(Above pictured is Peter’s hill farm in West Yorkshire)
This project led by Dr Peter Gittins and Dr Deema Refai of University of Leeds aims to assist UK farmers in their transition to net-zero agriculture by identifying the barriers and constraints they face, evaluating current progress in measuring carbon emissions, and helping farmers develop strategies for becoming net-zero through entrepreneurial skillsets and business activities. Scroll down to find out how to get involved.
The project will conduct on-farm interviews with upland/hill farmers to discuss barriers in becoming net-zero and views on current and proposed new environmental schemes. The project will also interview stakeholders such as agricultural organizations, local councils, and wildlife and conservation groups.
On-farm interviews with farmers (no longer than an hour):
Cumbria- W/C April 3rd ———— W/C May 22nd onwards till August
Yorkshire- W/C April 10th ——— W/C May 22nd onwards till August
Exmoor- W/C April 17th ———– W/C May 22nd onwards till August
They aim to produce:
A policy brief outlining farmer concerns around adapting to ELMs and becoming net zero
An academic journal article
A podcast/university seminar event- hybrid event you will be invited to
An article summarizing the key findings from the activities published in The Conversation.
Phase two:
They will be hosting a two-day workshop event at Leeds University Farm. Throughout the event, attendees will have the opportunity to hear from a diverse array of academic and industry speakers and participate in planned activities. The theme of the workshop is focused on developing the skillsets of farmers. Topics include:
Developing an Effective Farm Business Strategy
Exploring New Markets and Entrepreneurial Opportunities
Innovation and Technology: Tour of the National Pig Centre
Environmental Sustainability
Marketing Your Farm Business
Policy Session and Discussion: The Future of UK Agriculture – Adapting to ELMs and Net-Zero
Why Take Part?
By taking part in this research project, you can gain valuable insights into how your farming practices impact the environment. You can also contribute to academic research and influence UK policy-making. Furthermore, you will be invited to attend workshops later in the year at the University Farm, where you can learn about topics such as adding value to your farm business, designing an effective business strategy, exploring new markets and entrepreneurial opportunities, future-proofing your farm business, and sustainable farming practices. These workshops will be led by academics and industry speakers, providing a great opportunity for you to expand your knowledge and skills in these areas.
To register your interest, please email Dr Peter Gittins at p.gittins@leeds.ac.uk or call 07480135127.
Finally, if you know of any farmers who might want to get involved in this project who do not have internet access, then please pass on the above contact information and they will personally sign them up.
The UK has made a legally binding commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. This ambitious target will require the rapid decarbonisation of the entire economy. Although agriculture currently accounts for an 11% share of GHG emissions in the UK, the industry is projected to have an increasing share (perhaps as high as 30%) by 2030, as other sectors reduce emissions more quickly. The GFI report notes that there is an urgent need for greater financial support to help farmers achieve this ambitious target over and above the funds likely to be available through the different elements of the Environmental Land Management Scheme.
Of course, it is highly evident that this urgent transition in farming practices cannot happen without government support, and the 2021 report commissioned by Defra (and delivered by the Green Finance Institute) found a £3.7 billion financing gap for sustainable soil management and a £19.4 billion gap for protecting and restoring biodiversity to the end of 2030. With farmland representing 71% of the UK’s land area – and the reality that most of the investment will be required at the land management level – engagement with farmers will be crucial in closing this gap for soils and nature, as will ensuring that farmers are properly supported through the transition.
In this space there has been much talk of the potential for stacking and bundling.
What does stacking involve?
When more than one type of separate credit or unit is issued from the same activity on the same parcel of land this is known as ‘stacking’ – for example if a land manager were to sell both carbon and water quality units from the same woodland (Extracted from Defra’s Nature Market Framework 2023).
What does bundling involve?
When a single credit is sold representing several different environmental benefits (for example a wetland unit delivering carbon, biodiversity and water quality benefits), this is termed ‘bundling’.
While Defra is keen to support greater use of stacking as well as explicit bundling, the devil could well be in the detail with some markets already starting to raise concerns on how this will work in practice. For businesses looking to enter such agreements, it will be imperative to secure robust and water tight agreements prior to commitment.
The GFI’s Financing the Farm Transition report made recommendations for change in four distinct areas to enable more effective financing of this transition. The report clearly recognises the need for more guidance for farmers and landowners on environmental markets, how they work, and key principles that need to be established. Alongside this is improving access and availability of robust data and the identification of the key environmental outcome metrics to monitor and support farmers to work together to deliver the transition. Defra’s Nature Markets Framework goes some way to bridging this information gap.
