Five farmers from across England have been shortlisted for the Soil Farmer of the Year 2026 competition, recognising practical approaches to soil management that are improving resilience, reducing costs and supporting profitable farm businesses.
The finalists are Paul Baker from Devon, Colin Chappell from Lincolnshire, Chris Mighall from Surrey, Chris Molyneux from Lancashire and Tom Fairfax from Northumberland.
Together, the finalists represent a wide range of farming systems and enterprises, from field vegetables and organic production to conventional arable and mixed sheep and beef enterprises, demonstrating that good soil management principles can be applied successfully across very different businesses.
Head of soil and natural resources at Innovation for Agriculture, Deborah Crossan, one of the judges for the 2026 competition, shares that the farmers selected as finalists were all able to demonstrate how soil management was delivering tangible benefits for their farm businesses.
“Across the entries we’ve seen reductions in fuel and input costs, greater resilience to drought and wet weather, and systems that support both livestock and crop performance,” she says. “These are practical changes that are making a real difference to profitability and long-term resilience.”
The winners of the 2026 competition will be announced at 4pm on Wednesday 1st July in the Grass Tent at Groundswell, where all five finalists will share the management decisions, challenges and lessons that have shaped their soil health journeys.
“Anyone interested in improving soil function, reducing inputs or building resilience into their farm business will find plenty of practical ideas to take home,” says Ms Crossan.
“The Awards Ceremony provides a rare opportunity to hear directly from farmers working in very different systems but united by a common focus on healthy, functioning soils. It is also an excellent opportunity for anyone considering entering the competition in future years.”
The Soil Farmer of the Year competition is run by Farm Carbon Toolkit and Innovation for Agriculture, and is sponsored by Cotswold Seeds and Hutchinsons. The winning farms will host a series of farm walks later in the year, giving farmers the opportunity to see the practices discussed at Groundswell in action and hear first-hand how they have influenced business performance.
We’re pleased to announce the Farm Carbon Calculator achieves Model Assurance from the Carbon Trust. Read on to see how this helps you →
Calculator Manager, Dr Lizzy Parker with the Farm Carbon Calculator’s Certificate of Achievement from the Carbon Trust
Championing Credibility: Farm Carbon Calculator Achieves Carbon Trust Model Assurance
Our mission at the Farm Carbon Toolkit has always been to provide world-leading practical and impact-led solutions to farmers, growers, land managers and their customers, to support the transition to climate-positive and resilient food production systems. As agricultural supply chains face increasing pressure to deliver robust, verifiable climate reporting, the accuracy of your baseline emissions calculations matters more than ever.
That is why we are incredibly proud to announce that the calculation methodology powering the Farm Carbon Calculator (🌐 June 2026 Methodology v.3.7) has successfully achieved the Carbon Trust Assurance Limited’s independent requirements for model assurance.
Following a rigorous review process, this achievement marks a massive milestone for our community, offering users an extra layer of confidence that their accounting aligns with international standards.
“We are delighted that the Farm Carbon Calculator has achieved model assurance from the Carbon Trust. Our farmers, growers and their customers can be confident that the methodology underpinning our calculator meets rigorous professional standards. We’d like to thank the thousands of farmers and growers who have contributed ideas and feedback to shape the tool over the past 15 years so that it works from a farm business planning perspective but also meets the requirements of international carbon accounting”– Dr Lizzy Parker, Calculator Manager, Farm Carbon Toolkit
What Does Achieving Model Assurance Mean?
This independent engagement with the Carbon Trust was conducted to a Limited Level of Assurance.
This in short verifies that the Farm Carbon Calculator is fully capable of generating robust carbon footprints and emissions inventories that comply with leading global frameworks.✅
The model assurance specifically validates our Cradle-to-Farm Gate (Business to Business) calculation methodology for tools marketed across Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Whether you are looking at your farm as a whole enterprise or investigating specific outputs, the assurance covers two dimensions:
Product Carbon Footprints (PCF): Formally assured for key agricultural sectors including Cattle, Sheep, Pigs, Poultry, and Arable products
Whole Farm Footprints: Assured for the collection of Scope 1, Scope 2, and relevant Scope 3 on-farm emissions.
The Standards Behind the Science
To secure this assurance, our methodology was cross-examined against the most stringent technical protocols in greenhouse gas accounting. The Calculator has been assured against:
ISO 14067:2018: The international benchmark specifying requirements for the quantification of a product’s lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.
