Tag: regenerative farming

In the Spotlight: The Incredible Role of Dung Beetles on Livestock Farms

Posted on October 31, 2024 by - News

The inaugural Dung Beetle Conference took place in June 2024 at Yeo Valley Holt Farm in Bristol – a collaboration that puts this tiny beast on the farm vet agenda.

Written by Rob Howe

It would have seemed a far-fetched idea a few years ago, a two-day conference about dung beetles attended by farmers, vets, policymakers and schoolchildren. Yet in June this year, we pulled it off, with huge thanks to Dr Hannah Jones (Farm Carbon Toolkit) and Rob Howe (BCVA, COWS, Vet Sustain), together with event sponsors, First Milk, Yeo Valley, Techion, Micron Agritech and Duggan Veterinary Supplies.

Hannah and Rob share mindsets around regenerative farming topics and how dung beetles should fit into all farmer’s thoughts and practices. Researchers have previously held Dung Fauna conferences, but these have been largely academic. This re-imagining of those events held by Richard Wall, Bryony Sands, Sarah Beynon and others, aimed to focus on biodiverse farming and integrated parasite management (IPM), which has been the focus of Rob’s work both in practice, in research and in his Nuffield Scholarship. 

Conference Write-Up

The conference was opened by Sarah Beynon who spoke passionately about dung beetles and of her seminal work calculating their positive £367m of beneficial financial impact every year to UK cattle farms. Darren Mann, widely considered the gospel on dung beetles, wowed the audience with his own passion and bluntly hilarious style! We then heard of the impact parasiticides have in the environment and the degradation times of dung pats, as well as new research linking their abundance and diversity to soil health parameters from Bryony Sands, video-linked from the USA. 

Organisers found it rewarding to see all the decades of superb work from so many inspiring people, brought together and shared with those that need to know it most – farmers and vets. 

There is an impressive body of work now that led to my own  efforts in proving there is an alternative approach – Integrated  Parasite Management (IPM)

Rob Howe, BCVA, COWS, Vet Sustain

Rob Howe spoke on the importance of IPM, and the vital role of the vet, along with a vision for animal health tied in with this new approach. I then had the privilege of handing over to a wide array of experts in their fields to talk on the individual subjects and strategies that make up IPM, including species diversity, farming biodiverse, breeding for resilience, the role of trees, pasture management, soils and FEC testing. It was a ram-packed day punctuated at lunch by a dung safari led brilliantly by Darren Mann.

The conference also offered an opportunity to see demonstrations of key providers of in-house FEC testing by FECPAK, Micron, and Ovacyte who all attended and sponsored the event 

Day Two started in the mature agroforestry system, and a dung beetle hunt was led by Claire Whittle, with input from many others including Sally-Ann Spence and Lindsay Whistance, whose work on the value of trees for livestock, needs much more airtime.

Over the two days we got to hear from so many great speakers all linking dung beetles to wider biodiversity including birds, a fantastic project on Dartmoor and how equine and small animal vets and owners are grasping the opportunity to have similar positive impact in their respective fields.

 The responsible use of parasiticides  

The conference ended with a workshop supported by BCVA, COWS and Vet Sustain. The workshop opened with a short “scene setting” presentation from the VMD with an overview of the current regulatory framework for veterinary medicines in the UK. The discussion groups focused on the issues around responsible prescribing and parasiticide use and identifying workable solutions and associated actions to drive much-needed positive change to promote the responsible use of parasiticides.

BCVA has been working hard behind the scenes for some years to influence progressive policy change in this area. BCVA’s policy on parasite control was launched by Sally Wilson in 2021, following Rob Howe’s IPM workshop and introduction to the power of dung beetles at Congress. BCVA has since been involved in wider collaborative discussions with the VMD and additional stakeholder organisations and recently worked with BVA on parallel activities to make progress on this important subject.

Key asks, actions & outcomes from the workshop

Farmers, farm advisors and farm vets all fed back in the workshops, offering a range of ideas, with the following common themes:  

Education 

  • To promote IPM as a more sustainable way to approach the use of parasiticides, all groups cited novel education and training as essential – specifically, for practising vets but also in vet schools and agricultural colleges.  
  • A strong desire for everyone to get on board with a “new narrative” on display at the conference, reaching beyond IPM, producing food good for humans, the planet and of course animals.  
  • Peer-to-peer learning opportunities were valued highly by everyone when it came to shifting farming practices, with many on display at the conference.