FCT welcomes the suggestion that the cost of collating and verifying the data collected by farmers to measure their environmental impact could be shared by Government and the private sector. Currently the use of carbon audit tools is relatively low, unless specifically required by individual supply chains.
FCT and Wilder Carbon working in partnership
To support farmers who wish to increase the level of nature-based solutions on their land holdings alongside food production, FCT has teamed up with Wilder Carbon to offer the tools and advice to determine the best integration of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) finance and agriculture for a future land management system that achieves multiple benefits for the public good. The Farm Focused NbS provides an all-encompassing toolkit for land managers to assess, plan, deliver and fund a carbon reduction plan that, crucially, supports habitat restoration as a way of insetting farm business residual carbon footprint within the holding or landscape, as well as accessing the voluntary carbon market (VCM) to leverage carbon finance and deliver the management practice for the long term.
To find out more about this new initiative go to https://www.wildercarbon.com/ or contact Liz.Bowles@farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk
Farm carbon footprinting is in the spotlight again this week, following Defra’s plans to support farmers to carry out farm carbon footprinting from 2024, as well as to help harmonise the methodology for farm emissions calculation engines.
Although there is little detail behind Defra’s announcement, Farm Carbon Toolkit (FCT) very much welcomes the potential for greater financial and technical support for farmers to measure their emissions as a first step to identifying how best to reduce them and increase land sector removal of carbon into soils and on-farm biomass. FCT is already collaborating with other industry stakeholders to harmonise carbon calculation engines, including Dairy UK’s initiative, the Dairy Roadmap for Farm Carbon Accounting, which was announced earlier this month and looks forward to working further with Defra on methodology harmonisation in the coming months.
Supporting farmers to understand their carbon footprint and to adopt farming practices to reduce emissions and store more carbon farmland is critical if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
The IPCC’s latest AR6 Synthesis Report makes this clear. Rapid reduction in emissions is imperative—and yet global emissions are still heading in the opposite direction. The report is not an easy read, with the level of confidence in the negative – and devastating – forecasted impacts of climate change growing with every new IPCC report produced. What is very clear is that the continued extraction and use of fossil fuels is the largest contributor to overall emissions and, hence, global warming. Nevertheless agriculture’s overall contribution as a proportion of total emissions looks set to increase rapidly as we wean ourselves off fossil fuels.
On a more positive note, the IPCC report points to substantial mitigation and adaptation potential from options in agriculture, forestry and other land use that could be upscaled in the near term across most regions.
The IPCC report backs up FCT’s important work in assisting farmers and growers to reduce GHG emissions through adopting farming practices that increase biodiversity within the farming system, keep soil covered, improve soil health, and reduce reliance on artificial fertilisers and imported animal feed protein from areas affected by deforestation, as well as improving systems and business resilience – an important factor when considering the impact of climate change on UK food security. For example, it is now widely accepted that there is significant potential to increase the levels of atmospheric carbon stored in soils (approximately 9 tonnes/ha from increasing soil organic matter by 0.1%).
However, we cannot rely on storing more carbon in soils and biomass without facing up to the imperative of doing all we can to urgently reduce emissions. This means ensuring farmers understand the sources of their GHG emissions on their farms, and that the practical advice on how best to reduce them is readily available, together with the necessary financial support to enable the transition.
Our 2024 Annual Review celebrates 15 years of growth for the Farm Carbon Toolkit, detailing the impact we’ve had over the past 12 months.
Written by Liz Bowles, CEO
I feel very privileged to work with all the brilliant people at Farm Carbon Toolkit and to lead our mission to support a transition to climate and nature-positive food and farming systems in the UK and beyond.
It is very clear that agriculture is starting to feel the necessity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere. As other sectors decarbonise, the proportion of the total emissions attributable to agriculture is rising. This is putting agriculture more firmly in the spotlight and we are becoming involved with significant initiatives to properly understand the impact on GHG emissions of farming practice change and to provide insights for those providing financial incentives for these changes.
This is necessary and valuable work. However, we are clear that land managers have a significant ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere and are the only sector that can do this without recourse to the need for high tech.
Two of my highlights from 2024 have been creating the collaboration between ourselves, Agrecalc and Cool Farm Alliance to work together to harmonise and standardise footprinting methodologies where we can. This is critical to provide maximum confidence in carbon assessment tools for farmers and growers.
My second highlight was to see one of our demonstration farms from the Farm Net Zero Project win our Carbon Farmer of the Year Competition. Andrew and Clare Brewer were worthy winners and exemplified the peer-to-peer approach which we strive to bring to all we do with farmers and growers.