IPCC, Volume 4 (2006 and 2019): The National Greenhouse Gas Inventories guidelines for Agriculture, Forestry & Other Land Use.
Greenhouse Gas Protocol Standards: Including the 2004 Corporate Standard (Scope 1 & 2), the 2011 Corporate Value Chain Standard (Scope 3), and the 2026 Land Sector & Removals Standard.
The Carbon Trust Technical Requirements: Conforming to Product Carbon Footprints (V3.0), Organisational Carbon Footprints (v1.0), and Model Assurance Requirements (v1.0).
Understanding the Scope Boundary
We believe transparency is the foundation of trust. It is important to note exactly what this independent evaluation covers so you can communicate your carbon footprints accurately to supply chain partners and others.
⚠️ Scope boundary and disclaimers: The scope of this assurance engagement covers the Scope 1, 2 and 3 farm emissions database and product carbon footprint aspects of the tool.
Certain advanced or emerging greenhouse gas accounting features fall outside the defined scope of this specific Carbon Trust assessment. These include carbon removals and sequestration elements, on-farm processing stages, and GWP* alternative methane illustrations. While the tool continues to offer functionality to estimate these elements, no opinion or assessment was provided on them. Individual model outputs (reports) do not inherently constitute verified footprints on their own.
Our Commitment to Continuous Improvement
The Farm Carbon Calculator Achieves Model Assurance from the Carbon Trust now and this assurance is officially valid for a 24-month period, running from 05 June 2026 until 05 June 2028.
As part of the comprehensive Model Assurance Report, the Carbon Trust team identified minor non-conformities and opportunities for improvement—such as refining front-end user testing logs, clarifying regional allocation documentation, and updating data quality index formatting.
We welcome this feedback with open arms. Several technical adjustments were successfully addressed and closed during the audit period itself. We view this as a continuous evolution to ensure our software remains the most cutting-edge, reliable, and practical carbon assessment tool for farms on the market.
Whether you are benchmarking your farm for the first time or use the tool to track your progress long-term, you can trust the results of your carbon footprint in the Farm Carbon Calculator. This leading tool is setting the standard for others to follow.
This May we completed the final two farm walks with finalists from the Soil Farmer of the Year 2025 competition – and visiting Trecorras Farm and Glebe Farm, both share the same core conviction: that healthy soils and healthy margins go hand in hand.
We will be announcing the winner of the 2026 competition at Groundswell in a little over a month so keep an eye on our socials to meet this years finalists!
Trecorras Farm, Herefordshire — hosted by John Joseph
The first of the events was hosted by last year’s winner of the competition, John Joseph at Trecorras Farm. Farming 220 acres on the edge of the Wye Valley with his wife Julie, John has spent the past 15 years rebuilding a system that was, by his own admission, heading in the wrong direction. In their early years at the farm, poor soil structure and heavy cultivation were causing serious erosion which inspired a shift to direct drilling, wider and more diverse rotations, integrated livestock, and a strong focus on soil biology and crop nutrition.
Walking the farm, you see these principles in action at every turn. We started with the herbal leys containing a diverse mix of grasses, clovers, plantain and chicory. These have become part of the rotation, providing a break with diverse rooting – building soil structure whilst providing forage for a herd of Red Poll cattle that have been brought back into the arable rotation. Sheep are also used on tack to graze established winter cereals, stimulating tillering and reducing the need for early-season fungicides. This is another key component to John’s low intervention farming, which focuses on crop requirements to maximise margins. SAP testing guides nutritional decisions, with agrochemical intervention reserved for when the crop genuinely demands it.
Companion cropping runs through the entire rotation. This was clearest in the winter wheat planted with vetch and returning borage volunteers. John explained how the vetch formed a symbiotic relationship with the wheat — roots intertwining below the soil just as the tendrils do above benefitting both plants. John also showed us his Wildfarmed spring wheat accompanied by home-saved winter beans, further enabling him to keep costs low and prioritise margins.
Soil biology is fed through what John describes as green, brown and black inputs — living roots from companions and cover crops, retained stubble and debris, and farm-made bokashi-style compost produced from cattle manure, woodchips and added microbes. Andrew Sincock from Agriton joined us to explain the science behind the approach: cultivating facultative anaerobes that thrive in the heap, but switch to aerobic respiration once applied to the soil.
