Announcing the launch of the 2024 Carbon Farmer of the Year Competition
February of this year sees the launch of the 2024 Farm Carbon Toolkit’s Carbon Farmer of the Year Competition. This competition champions UK farmers who are leading the way in adopting farming practices and developing new technologies which reduce farm emissions whilst optimising output, and adapting to climate change.
After the success of last year’s competition we are delighted to announce that the 2024 competition is now open for entries. Click here to learn more.
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).
Welcome to our January Farm Net Zero update, sharing news for our farmers, growers and the wider community this project supports.
(Image above: Dr Dave Davies from Silage Solutions presenting to Farm Net Zeroat our silage event)
Recent news and events
Oxford Real Farming Conference: January 2024
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
Optimising Silage Production
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
Integrating Livestock and Trees
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
“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
FNZ Agronomists’ Workshop
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
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.
Community engagement
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.
Westcountry Rivers Trust – Beneficial Bugs ID Session
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 zoe@wrt.org.uk.
Current farm field trials
A little insight into some of the fab field trials currently underway as part of the FNZ project:
Targeting pathogens and weeds with compost managementThe first year of the compost field lab has produced some exciting results. Making compost on site can help growers capture carbon, retain nutrients, and reduce the dependence on bought-in fertiliser. But there is always a fear of spreading disease and weeds within the compost. To see if they could safely compost weed seeds and diseased material, one trialist tried burying them in the compost in bait bags. After 12 weeks they found that composting had killed the plant pathogen and turned weed propagules (bindweed and oxalis) to dust. For more information on how the trial was carried out, and other results, have a look at the Innovative Farmers website: Optimised compost management for productivity and soil health (innovativefarmers.org)
Update on Innovative Farmers field lab looking at reducing tillage in maize trialBy testing alternatives to ploughing, farmers are hoping to reduce the harmful impact of maize growing on soil structure, causing less erosion and runoff and reduce costs by using less fossil fuels. Results from the trial are still being processed but our initial thoughts are noted here. There are 3 fields with different systems:
The first set of results comparing strip till with ploughing showed that a strip till system didn’t result in visibly lower yields than a standard plough based system. When the weight of the yields were compared they showed that strip tilled plots had 5% less yield than ploughed strips, but with a significantly lower cost of production with less time and fuel use. There were more weeds present in the strip tilled area despite the same herbicide treatments on all plots. However, this was mainly grass weeds and biennial crops like thistles which were not effectively controlled by the pre drilling glyphosate.
In the second field the comparison was between a strip till, light cultivations and direct drilling. Drilling system and pre drill cultivation did have some effects, with the highest yield being a strip till plot followed by Min-till , and the lowest yield being direct drilled although differences were not large. There was again little to see from what the crop looked like to determine which was better without the weights.
The third set of results are still to be analysed.
Oxford Real Farming Conference, Oxford (various locations)4th-5th January 2024FCT is proud to be presenting at the famous Oxford Real Farming Conference next January. FCT’s Liz Bowles joins the panel for the ‘Capturing Carbon: Joining the Dots Between Policy and Practice’ session at 11am on Friday 5th January. At 2pm, FCT’s Hannah Jones chairs a panel session with farmers Mike Roberts, Andrew Brewer, and Anthony Ellis, asking ‘How can a farm reach net zero?’, along with a 20-minute video that features 5 farmers from the Farm Net Zero project FIND OUT MORE
Rootstock, Westpoint Exeter, Devon14th February 2024Organised by the Devon County Agricultural Association charity and hosted at its headquarters at Westpoint Exeter, Rootstock is a one-day, forward-looking conference for farmers in Southwest England. In its second year, this new conference brings farmers and researchers together to explore how farmers can build sustainable profitable businesses in tune with natural processes. Full details of the 2024 conference will be available shortly, including the topics for discussion and speaker announcements. FIND OUT MORE
You’ll find a full range of relevant events on our website.
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.
Getting in touch
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 event was designed for agronomists to learn about the results of some of the Farm Net Zero (FNZ) trials. Dr. Hannah Jones of the Farm Carbon Toolkit was joined by the farmers who hosted and designed the trials to discuss the findings. This event was made possible with thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund who fund the Farm Net Zero project.
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.
Outwintering on Cover Crops
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.
Maize Establishment
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.
Soil Rejuvenation after Potatoes
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.