We really hope you enjoy reading it. If you have any questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. Our contact details are on the final page of the review and at the bottom left of all our website pages.
We are pleased to announce the publication of our 2023 Annual review. This document looks back over the year to celebrate our achievements and share how our organisation is supporting the agri food sector to play its best part to deliver a nature friendly decarbonisation.
As a not for profit organisation we are constantly working to improve the ways we function and deliver our services to ensure maximum impact. We recently completed two major projects to upgrade our Calculator, supported by Innovate UK and the Tesco & WWF Sustainability Innovation Fund. These have helped us to align with new industry guidance and to provide greater interoperability with other data platforms, reducing the data inputting onus on farmers. This new functionality has been warmly welcomed by supply chain businesses who are now using our Calculation Engine to support their customers without need for further data entry.
Our 2023 review demonstrates a selection of some of the exciting projects and partnerships we have been working on, and discusses some of the continual developments to our Farm Carbon Calculator and the services we provide to the sector. This is all set within the crucial context of emissions reductions on farms alongside business resilience and improving biodiversity.
We provide evidence on how broadly we engage with the farming community and the extent and effectiveness of our outreach activities.
Every year we publish our own emissions footprint, which we are committed to reducing as quickly and effectively as possible.
We really hope you enjoy reading it, if you have any questions or comments we’d love to hear from you. You can find our contact details on the final page of the review or at the bottom left of all our website pages.
We are pleased to announce the publication of our 2022 Annual review. This document looks back over 2022 to celebrate our achievements and share how our organisation is supporting the agri food sector to play its best part to deliver a nature friendly decarbonisation.
As a not for profit organisation we are constantly working to improve the ways we function and deliver our services to ensure maximum impact. Last year we were awarded UK research funding. This funding is enabling us to upgrade our Calculator to align with all the new industry guidance and to provide greater interoperability with other data platforms, reducing the data inputting onus on farmers.
Our 2022 review demonstrates a selection of some of the exciting projects and partnerships we have been working on, and discusses some of the continual developments to our Farm Carbon Calculator and the services we provide to the sector. This is all set within the crucial context of emissions reductions on farms alongside business resilience.
We provide evidence on how broadly we engage with the farming community and the extent and effectiveness of our outreach activities.
We have also included our own emissions footprint, which we are committed to reducing as quickly and effectively as possible.
We really hope you enjoy reading it, if you have any questions or comments we’d love to hear from you. You can find our contact details on the final page of the review or at the bottom left of all our website pages.
We are really excited to announce that our annual Farm Carbon Toolkit Field Day will, this year, take place on Thursday the 21st September 2023.
We are grateful to Julian Gold and the Hendred Estate for kindly hosting this Annual Field Day at the Hendred Estate, Oxfordshire on the edge of the Berkshire Downs.
Please save the following details:
Date: 21/09/2023
Location: Hendred Estate, Oxfordshire.
The theme to this year’s event is:
Gearing up to achieve Net Zero for UK Agriculture
During the day we will share our insights from the work we are doing supporting farmers to reduce GHG emissions and remove carbon into soils and biomass. This involves key elements of the transition to a nature friendly decarbonisation of agriculture. We will also be learning from the on farm trials which Julian is working on this year, with an opportunity to walk the farm. Our farmer panels during the day will feature such topics as the role of grazing and diverse swards in supporting the transition to net zero on farm.
At this years FCT Field Day, we will be announcing the winners of our Carbon Farmer of the Year competition, launched this year. To find out more about the competition and information on how you can apply head here.
More details:
For more details as the event approaches keep an eye on our website and social media. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!
Welcome to our February Farm Net Zero (FNZ) update, sharing updates for our farmers and the wider community this project supports. We’re very happy to see the associated newsletter is reaching increasing numbers and do hope that with more engagement we can really celebrate and disseminate what our fantastic Farm Net Zero community is showcasing.
New resources
We are pleased to share with you some recent resources that have been produced over the winter as part of the project.
Read about our trial on grazed winter cover crops in this handy pdf factsheet. Key criteria to assess on farm are livestock growth rate, forage yield, and seed costs. This fact sheet focuses on seed selection and cost.
Winter vetch (left) and common vetch (right)
We have also released a factsheet in response to the maize establishment trial at Tregooden Farm. Here, they ran three different trial plots, the first conventionally ploughed, sumoed and drilled, a second one was Sumo trio cultivated only and drilled, and the third was direct drilled -all 3 plots drilled with a Mzuri strip till machine. You can read the factsheet here. You can access all the other FNZ resources on the FNZ resources webpage here.