Back in the yard, John’s direct drill — modified by Landwrx with a pump and tubing system allows compost to be applied directly to the seed at planting. Fermented molasses, used as a carbon source alongside nitrogen applications, and wood vinegar, which doubles as a fly treatment for cattle, were among just a few tools in the armoury.
Glebe Farm, Bedfordshire — hosted by Andrew Mahon
Later in May we travelled to Glebe Farm in Bedfordshire, where Andrew Mahon farms 800 hectares of heavy Hanslope clay. Andrew’s journey began in earnest after the disastrous 2012 harvest — wet, low-yielding and poor quality — which prompted a fundamental rethink. A move to strip-till in 2013 was followed by zero-till. We began the farm walk in the farm yard looking at the direct drill Andrew now uses, developed partly in collaboration with Horizon to optimise the design for his conditions.
Also in the farm yard was a range of different composts being experimented with in order to introduce biology to the system wherever possible. The main method on show was a Johnson-Su compost which Andrew has been producing since 2022 training with soil ecologist Nicole Masters. Unlike traditional compost teas, compost extracts are used to multiply the target bacteria directly before application providing greater confidence in the biological activity being delivered. Walking the farm Andrew explained how the farm operates with a dual focus: with the arable ground producing premium wheat and oats for Warbutons and Wildfarmed, and the remaining land utilising environmental schemes in sympathy with his rotation. This model operates on the principle of financial resilience as well as delivering a host of ecosystem services.
As we walked the fields, we learnt about Andrew’s flexible approach to cropping and heard about the tools he uses to inform his crop nutrition approach. Most interesting among these was a hand held SAP tester which could provide tissue analysis in the field, enabling much more timely applications to directly target crop requirements. We also saw nature based farming in practice, not only through the stewardship schemes but with 3,000m of new hedgerow running the length of the farm and roughly 6,000 trees planted in rows as part of an agroforestry scheme developed in conjunction with the University of Reading. Woodchip composts were applied to these rows as a weed suppressant using a feeder wagon.
Our thanks to John and Andrew for opening their farms so generously. Both walks were a reminder that the most progressive thinking in agriculture is often already being implemented on farms by farmers.
Image credit: Version 1 – GHG protocol LSRS, World Resources Institute
The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) protocol provides standards and guidance for how carbon footprints should be constructed and calculated, to ensure that the results are comparable between businesses or projects. After many years of draft versions and public consultations, the GHG protocol has released a finalised ‘Land Sector and Removals Standard’ (LSRS).
This standard outlines how emissions from agricultural holdings should be reported and provides a framework for reporting carbon removals. It forms one of the many reporting standards that farm businesses are required to report to – Scope 2 standard, Scope 3 standard, relevant specific product footprint standards – and this may affect how carbon calculators (such as the Farm Carbon Calculator), will display your results on your reports. The LSRS aims to improve carbon footprint data transparency in supply chains, which is why there is a heavy focus on Scope 3.
The Farm Carbon Calculator has been working towards aligning with the draft versions of the LSRS (previously the LSRG) for the past few years – meaning we are in a great position to align with the new standard without significant change, should you need to produce LSRS-compliant reports. Below, we briefly discuss the key takeaways and explain how this may affect reporting.
Reporting emissions and removals separately is the new normal
Change: While your carbon ‘balance’ (the sum of emissions and removals) is important for understanding your farm’s impact, it is now mandatory to also present the data separately as total GHG emissions and total carbon removals from the atmosphere.
Solution: The calculator already does this! Your reports already show these separate values so no change is needed there! The advantage of separating emissions from removals is the ability to more closely examine the emissions reduction or mitigation possibilities, as well as maximising carbon removals from the atmosphere.
Including carbon removals from the atmosphere has been formalised
Change: This is the first reporting framework that includes removals accounting. Accounting for removals has been done in the past, but the GHG protocol is seen as the gold standard, and we now have guidance from the top down on how the brilliant sequestration work of farmers can be included in reports.
Solution: The removals that can be included in an LSRS-compliant report will need to be from ‘empirical data’ from lands within the farm’s boundary, so this includes direct soil samples – but don’t worry, this is easy to identify in the sequestration tab, where eligible options are labelled with ‘Direct Measurement’.
You will need to think about the history of your land
Change: It is now mandatory to include any land use change (LUC) that has occurred over the last 20 years on farm.
Solution: There is an area to log this on the calculator, but to be able to see the LUC calculator tab you need to answer ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Has there been any major change in land use on the farm in the past 20 years?’. Read more about the LUC tab here.