Funding 

  • It was highlighted that opportunities for IPM to be funded within the SFI-type schemes, as it is in the arable sector, would be beneficial.  
  • A general fund for (farms’) innovative ideas rather than prescriptive lists. Excellent examples might be EID/  Handling/Weighing facilities for DLWG and helping IPM &  targeted selective treatments.  
  • A cross-industry fund created to facilitate the rollout of IPM; training and tools for delivery and recording.  

Monitoring 

  • Collecting baseline figures on top-level use for the livestock sector would enable monitoring of progress, similar to those seen with antibiotics. The VMD were present, and we hope in time will help deliver this.  
  • The same applies to the farm level where benchmarking could help drive change. This may be more likely to come from the industry itself.

Policy & Governance 

  • Advertising of parasiticides should not be targeted at end users (across spp)  
  • POM-V status could ensure this, but so could a legal change in advertising rules for parasiticides.  
  • IPM should come into landscape recovery, and eventually as standard everywhere  
  • A desire for support for vaccines such as louping ill to be available and others developed  
  • More robust environmental assessments (small animals particularly) and enforcements of product advisory wording across species. 

Communication 

  • The need for improved communication between the entire farm team and advisors  
  • Improved communication between vets and SQPs would be ideal. An app to facilitate IPM may be able to help achieve this. 

Landscape approaches 

  • Commons health plans and or landscape health plans (look outside the farm gate). 

Industry support, facilitation & incentives 

  • Milk buyers are already involved in a positive way. Great examples here at the conference with First Milk and Yeo Valley sponsoring and encouraging positive changes.  
  • Others including M&S support farms to look at parasite control through an IPM lens and Muller leading the way in starting to measure usage. 

Timeline for Change 

  • Sentiment for action was positive, with 5 years set as a target, since this movement is already happening as evidenced at the conference, and people are aware, so major change could happen quite quickly.  

Get in touch and join the movement

The conference concluded with a commitment to work across the sector to progress these key actions. We would like to hear from anyone keen to help achieve these aims and or be involved in the next one. Please contact Rob_ Howe@BCVA.co.uk or info@dungbeetletrust.co.uk.

Conference Acknowledgements

This conference built on a brilliant legacy of research, and brought together farmers, vets, soil experts, entomologists, researchers, industry and public, to celebrate the great work that is going on, but also to shape future policy and regulation. In the interest of brevity, it hasn’t been possible to acknowledge every speaker, contributor or supporter of this event, but the organisers would like to thank everyone who helped make this happen and also show appreciation to all those who have worked for some time in this important area to advance our profession’s understanding. And finally, a huge thank you to all the event sponsors – Yeo Valley, First Milk, Techion, Micron Agritech and Duggan Veterinary Supplies – without whom we could not have made this day happen.

Conference Reflections from a Vet
Andy Adler – Farm Carbon Toolkit – Vet Perspectives

As a vet who has been out of clinical work for a while, I turned up to the Dung Beetle Conference 2024 due to my role in one of the sponsoring companies, Farm Carbon Toolkit. I had been aware of dung beetles and integrated parasite management (IPM), but I had little knowledge and no experience discussing IPM with farmers.

I found a place with positive energy and a diversity of farmers, vets, and industry professionals united in the need to identify how to support ecology in farming while supporting food production. The mix of sponsors from First Milk, Yeo Valley and Farm Carbon Toolkit meant that the industry was well represented and led the conversation on how to get to a farming system with a positive impact on the environment and nature.

Shifting baselines (Masashi Soga, 2018) come to mind for me. Farmers there described how dung pats would disappear within 24 hours as multiple species of dung beetles eat, bury and process the dung. I still find this expectation ‘unbelievable’; however, I accept that this is due to my shifted baseline of expectation. I also realised that as vets, we must deal with the conflict of interest between animal needs and the owner’s ability. Now, we have to deal with disputes between animal needs, nature needs and the owner’s ability to understand how best they can balance off competing demands.

I left after two days of interactive talks and an exploratory field safari, identifying dung beetles and understanding their abundance within healthy pats. My mind was opened. I now look in cow pats and understand how few beetles are on some farms.

The following questions (and more!) have sat with me since.

– How can we understand our shifted baseline and rebalance it?
– How do vets deal with an additional conflict of interest?
– Can IPM become a veterinary campaign similar to the Mastitis Plan or Health Feet Program?