Recent events
Throughout the winter months the Farm Net Zero partners have run some insightful events:
In October 2022, The Nattle family kindly hosted a group of farmers at their dairy farm in the Tamar Valley to look at the establishment and management of herbal leys. The event discussed the many benefits associated with herbal leys including, but not limited to:
Nitrogen fixation by legumes resulting in reduced (on cutting ground) or no (on grazing ground) need for purchased fertiliser
Drought resilience from the deeper rooting species
Improved soil health through enhanced soil biology, carbon sequestration and structure
Milking cows moving off the herbal ley
To find out more details about the event head here.
In November 2022 Tim Dart of the Devon Wildlife Trust (who is also a Farm Net ZeroMonitor Farmer), Hannah Jones of Farm Carbon Toolkit, James Ruddick from Cornwall Council and Jenny Rogers from Forest for Cornwall discussed issues focussing on how to plan for the future with environmental stewardship. The evening was aimed at supporting farmers to understand the funding opportunities that are available that not only increase economic resilience, but have several other on farm benefits such as increasing shelter for livestock, and preventing soil erosion. Read about it here.
Attendees at the November event
In December 2022,Blable Farm in Wadebridge (one of our demo farms) hosted an event to discuss outwintering livestock on forage/cover crops. To read about the many associated merits head here.
Outwintering livestock grazing at Blable Farm
And on the 3rd of February, members of the FNZ team held a stall at the ‘Imagining a Net Zero Future for Falmouth’ event. Featuring over 15 local environmental organisations, the pavilion transformed into an inspiring space for the Falmouth community to learn more about the small everyday changes they could implement to work towards a Net Zero Future.
Guests approached our team eager to learn more about climate friendly gardening. Hannah Jones’ infectious enthusiasm for the project was demonstrated during her talk on ‘Greenhouse gas emissions counting in our fields, gardens and allotments – what can I do?’, resulting in 3 pledges being made on our new postcards that day!’ You can find out more about the pledge cards below.
Hannah Jones and a stall guest at the event in Falmouth
As ever the demo farms are constantly trialling and developing innovations and planning and running events.
Ennis Barton – Andrew Brewer has received planning for solar and is interested in the sustainability of grazing sheep under the panels, whilst also increasing biodiversity. Discussions are on-going on the continuing trial on soil recovery after potatoes, and data and literature is being reviewed on milk yield, quality variability and herbal leys. Watch this space to find out more!
Blable Farm – The herbal leys trials are ongoing. Mike and Sam Roberts who run the farm are looking into the comparison of weight in cattle on and off diverse cover crops, crucially looking at livestock health as well as soil health. They have several plans for farmer meetings with external groups, these groups include: BGS, NFU Mutual, and a local beef vet group. Additionally, Mike is looking into hosting university lecturer(s), which could bring about some really educational sessions.
Erth Barton – Erth Barton are hosting more ongoing herbal ley trials, alongside their continuing pasture cropping trials. Also, Hannah Jones, from Farm Carbon Toolkit, has given Erth Barton’s project manager, Tim Williams, support for an upcoming soil data talk at Harper Adams (read on to find out more details).
Duchy College Monitor Farms update
We are working with our Monitor Farms to complete their next round of carbon footprints, and comparing them to previous carbon footprints to look at areas that have changed and areas to work on. We are excited to get back out into the fields to collect the 2023 batch of soil samples.
One of our Monitor Farmers, Anthony Ellis, is trialling sheep grazing winter cereals and we have collected baseline soil samples to assess any impact on soil quality. We will continue to work with Anthony through to harvest to compare the grazed and ungrazed cereals and apply carbon footprint figures to the process.
The West Country Rivers Trust have designed some fantastic postcards that will be given to attendees of future climate-friendly gardening workshops. The postcards are aimed at encouraging people to pledge to help reduce the impacts of climate change through refining their gardening and growing skills to a more climate friendly manner. You can join in and download your own pledge postcard here, please do share it afterwards on twitter/instagram!
One of WRT’s pledge postcards
There are six WRT FNZ events planned for the next twelve months, with topics to focus on soil health, water quality and phosphate. There will also be more citizen science to get involved in, and plenty of climate friendly gardening workshops which will focus on the following topics:
know your soil
pond and rain gardens
forest gardens
no dig and green manure
compost tea
These workshops are all planned for April/May (exact dates tbc) and will be kicking off with a Soil Health workshop for Mithian allotment holders, kindly supported by St Agnes Council. This will be closely followed by a public workshop on the 26th April, hosted by the beautiful and productive Real Food Garden near Wadebridge. This workshop will focus on ponds and wetlands, exploring how ponds act as major carbon sinks, mitigate climate change and provide some of the most species rich habitat in the UK.