This is referred to as direct or major LUC and is focused on significant changes in land types (i.e., woodlands into arable cropping, or grasslands into built environments) and not looking at the management changes (i.e., going from full to no tillage cropping, or from pastoral grazing to silvopastoral grazing). Sowing a rotational grassland in an arable rotation, does not count as major land use change.
LUC emissions will be allocated based on when they occurred – so if it was 19 years ago you will only see a small section of emissions in your report, and this will be presented separately from your annual GHG emissions total and carbon removals total, in line with the new disaggregated reporting guidance.
An additional metric to report – land tracking
Change: A key part of the guidance is the need to better track land areas and how they are used – this is primarily because supply chains often lack traceability to individual farms. It is now mandatory to report a land tracking metric, meaning a product can be assessed on its land use efficiency and not just emissions. This also means that where supply chains reduce food production in one area, they must account for the ‘emissions leakage’ onto other lands (likely on different farms, causing LUC). Sometimes this effect is called accounting for “ghost acres”.
Solution: The calculator already asks you for land area at the farm and crop scale, with yield KPIs that have the land area included. Your land occupation for a given product is presented in the ‘Yield table’ on the results page, which shows the areas needed for the production of that crop or livestock product. The calculator currently prevents you from overrepresenting sequestration (i.e. on a land area bigger than your farm area), so there are no changes required here.
Image: Yield and Land Occupation table on the Farm Carbon Calculator.
Changes to emissions accounting categories
The LSRS has defined certain categories in which emissions and removals need to be reported in. This becomes increasingly important moving up the supply chain. For example, it notes that ‘fossil fuel and industrial emissions’ should be reported separately from land emissions (in a similar way to SBTi FLAG). For farmers, your business’ fuel use would be reported under this category rather than land-based emissions.
However, further up the supply chain, the standard recognises that the category ‘land emissions’ may include fossil fuel burning – for example, if it’s already allocated in a product footprint. Therefore, for companies further down the supply chain, all emissions from farms can be accounted for in the land emissions category. The LSRS, like SBTi, notes that you just need to make sure not to double-count fossil fuel emissions across these categories. At this point in time, the FCC calculator categories can be mapped to the new LSRS categories, but future updates may include report summary changes. If you need a detailed breakdown of what emissions align to the LSRS categories, get in touch at calculator@farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk.
Image credit: Alex Bebbington, Land at Trewen, Launceston. Farm Net Zero (2023)
It’s not perfect and we will continue to lobby for farmers
As with any new standard there are teething issues, and we have questions and grey areas that we would still like clarity on. For example, the team behind the LSRS and the independent standards body were unable to confirm how forestry and adjacent non-productive lands can be included in a farm footprint, and in the current guidance, including woodlands, forestry and hedgerows in LSRS-compliant reports is not possible. The LSRS team has put together a consultation, and aims to have forestry-specific guidance available in the near future – however, no timelines have been given. For now, we would recommend that fully LSRS-compliant reports should only include sampled soils data to evidence sequestration, however further clarity is needed from the standard. We are investigating this on your behalf to ensure your woodlands, hedgerows, and other sequestration are reflected in the future.
As a community interest company focused on supporting farmers, we’ll keep speaking up in the world of carbon accounting to make sure all the amazing work farmers do – especially around carbon sequestration and storage on your land – gets recognised.
If you have any specific questions or requirements, please reach out to us for help.
Email us at calculator@farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk or use our Contact Form here
Replacing half the soya bean meal in livestock feed with homegrown pulses has the potential to reduce agricultural emissions by 3.4m tonnes of CO2e p/a – a result of reduced deforestation and land use change, lower synthetic fertiliser use, and fuel savings. This is equivalent to more than 7% of agriculture’s total emissions in 2022.
We have long known the benefits of beans and pulses in supporting improved soil health within arable rotations, as well as their potential to replace soya bean meal and increase forage protein levels within livestock diets. Indeed, as many as 30 years ago, UK research money was being applied to the potential for UK lupin production as a feed for ruminants.
Since the mid-1970s, UK imports of soya bean meal have risen significantly – from 600,000 tonnes per year in 1979, to a peak of 2.3 million tonnes in 2020. Prior to this, imports sat fairly consistently at around 300,000 tonnes per year:
During much of this period, the increasing reliance on soya bean meal imports for UK livestock was met with scant concern – despite the environmental impact caused by the deforestation required to grow the crop, and the damage to the fragile soils across the areas where this crop increasingly has been grown (commonly South America). Now, it is a very different story, with many UK retail supply chains requiring their suppliers to feed alternative proteins to minimise reliance on soya bean meal from deforestation sources.
