fertiliser to make the system work, but gradually Chris came to the realisation that he also needed to focus on what was below the ground and making the best use of grass.
Previously the farm was growing 100ac res of barley, which was rolled and fed to the cattle alongside a lot of purchased creep. Chris started putting up electric fencing and rotating the stock around the paddocks. He started with lots of small groups and lots of moves, but through engaging with a discussion group and Precision Grazing, the system has now moved to include measuring grass and paddock grazing with existing leys (ryegrasses and clovers).
The system was working well, however there were still challenges in the dry summers, and so herbal leys were introduced to provide forage in June – August. Chris started with a 9 ha field which was sown with chicory, red and white clover, plantain and put 300 lambs on it and they gained 10kg in the month they were there. This was a turning point for Chris as he hadn’t managed to achieve a similar growth rate on creep feed. Since then Chris has got rid of the land which was growing cereals and has put it into herbal leys.
Now he has a much more consistent supply of forage when he needs it to match the stock energy requirements. Chris has managed to reduce antibiotic use on farm by 75%, eliminate 80 tonnes of purchased creep feed, and reduced fertiliser by 33 tonnes, which has saved 156t of CO2e, along with an increased output from the farm from 240 to 280 kg per ha.
Following lunch and a presentation to our FCT retiring Chairman David Gardner we all settled down for the afternoon to focus on ways to reduce fossil fuel energy usage and how best to benefit from the new emerging voluntary markets for carbon, biodiversity net gain and nutrient neutrality.
First out of the blocks was the awards for our new competition Carbon Farmer of the Year.
FCT set up this Competition to recognise and champion farmers, sector organisations and businesses who are leading the way in adopting farming practices and developing new technologies to reduce farm emissions whilst optimising output.
We wanted to enable discussions on carbon emissions and sinks on farms to be framed in a very practical way to help everyone to increase their understanding and provide ideas for change.
Our judges were Adam Twine – our founder and long term advocate of climate friendly farming practices and mixed farmer from Wiltshire, David Cope, head of Sustainability at the Duchy of Cornwall and Emily Norton, farmer and chair of the Soil Association Exchange Advisory Group.
Our four finalists were Anthony Ellis from Pensipple Farm, Cornwall, Craig Livingstone from Lockerley Estates, Hampshire, Doug Christie from Durie Farms, Fife and Thomas Gent from Oakley Farm, Cambridgeshire.
Doug Christie emerged as our winner. Doug has a mixed farm incorporating an arable enterprise and an organic beef herd alongside woodland. He has been incorporating conservation agriculture practices increasingly since 1999 and was very much a pioneer of climate friendly farming when it was far from fashionable. He realised long ago that reducing emission heavy inputs would reduce his farm footprint. He has been doing that whilst working to improve soil health to enable crop yields to be optimised. Doug is an advocate for increasing natural capital and biodiversity on the farm which he believes underpins the farm’s resilience and truly sustainable food production. Testament to this focus on biodiversity is that Doug ceased using insecticides over 20 years ago.
FCT will be holding a farm walk at Durie Farms on the 21st November to showcase what Doug is doing.
This was followed by a session to consider some of the opportunities for farmers to benefit from the new and emerging markets for carbon and biodiversity net gain as well as nutrient neutrality. Our speakers included Rob Shepherd, chair of the Environmental Farmers Group, Daniel Wynn, Head of Nature Based Solutions at Kent Wildlife Trust and Julian Gold from Hendred Estate and Nick Down from Velcourt Farms. Rob spoke about the work of the Environmental Framers Group (EFG) as a farmer controlled business to enable its members to jointly benefit nutrient neutrality payment schemes across their area of activity which is currently central southern England but is expanding fast with over 1.5% ofEngalnd’s farmed area signed up for membership.
Dan Wynn shared information on Wilder Carbon, a Kent Wildlife Trust subsidiary which is working with land owners and managers to draw down carbon payments from the development of Nature Based Solution creation on land. Dan talked delegates through the process and talked about the pitfalls which are present in this landscape at the moment and how best to avoid them which crucially involves working with partners with integrity and being very clear about the agreements you are entering into as they are often very long term and will come with significant delivery requirements as well as robust monitoring and verification.
Following Dan’s presentations two farmers, Julian Gold and Nick Down gave their perspectives on these markets. Julian from the point of view of having entered some land into a BNG agreement last year and now fully appreciating the long term requirements of meeting the agreement requirements and from Nick discussing how customer requirements are driving a focus on supply chain carbon insetting and how farmers can gain power in this space. This topic drove discussion with delegates asking about future market requirements and how this might affect the attractiveness of current schemes available in this space.
Following this session we finished with a very practical session looking at reducing farm reliance on fossil fuel based sources of power.
Three of our speakers in this session have reduced reliance on fossil fuels through the following technologies:
We will be uploading slides from these sessions onto our website in due course so that you can look in detail at their presentations.
Yeo Valley, Velcourt and First Milk.
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