I would highly recommend that farm vets think about dung beetles and their moral and ethical responsibilities towards the environment, animal welfare, and owners’ needs.

Further reading

Read our blog: What are Dung Beetles?

Groundswell reflections: how close can agriculture get to being carbon positive?

Posted on July 18, 2024 by - Insights, News

Groundswell

by Liz Bowles, CEO

Groundswell this year was as exciting as ever, with so many excellent sessions and people to catch up with and meet for the first time. 

There was much interest in how farmers and growers can benefit from the new markets for carbon, biodiversity net gain and nutrient neutrality to name but three, but to my mind, there was far less attention on how the sector can actually reduce the emissions associated with producing food itself.

For me, this is critical as we have to find a way to reduce the greenhouse gases we push into our atmosphere, as well as removing some of the historical emissions already there, if we are to reduce the worst impacts of climate change.

There is, however, a central question for our food system which is: What level of emissions are inevitable from the production of food which is essential for humanity? The Climate Change Committee has come up with a view on this in their 2020 UK agricultural policy for net zero report, which suggests a road map for saving 64% in the annual emissions from agriculture compared to 2017 levels when UK agriculture was responsible for around 58 MtCO2e (12% of total UK  emissions). On closer inspection of the figures though, the actual savings in emissions from agriculture are set at around 21 MtCO2e / year, with the remaining savings to come from forestry, changes to our diet and the production of energy crops instead of food.

This is set out below:

The specific actions suggested for each of these areas are set out below:

  • Tree planting on 30,000 hectares per year
  • Use 10% of UK farmland  for agroforestry (no distinction made between agroforestry and hedgerows)
  • Restore at least 55% of peatland area by 2050. (For lowland peat lands this means rewetting or paludiculture to reduce emissions and for uplands this means rewetting).
  • Increases in low-carbon farming practices for soils and livestock (no detail provided)
  • Increase the area of farmland devoted to energy crops to 23,000 ha per year

From this list, the low carbon farming practices interest me in terms of how their adoption will enable an annual reduction of 10MtCO2e per year to occur (~25% of 2022 UK agricultural emissions). At Farm Carbon Toolkit we work directly with farmers and growers to adopt these practices and changes to current management processes. Typically the areas to focus on include:

  • Planting cover crops
  • Changing crop rotation
  • Transitioning to no/min till where possible
  • Growing new crops
  • Integrated pest management
  • Adopting rotational grazing
  • Planting herbal leys

Across all these practices, there should be a focus on reducing the use of artificial nitrogen fertilisers and purchased livestock feed (especially those including imported ingredients) as both these inputs carry a high level of associated emissions.

Many of these practices can also be considered to be part of the suite of “regenerative farming principles”. Adoption of more regenerative farming practices is growing steadily, but for many farmers, the key question surrounds the financial viability of their adoption when margins are so tight. A recent report commissioned by the Farming for Carbon and Nature Group and funded by the Natural England Environment Investment Readiness Fund (NEIRF) sets out the financial and climate impact of adoption of more regenerative farming practices and systems and includes partial budget information on the financial impact of adoption in England with support from SFI where relevant.

Regenerative farming practices and their financial viability, including external support available in England, where available

This chart clearly shows that with the inclusion of SFI support, many of the practices generally considered to be regenerative are likely to deliver a similar margin than more conventional practices in these areas. The area where more support is needed is in the adoption of more complex arable rotations including pulses and fertility building leys, where even with appropriate SFI payments, the margins from shorter more degenerative rotations are likely to be more profitable. We are a member of the Nitrogen Climate Smart Consortium which is supporting the increased production of pulses and legumes in the UK together with their use as animal feeds to address the need to reduce the use of artificial fertilisers and imported animal feedstuffs. This project will support farmers to do this through farmer field trials as well as the introduction of new technology for on-farm pulses processing.  You can find out more about this project and get involved by following this link.

In summary, I am fairly confident that UK agriculture can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 10% through the adoption of low-carbon farming practices. Indeed through some of the practical work with farmers in which FCT is involved, we are seeing higher levels of emission reductions being achieved within businesses with little or no change in farm output and in many cases increased profitability and business resilience. The element which is mostly missing is the confidence and knowledge to make the necessary changes and knowing where to start.

At FCT we provide a (free for farmers and growers) Farm Carbon Calculator to allow businesses to understand their starting point, a set of tools within our Toolkit to assist businesses to make those chances and a team of expert advisors to talk to.

You can always make contact with us by email info@farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk or by calling us on 07541 453413. We look forward to hearing from you.