Started in 2023, the Nitrogen Climate Smart project (NCS) aims to support a transition toward increasing the UK’s pulse and legume cropping in arable rotations to 20% (it is currently at 5%). In turn, the farmer-led research project is looking to work toward replacing 50% of imported soya meal used in livestock feed rations with home-grown legumes.
Benefits of growing pulses in the UK
As these plants fix nitrogen into the soil, growing pulses like peas and beans reduces the reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilisers – both during the pulses’ cropping year and for subsequent crops.
In 2023 the UK applied an average of 125kg of artificial nitrogen per ha, totalling 546,266 tonnes of N across the UK and emitting 3.6Mt CO2e. By expanding pulse cultivation the UK could save 74,867 tonnes of nitrogen fertiliser annually, directly avoiding 494,925t CO2e emissions. Moreover, pulse residues can enhance nitrogen availability for subsequent crops, with the potential of up to 35–70kg N/ha depending on soil conditions. This could save an additional 20,963–41,926 tonnes of nitrogen annually across the UK, equating to the avoidance of a further 138,580-277,160t CO2e emissions.
Expanding the pulse cropping area will result in GHG emissions reductions in the following areas:
Reduced fuel usage
Direct fertiliser avoidance
Indirect fertiliser avoidance as a result of leguminous residues
Providing a low emission feed alternative to imported soya
In 2023, the UK imported 2.37 million tonnes of soya feed – 74% from South America – resulting in 7.3Mt CO2e emissions. UK grown beans could replace some of this soya, substantially reducing the footprint of animal feed. If all UK-grown beans within the scenario proposed by NCS were used within compound feeds and straights, they could replace 96% of soya imports, avoiding 5.3Mt CO2e. However, a more realistic scenario is replacing 50% of imported soya with 1.95 million tonnes of UK beans, requiring 454,468 hectares (52% of beans/peas cropping area) – this would cut feed emissions to 4.5Mt CO2e, saving 2.8Mt CO2e compared to current levels of soya imports.
Challenges to overcome
Before UK-grown proteins are the norm within UK livestock diets, there are challenges to come for both arable farmers and livestock producers. In turn, substituting faba beans for soya bean meal brings challenges for animal feed manufacturers – such as the need for more ingredient bins and accessing a sufficient scale of beans of similar quality and consistency. A secondary challenge for feed manufacturers is the higher inclusion rate required for faba beans compared to soya bean meal, as they are lower in protein.
Faba – image courtesy of Encyclopædia Britannica
For livestock producers the key challenge is around the performance of UK grown pulses compared to soya bean meal. To help provide confidence to producers, the NCS project is engaged in feeding trials with cattle and broilers to understand the impact – with the results being published in a series of case studies which will be available on the project website.
One feeding trial investigated the impact on broiler performance of partial soya bean meal replacement with faba beans. Prior to the trial, broiler feed accounted for close to 51% of total greenhouse gas emissions for the enterprise, with soya being the key driver.
The trial confirmed that raw faba beans can be incorporated into broiler diets without compromising bird health and welfare. However, higher inclusion levels resulted in wetter litter (requiring increased management attention); higher FCR; and increased cost of production. These findings point towards some form of processing (such as extrusion) as a likely route to unlocking greater nutritional value, through reducing the antinutritional factors and improving protein digestibility. However, the trial did result in an overall reduction of 12% of the emissions associated with broiler feed.
A second trial with beef cattle investigated the impact of roasting faba beans in comparison to feeding them raw. The results show that roasting the beans doubles rumen degradable protein, while protein digestibility in the small intestine increased by 4%. Roasting also increased bypass starch by up to 47% with no impact on digestibility. With the cattle on the trial diets for 126 days, the group fed on raw beans achieved an average daily liveweight gain of 1.44kg/day (corrected for one animal which had to be withdrawn from the trial due to illness) across this period, while the group fed on roasted beans achieved growth rates of 1.54kg/day. Although unit feed costs were higher for the roasted beans due to the cost of roasting, the feed cost and the emissions per kg liveweight produced were reduced by 5% and 7.5% respectively.