Inter-Crops for Cabbages
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
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.
Conclusion
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.
Farm Net Zero was pleased to host Dr. Lindsay Whistance from the Organic Research Centre. Lindsay specialises in animal behaviour and welfare and her talk presented results from a range of research studies on animals in agroforestry systems. This event was made possible with thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund who fund the Farm Net Zero project.
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.
Key takeaways:
Most livestock species benefit from access to trees/woodland.
Incorporating trees into farming systems helps to reduce the 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.
Summary of the Carbon Trust Calculator Review
In October 2023, The Carbon Trust conducted an independent review and gap analysis of the Farm Carbon Calculator against:
The GHG Protocol standard (GHG Protocol);
The WRI Land-Use Change and Removals Draft Guidance (WRI LSRG);
SBTi Forest Land and Agriculture Guidance (SBTi FLAG)
The following aspects of the Farm Carbon Calculator were covered by the review:
User interface
Quality Control procedures
Emissions factors
Calculation methodologies
Approach to land-use change
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 Soil Farmer of the Year 2024 competition is now open for farmers to apply.
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.
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.
Issued by: Emma Adams, emma.adams@farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
Innovation for Agriculture (IfA) is an independent, charitable organisation working to make UK agriculture more sustainable, profitable and resilient. Through interactive workshops, on-farm demonstrations and practical events, IfA aims to provide UK farmers with solutions of real commercial value. Visit: www.i4agri.org
Farm Carbon Toolkit is an independent, farmer-led Community Interest Company, supporting farmers to measure, understand and act on their greenhouse gas emissions, while improving their business resilience for the future.
For over a decade, Farm Carbon Toolkit has delivered a range of practical projects, tools and services that have inspired real action on the ground. Organisations they work with include farmer groups, Duchy of Cornwall, First Milk, Tesco, Yeo Valley and WWF. The Farm Carbon Calculator is a leading on-farm carbon audit tool, used by over 7,000 farmers in the UK and beyond. To find out more visit www.farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk
The competition is being judged by a panel including representatives from IfA and Farm Carbon Toolkit, Cotswold Seeds, Hutchinsons and previous Soil Farmer of the Year winners.
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:
Direct Measurement: soil sampling the peatland soil to understand the carbon content (Soil Organic Matter or Soil Organic Carbon testing) provides a figure of the carbon stock within an area. Carbon stock is the quantity of soil contained within a soil at the time of measurement and is calculated in combination with a Bulk Density sample. To understand if your peatland is sequestering carbon (capturing more, additional carbon) this sampling needs to be repeated to understand whether the figure measured in the first instance is increasing or decreasing. Soil sampling can be conducted annually, but there is often concern around carbon flux so the Farm Carbon Toolkit would usually recommend sampling every 3-5 years. More can be found out about how to sample soil in our free online guide to monitoring soil carbon on the FCT website here.
Modelled Measurement: if however direct measurement is unsuitable or you would like a faster indication of the carbon dynamics of your peatland soil you can use modelled figures embedded within the Farm Carbon Calculator. Using data from the Peatland Carbon Code 2.0 there is the ability to account for peatland areas of the landscape through selecting the type of peat you have and the area (hectares). The calculator will then provide a modelled suggestion of the likely dynamics of the different greenhouse gases associated with the different peat classifications.
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.
Scenario Planning In The Calculator
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.
Report Types
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.
Creating Scenarios
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.
Presets
Firstly, you’ll be able to choose preset scenarios that let you see the effect of changing business parameters. The presets are:
Reducing red diesel usage by 10%
Switching to a 100% renewable energy tariff
Reducing fertiliser usage by 10%
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.
Editing Your Scenario Plan
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.
Comparing And Visualising Scenarios
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.
Comparison Types – ‘Timeline’ And ‘Compare’
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.
Future Development
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 calculator@farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk.
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.
New Benchmarking Explained
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:
Total emissions per hectare (tCO2e/ha)
Total crop yield (tonnes/ha)
Total emissions per tonne crops (tCO2e/tonne)
Total emissions per tonne liveweight sold (tCO2e/tonne)
Total emissions per tonne FPCM (tCO2E/tonne)
Configuring Your Benchmarking Plot
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.
Filtering The Data
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.
Interpreting Benchmarking Data
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.
What’s Included In Your Benchmarking Data?
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.
What’s Next?
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.
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