Can Milk be Green?

Posted on July 19, 2024 by - Insights, News

Reflections from Groundswell Dairy Session 2024

Written by Becky Willson

Groundswell 2024 Dairy Session – a great turnout!

Dairy is often in the spotlight in terms of its environmental impact. Whether it be focussed on slurry management, methane emissions from animals, or soil loss and run off from maize crops, dairy is often an easy target. However, there are numerous farmers and projects who are showcasing that this doesn’t need to be the case, and there are positive steps that can be taken. 

When approaching Groundswell this year, it was one of the things that we wanted to highlight. We are very lucky to work with some really forward-thinking organisations and farmers that we wanted to highlight at this national event. So we submitted our session “Can Milk be green?” to try and understand some key questions. 

These were:

  • How do we quantify the importance of regenerative dairy systems when the current metrics are solely focused on reducing emissions intensity/litre?​
  • How do we accurately represent the contribution that regenerative dairy systems are providing to carbon sequestration, biodiversity and resilient landscapes?​
  • How do we do this in a cost-effective way which provides reassurance to processors and consumers that milk can be green? ​
  • How do we support farmers in that transition?​

We had a fantastic panel of speakers which included farmers who were making changes and processors who were supporting both data collection, evidence building and industry communication. 

Tom White from Yeo Valley introduced the session and highlighted the ability for grass-based dairy systems to deliver on a wide range of environmental benefits. The key areas of importance were around how we gather good data, collaborate and support our farmers to be able to deliver the changes on-farm. Tom focussed on the importance of diversity, including diversity in our pastures, rotations and management systems to deliver on a range of environmental impacts. 

Andrew Brewer from Ennis Barton farm in Cornwall provided some insights into the trials that he has been involved with on his farm as part of the Farm Net Zero project. Trialling herbal leys and their impact on cow health and rumination, soil recovery after potatoes and cover crops have all provided useful tools to build soil heath and reduce emissions.

Will Mayor from Yeo Valley farms spoke about how by using their experiences with the beef animals they have adapted a system that works for their dairy cows. Implementing next-level grazing has allowed them to increase covers, remove the topper from the system and maintain milk quality and pasture utilisation, alongside soil health and carbon sequestration.

Lucy Noad from Woodhouse Farms shared her story in terms of her transition from a more conventional dairy farm over the last few years. Lucy spoke about the need to support farmers in the transition and also to ensure that the way we communicate engages farmers to understand the relevance of practical solutions for them. 

Mark Brooking from First Milk concluded the session highlighting some of the ways that First Milk are supporting their farmers to make the transition to more regenerative practices. Farmers are supported through incentives to implement rotational grazing, species diversity and minimal cultivation in order to demonstrate an uplift in soil health, sequestration, biodiversity and water quality. Data is being collected on the impact of these changes to provide confidence in the potential for their members to deliver solutions.

It was an inspiring session which provided real life examples that show the positive steps that are taking place to provide data, collaborate and support farmers. Although our soil project with Yeo Valley is in the interim years before we retest soils, it was great to hear some of the practices taking place and the production and resilience benefits that the farmers are seeing now irrespective of soil carbon sequestration.

So can milk be green? The answer was a resounding yes!

To watch the full session please visit the Groundswell YouTube channel.

Financial and climate impact of regenerative farming practices

Posted on May 2, 2024 by - Insights, News

Recently, we completed a piece of work with SOS-UK that presented the financial and climate impacts of different regenerative farming practices, based on the best available evidence we could gather that relates to the UK. The full report is available here and over a series of three articles, we’ve outlined the need for more of this work, the current evidence on the impacts of regenerative farming practices – and in this final article – we share our overall conclusions from this work.

What did we find out?

Overall, from the financial partial budgeting we carried out, we found a potential for margins to be maintained if not improved, from the adoption of some of the regenerative farming practices we looked at. Mainly though, only if SFI payments are included where they could be available.

Table 1: Regenerative farming practices and their financial viability, including external support where available
Table 1: Regenerative farming practices and their financial viability, including external support where available (organic maintenance payments not included). Source: Farm Carbon Toolkit (2024), Understanding the financial and climate impacts of regenerative farming practices. Report available here.

Typically, the adoption of more regenerative farming practices can result in lower yields, lower livestock stocking rates and lower output (without external support), especially where land is turned over to fertility building leys and reliance on artificial fertilisers is removed. Many studies in recent years have evidenced this, including the National Food Strategy. The extent of the challenge is unclear and from our assessment of the research; the current evidence base for any estimate on this is poor.