Full details of all the feeding trials can be found on the NCS website.
For arable farmers, the challenge has been producing consistently good crops of faba beans alongside achieving a market price that makes them an attractive crop to grow within the rotation. The farmers of NCS’ “Pulse Pioneers” aim to improve the quality and consistency of faba bean crops through a range of on-farm trials. Unsurprisingly, pod development and pod fill are key to pulse yield – and as always, attention to detail through the crop life generally leads to better outcomes. However, there is a need for the whole chain to incentivise arable farmers through recognising the overall lower level of GHG emissions offered by UK grown pulses compared to imported soya bean meal, to make up for generally lower rotation level margins when beans make up 20% of the rotation area. This should result in an“emissions reduction premium” underpinning the market price, commanded by its nutrient content and value within least cost ration formulations. To make this a reality supply chain intervention is vital, both to make this a requirement and support the additional costs in exchange for being able to report lowered chain emissions.
Livestock feed manufacturers are already responding to the requirements of some supply chains in requiring alternative feed to be included within livestock rations. An increased scale of production will be critical to improve these manufacturers’ ability to consistently include beans within livestock diet formulation, and to improve the consistency of quality.
FCT is one of the partners within the NCS project. To find out more about the project findings, you can visit the NCS website or contact FCT through info@farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk to find out how we can help your business on its journey towards more climate and nature-positive farming systems.
by Rob Purdew, Senior Farm Carbon and Soil Advisor
Two recent Innovative Farmers Field Labs trials have taken an in-depth look into different aspects of grazing within dairy systems – providing valuable insights on the relationship between herbal leys and milk yield, quality and composition, and the effect of extended pasture resting after grazing on soil health and microbiology.
A discussion of the results, recorded at a recent webinar and featuring FCT Farm Advisor Hannah Jones, is available to watch back above.
Do herbal leys affect milk yield and quality?
The first trial, run by dairy farmer Andrew Brewer as part of the Farm Net Zero project in Cornwall, monitored differences in milk yield and composition between cows grazing a conventional ryegrass sward and those grazing a herbal ley.
Drawing a comparison between cows grazed on perennial rye grass/white clover leys or multi-species swards, the trial found that there was no significant difference in milk yield and composition between the two swards – despite a difference in the nutritional analysis.
The results showed that:
Multi-species swards had lower dry matter, water-soluble carbohydrates and neutral detergent fibre.
Higher crude protein and ash was found in multi-species sward yields (largely reflecting the greater diversity of legumes and herbs in the mix).
On average, multi-species swards produced 40% more forage than the rye grass sward, and both pre and post grass sward heights were greater.
While the different leys produced similar milk yields, a significant positive from the study is that it demonstrates the ability to deliver the wide range of benefits of multi-species sward without having to compromise on yield – a commonly held belief. You can read and download the final report here.
Alongside their relationship to herbal leys, there are numerous additional benefits to growing herbal leys, as they:
Improve soil structure and health
Provide resilience in dry periods
Extend the grazing season
Benefit carbon sequestration
Nitrogen fixation from legume species – so requires little fertiliser
Improve livestock growth rates when rotationally grazed
Improve biodiversity of bird and insect species
Some species have anthelmintic properties – so less need for wormers
Andrew Brewer’s Ennis Barton farm
Does extended pasture resting after grazing improve soil microbiology and soil health?
A second field lab study has been investigating the impact of longer rest periods and resulting taller swards on soil health.
Tall grass grazing (often referred to as mob, holistic or adaptive multi-paddock grazing) has seen good uptake from beef and sheep farmers but less so in dairy systems, where concerns of a drop in forage quality has limited its use. Encouragingly, the trial was shown to have a good impact on soil health – with a much higher fungi-bacteria ratio in the trial plots after 3 years, and a higher-retained moisture content – something that was very important in a year of severe drought. Further observations from the study included:
Improved soil structure at depth was observed as roots reached deeper into the soil profile.
Forage quality remained largely consistent with the trial plots, having slightly higher sugars and dry matter and the controls higher ME, D value and crude protein.
Interestingly the tall grass plots had higher levels of beneficial macro and micro nutrients, and lower levels of antagonistic minerals – and cows were observed to be more settled and fuller.
Milk yield was not affected by the taller sward heights but there were mixed results in terms of total forage grown.
Half the farms grew more forage in total than compared to the control plots; but half also saw diminished total forage.