The compost field lab is well underway, and the group have been busy making compost over the winter. As well as contacting each other on their WhatsApp group, they will be meeting in early March at Prideaux Gardens (one of the trial sites) to discuss the field lab and plan their tasks and protocols for the next few months.
Join us for a second field lab on maize establishment methodsFollowing a successful farmer event in Stoke Climsland a group of farmers have joined with Innovative Farmers to set up a new field lab. This on-farm trial will focus on maize establishment methods, building on the trial carried out by Malcolm and Catherine Barrett at Tregooden farm.
The group will agree on what questions they want to ask in the field lab, and agree how the trial should be designed. It will also be a chance to learn about the Barretts’ own experiences of trialing different maize establishment methods.
What next?
Other FNZ Events:
March 22nd – Bennaman Slurry system methane event at Trenance.
Others with dates TBC:
April – Silage event at Mearfield.
May – Dairy and herbal leys possible to be held at Ennis Barton.
In addition Innovation for Agriculture will have a presence at Catchment Sensitive Farming events and Beef Expo.
Getting in touch
If you have any questions or ideas that would further support the community of farmers that we are working with, please get in touch at info@farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk
All information about the project including upcoming events and resources are available on the Farm Carbon Toolkit website. If there is anything you would like to see featured please let us know.
Farm Carbon Toolkit launches the first competition of its kind at the Low Carbon Agriculture Show this February.
The annual Carbon Farmer of the Year Competition aims to recognise and champion farmers, sector organisations and businesses who are leading the way in adopting farming practices and developing new technologies that are helping to reduce farm emissions while optimising output.
Launched today at the Low Carbon Agriculture Show at NAEC Stoneleigh, this is the only competition of its kind to identify and reward farmers, sector organisations, and businesses that are working hard to manage emissions and carbon storage. The competition will allow stakeholders to frame discussions on carbon emissions and carbon sinks on farms in a very practical way, thereby encouraging maximum engagement with the issues.
The winners of this year’s Carbon Farmer of the Year competition will be announced at the Farm Carbon Toolkit’s annual autumn conference, which is being held at the Hendred Estate, Oxfordshire.
Farm Carbon Toolkit was established to facilitate discussion and information sharing between farmers and other actors, ultimately leading to changes in on-farm practice. With many years of experience of working with farmers, landowners and the wider agricultural community, Farm Carbon Toolkit understands that network creation is of paramount importance.
Together with the wider work of the Farm Carbon Toolkit, the new competition will help to increase levels of carbon literacy among farmers and land managers by bringing them together at a number of dedicated events and workshops to share what they are doing, discuss new innovations in machinery and techniques, as well as learn more about new research and link with related projects.
Adam Twine, Co-Founder and Non-Executive Direct at Farm Carbon Toolkit, says
“The new Carbon Farmer of the Year competition will help to create a network of respected alumni who are not only changing their practices to better manage emissions and carbon storage on farmland, but will help to inspire others through activity, practical demonstrations, and advocacy for changing management practices.”
By showcasing the good practices that are taking place on farms across the UK, the Carbon Farmer of the Year competition will encourage more farmers to appreciate what is possible for their own businesses, specifically around changing practices to reduce emissions, improve soil organic matter levels, water holding capacity, soil life and soil structure, and the many other positive consequences associated with these changes.
Liz Bowles, Chief Executive Officer at Farm Carbon Toolkit says,
“I am delighted to announce the new Carbon Farmer of the Year competition, which will reward those individuals and organisations in the farming sector who are pioneering practices and adopting new technologies to reduce the GHG emissions from agriculture. Our ambition with this competition is to showcase best practices and effective mitigation mechanisms that are realistic and practicable on every farm, and help everyone to increase their carbon literacy.”
For more information about the Carbon Farmer of the Year Competition, and for details on how to apply, visit www.carbonfarmeroftheyear.com
Notes for editors
About the Farm Carbon Toolkit
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 the Duchy of Cornwall, First Milk,Tesco, Yeo Valley and WWF. Their Farm Carbon Calculator is a leading on-farm carbon audit tool, used by over seven thousand farmers in the UK and beyond. To find out more visit www.farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk
We shall have a stand there (stand 413) and we will be offering individual 15 minute sessions to farmers to help you to understand farm carbon footprinting. We can answer any questions you may have, and show you how to get started on your own farm carbon footprint.
When:
The times for the 15 minute consultations at the drop in ‘surgery’ are:
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