However, reducing input use can reduce business risk (vulnerability to input costs changes reduced with lower use). As more farmers learn how to implement more regenerative farming practices effectively the risk of reduced output will drop.

Confirming what is often cited anecdotally, there is also evidence that a transition period is required to allow soil and ecosystem health to improve so that it can function effectively with reduced or no chemical inputs. Depending upon the starting point, this can be up to five years, which highlights the need for support to bridge the financial gap, alongside other support for farmers as they acquire a new range of skills and knowledge. In England, the introduction of the Environmental Land Management Scheme provides financial support for the introduction of some key regenerative farming practices, such as growing cover crops and herbal leys. However, for more holistic changes to farming systems, such as moving to longer and more complex rotations including grass leys, it is less evident that the current financial support will facilitate this transition unless the farm has a profitable use for the grass and the individual crop gross margins are not compromised significantly.

There is also a cultural and social aspect to the acceptability of a transition to more regenerative farming systems which should not be underestimated. For instance, a more regenerative farm is often considered to be less “tidy”. Acceptability is increasing, especially where farmer networks exist to reinforce decision-making in favour of more regenerative farming practices. 

Practices which reduce greenhouse gas emissions

In the previous article, we introduced some of the broad sustainability impacts of different regenerative farming practices. Specifically on greenhouse gas emissions, many of the recommended ways to reduce farm greenhouse gas emissions are part of the suite of more regenerative farming practices, e.g.

  • Reducing the use of cultivations
  • Reducing reliance on artificial fertiliser (which can only be achieved when other more regenerative farming practices are in place which support enhanced soil health and fertility)
  • Changing feed sources for livestock away from reliance on imported protein sources such as soya- this is easier for ruminants than for young monogastrics
  • Maximising use of forage for livestock feeding

Adopting these practices generally reduces the emissions per hectare, due to various factors such as reduced synthetic fertiliser and fuel use, improved soil health and more efficient use of resources. However, lower yields and lower livestock stocking rates are a trade-off and this will ultimately impact the carbon footprint of the end product unless any associated increases in soil carbon removal are factored in. 

Typical, more regenerative farming practices include replacing fertiliser with legumes within cropping rotations and grassland; reducing cultivations for crop establishment; growing herbal leys; challenging received wisdom on the level of artificial fertilisers required by crops1 and the requirement for the use of insecticides. For livestock farmers, typical regenerative farming practices being adopted include reducing the use of supplementary feeds and keeping livestock grazing longer into the autumn, alongside practices to improve soil health and structure.

Financial viability of more regenerative farming practices

In our recent work with SOS-UK, we created partial budgets for the majority of the regenerative farming practices across a range of typical farm types: dairy, arable, mixed (non-dairy livestock and arable), lowland livestock and upland livestock.

In all budgets, costs were calculated on an annual basis. Input and sale values reflect prices in 2023 and are drawn from reliable industry sources. For future years the actual impact will be affected by changing prices and costs.

Whilst we are finding out more every year about the impact of many regenerative farming practices, which is helping to fill the information void, machinery manufacturers are also coming to market with improved equipment to enable some of the machinery linked regenerative farming practices such as reduced cultivation and intercropping/ companion cropping. These innovations are both reducing the cost (in some cases) for practice implementation and also improving the effectiveness of the practice itself.

A number of key issues surfaced which have a significant bearing on the introduction of these practices:

  1. Capital investment required: This is particularly relevant where specialist machinery and/or equipment is required. For instance, adopting minimum cultivations, intercropping and holistic grazing. For reduced cultivations, the need for more specialist drills is sometimes balanced by the ability to reduce the overall machinery inventory. In addition, Defra has made a capital grant available for some innovative items of machinery and equipment through the Countryside Productivity Scheme in the past, which reduces the initial capital required to adopt these practices. Other mechanisms to support access to appropriate machinery and equipment might be through machinery rings or syndicates or through third parties such as landlords underwriting the capital costs for these investments, or use of contractors.
  2. New technical skills required: It is clear that some practitioners have acquired the necessary skills to adopt regenerative farming practices with little or no yield penalty, which increases the financial viability of their adoption. As these skills become more common the adoption of these practices should increase. However, supporting a wider understanding of the skills and techniques required will accelerate adoption alongside an inherently better understanding of their financial viability.
  3. Linkage of the value of regenerative farming practices to the price of farm resources and inputs: Many of the regenerative farming practices described in our report involved a reduction in farming intensity. However, this can be difficult to implement when the cost of the key resources required (especially land) is high. There is no easy answer for this challenge, but many farmers will cite their need to finance their ongoing business to their adoption of more intensive farming practices, although external support for more sustainable farming is bridging this gap for some practices.