All the farmers have an appetite to continue the trial and see if the results are consistent over a longer time period.
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Farm Net Zero is a major project from the farming community in Cornwall to show the contribution that agriculture can make to achieving Net Zero.
For years at Farm Carbon Toolkit, we have witnessed a remarkable surge in passion for agricultural sustainability. Every week, hundreds of professionals work to support farmers and supply chains in understanding their environmental impact. However, we have felt for some time that this enthusiasm hasn’t always been matched by the specific, hands-on training and continuous professional development needed to complement practical experience.
Today, I am thrilled to announce that this is about to change. We are launching Farm Carbon Training, a new on-demand series of courses designed to provide the industry with the standardised, high-quality carbon assessment advice it demands.
Why This Matters Now
The industry is growing, and with that growth comes the need for consistency and trust. Whether you are a farm advisor, a sustainability consultant, or a researcher, the ability to produce accurate carbon footprints is no longer just “nice to have”: it is a professional necessity.
Our on-demand 6-hour module, “Using greenhouse gas assessment tools for farm businesses,” launches this February 2026. It is designed to be tool-agnostic, meaning the skills you learn will allow you to approach any of the 200+ carbon footprinting tools available worldwide with confidence.
What to Expect from the Training
Led by FCT experts Becky Willson and Dr Lizzy Parker, this course bridges the gap between academic knowledge and vocational delivery. We’ve broken the curriculum down into five key sessions:
Managing Farm Carbon: Establishing the “why” and understanding business resilience.
Principles of Measurement: Demystifying the maths, from “Whole Farm” approaches to Life Cycle Analysis (LCA).
Practical Data Collection: A roadmap for data collection under time pressure and a roadmap to robust carbon footprints.
Actionable Mitigation: Turning data into a multi-year plan for emissions reduction and sequestration.
Licence Mastery: Identifying essential tool features like GHG Protocol alignment and data privacy.
Successful graduates will receive a professional badge and be included on our database of accredited professionals (coming March 2026), providing farmers with a way to verify their advisor’s expertise.
To do our bit for the whole industry, we are making this training a pre-requisite for using the Farm Carbon Calculator in professional settings from March 2026. We believe that by ensuring every professional user is fully equipped with the underlying science and practical skills, we raise the bar for the entire farming community.
For those who prefer an in-person experience, we continue to offer our 5-day BASIS certificate in GHGs, Carbon, and Climate Change Mitigation.
We are incredibly proud to be a training provider, building on over a decade of on-farm advisory work. We are sure this new resource will empower you to meet the real-world challenges of modern farm businesses with renewed confidence.
The From Soya to Sustainability conference is returning to Peterborough on Wednesday 28th January 2026, and our CEO Liz Bowles will be there to run a session – entitled ‘The Price of Change‘, her talk will address the costs and benefits of increasing peas and beans in arable rotations.
Bringing together leaders from across the agri-food sector, the conference looks to accelerate the shift towards a more sustainable, secure and resilient UK food system. The event will take place at the KingsGate Conference Centre, and is organised by the British On-Farm Innovation Network and hosted by partners in the NCS Project (Nitrogen Efficient Plants for Climate Smart Arable Cropping Systems). Tickets for the conference are available for purchase via the Eventbrite page.
NCS have outlined a number of the topics that industry leaders will present on:
How faba beans and other UK-grown pulses can reduce the quantity of imported soya needed for livestock feed, while also bringing environmental benefits.
The role of sustainable feed in reducing Scope 3 emissions.
New data from on-farm trials and collaborative projects driving change in the UK and beyond.
The power of cross-sector collaboration in building more transparent and sustainable supply chains.
You can read more and keep up to date with all our latest Events here.
We were absolutely delighted to accept the ‘Low Carbon Leader — Voluntary Sector’ award at the 2025 Cornwall Sustainability Awards on behalf of all our partner organisations — in particular the Rural Business School at Duchy College, with whom we have worked closely for the past five years through the Farm Net Zero project.
Our Farm Advisor Hannah Jones was there on the night in Falmouth to pick up the winning award, recognising not only all of our partners’ work towards Farm Net Zero, but our commitment at FCT to reducing our business footprint.
Together, the Farm Net Zero project partners have supported farmers and growers to turn ambition into real, practical change on the ground. We are proud of our role in this project in helping agricultural and horticultural businesses across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly get on the front foot as they transition to meet the climate and nature challenges ahead.
Bringing together dairy supply chains, researchers and farmer representatives, the conference looked toward the practical realities of reducing on-farm enteric methane (CH₄) emissions – with a lot of the talk around feed additives, good quality silage and the trend towards insetting within the dairy industry.
The science behind reducing enteric methane
With talks from leading researchers such as Dr. Andre Bannink (Senior Scientist on Ruminant Nutrition & Mathematical Modelling at Wageningen Livestock Research), a recurrent focus was the correlation between feed quality and methane reduction. The consensus is that by increasing the organic matter digestibility of the feed, you can tweak the rumen microbiome, which results in less enteric methane being produced.
Silage Quality: Good quality silage is key to reduction – an increased digestibility of silage and forage = reduced methane. Specifically, the “1st cut” of silage is noted for being the highest in omega-3s.
The Power of Fats: Fatty acids and omega-3s significantly affect the rumen microbiome. Research suggests that a 1% increase in fat in dietary dry matter (DM) can lead to a 4–5% reduction in methane.
Feed additives: beyond Bovaer
While there was some discussion regarding NOP-3 (Bovaer), the conversation was heavily dominated by other additives, particularly the role of using linseed/flax or other plant-based feed additives to reduce enteric methane. Danone, for example, is conducting trials to see if a 9% reduction in enteric CH4 can be achieved and integrated into their supply chains. Other research showed evidence of published studies that outlined ~9% reductions. Outlined below are two feed additives that were discussed on the day:
Product Name
Active ingredient
Application
Impact (CH4 reduction)
Notes
Agolin
‘Blend of essential oils’
1g/head/day mixed into mineral feed
Alters rumen microbial activity reducing CH4 by 8.8%
Used in Mooh’s offsetting carbon credit scheme for reducing enteric methane emissions. There may also be other health benefits.
Tradilin
Pressure cooked Linseed
~500g/head/day
Leads to a progressive release of omega-3 in the rumen of dairy cows, mimicking the behaviour of fresh grass. Reduces CH4 by 9%
Other health benefits beyond CH4 reductions include:
• increased milk production (1.5-3 litres more milk per cow per day • -10% ketosis and -3% metritis • -10 days of calving interval • 5 – 11 days earlier first calving for the heifers born from a cow fed Tradilin
Feed additive products that mitigate EM
Rewarding farmers – the financial benefits of insetting vs offsetting
One of the emerging trends at the conference was the dairy industry’s shift toward insetting emissions reductions within the dairy supply chain. However, there was also evidence of carbon credit offsetting schemes that had been set up by dairy supply chains to reward their farmers for undertaking measures to reduce methane. If you’re unsure about the distinction between these two financial avenues, check out our report on the Voluntary Carbon Market and the implications for farmers.
Outlined below are some key takeaways in the comparison between Arla’s insetting-based incentive model and Mooh Coop’s offsetting-based incentive model:
Arla insetting based incentive model
Arla’s sustainability roadmap is heavily based on SBTi targets – where 97% of their emissions are Scope 3
10% of their emissions reduction targets for on-farm mitigation strategies are around feed additives
They have their own Farm Ahead tool to measure carbon footprints and other sustainability measures on farms
They use a points based system across a range of farm metrics (not just carbon) to reward their farmers with payments, utilising 5 big KPIs to rate the farms
Mooh Coop offsetting based incentive model
Farmers who use the Agolin feed additive can monetise their emissions reductions by generating reductions carbon credits
Mooh use the Verra carbon standard methodology for enteric methane reductions, and liaise with South Pole to help help sell the credits
This can be a relatively long process process ~ e.g. 1 year
Mooh anticipates sales, so they pay farmers upfront and get paid back once the credits are sold
Farmers sign an agreement that states they can’t claim to have reduced their carbon emissions and milk that’s sold is not marketed as low carbon to avoid double counting
500 active farms – total of 20,000 cows in scheme
Mooh acknowledged that the dairy industry is going more towards insetting
Data quality and trust in carbon tools
Dr Eleanor Durrant from Cool Farm Tool also did a short talk on the LUNZ project (Land Use for Net Zero), a multi-partner collaboration we’re proud to be part of with Agrecalc and researchers at Cranfield University and the University of Gloucestershire. This project aims to develop and evaluate a scalable, auditable farm and food-level GHG accounting framework for UK land use.
You can read more about our latest improvements to the FCT Calculator and how we are keeping it up to date with the latest science here.
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