With support from SFI (in England), over 50% of the practices we budgeted show a neutral or positive financial impact, which is largely due to this support. The full report includes partial budgets for each practice together with the assumptions used to arrive at the budget outcome shown. It is intended that these budgets can be adapted to fit individual farm circumstances to enable farmers and growers to better estimate the impact of adoption on their holdings.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are aimed at researchers, the Government and the industry itself:

  1. More research is required to provide clearer evidence of the impact of the adoption of regenerative farming practices on yield and output as this is seen as a key barrier to adoption by many farmers
  2. Increased support for farmers to build the confidence, skills and knowledge required for effective adoption of regenerative farming practices 
  3. Institutional Landlords provide transition support to tenants undertaking a whole farm approach to the adoption of regenerative farming systems, especially where more complex and longer arable rotations are a central theme of the transition
  4. Support the development of Machinery Rings or Syndicates to facilitate access to the type of equipment required to facilitate the transition to more regenerative farming systems

Footnotes

  1. It has been estimated that £397 million of artificial fertiliser is wasted each year in the UK due to over-application. AHDB Research suggests UK farmers could potentially reduce up to 50% of the nitrogen fertilisers on specific crops without seeing a significant reduction in yield.

The Impact of Regenerative Farming Practices: What Does the Evidence Say?

Posted on May 2, 2024 by - Insights, News

In the first of this series of three articles, we discussed the need to better understand the financial and climate impacts of regenerative farming practices. In this article, we summarise our recent work with SOS-UK (report available here), to contribute to this understanding. This article focuses on the practices themselves and the state-of-the-art regarding what we know about their impacts on farms.

What practices are we talking about?

We started with a focus on the five commonly cited principles of regenerative farming practice:

  • Minimise soil disturbance
  • Keep soil covered
  • Maintain living roots in the soil as much as possible
  • Maximise plant diversity
  • Integrate livestock

Then we assembled a list of typical farming practices which can support these principles, supporting a more regenerative farming system. In practice, we are clear that where these practices are adopted together, the impact will be greater.

  • Reduced tillage 
  • Introduction of Silvopasture
  • Enhanced hedge management
  • Introduction of herbal leys 
  • Replacement of monoculture ryegrass swards with grass/ clover swards
  • Holistic grazing
  • Maximisation of forage in dairy cow diets
  • Improved use of manures and composts
  • Introduction of cover cropping
  • Introduction of longer crop rotations
  • Retention  and incorporation of  crop residues
  • Introduction of Agroforestry
  • Intercropping/ companion cropping
  • Use of living mulches
  • Winter grazing of cereals

What’s the evidence for their impacts?

We assessed a range of evidence for the sustainability and financial impacts of the farming practices described above. Of the various papers and reports we assessed, we highlight two reports in this article, which we felt were helpful in bringing together evidence on sustainability impacts. First, the recently published paper by Maskell et al. 2023, Functional Agro Biodiversity: An Evaluation of Current Approaches and Outcomes. This paper contains some of the most up-to-date analysis of the state of the art and contains two key tables which are reproduced here. The first table assesses the strength of the evidence for the impact of key practices which are considered to support enhanced Functional Agro Biodiversity (FAB). This list shows that the strongest evidence for the impact of these practices is on soil health (>60% of practices have strong evidence for impact). By contrast, less than 20% of practices have any evidence of impact on crop yield. For water quality, biodiversity and control of pests and weeds more than 50% of the practices listed have strong evidence of impact.

Table 1: Strength of evidence for the impact of practices designed to improve functional agro-biodiversity (FAB). Source: Maskell et al. 2023.
Table 1: Strength of evidence for the impact of practices designed to improve functional agro-biodiversity (FAB). Source: Maskell et al. 2023.

The second table brings together findings from a wide range of research in recent years to identify the contributions of these farming practices to ecosystem service provision and farm management. Again, what stands out is the low level of reporting of any improvements in crop yield from adopting these practices. In general, the reverse has been found more commonly. Similarly, conflicting findings on the impact of these practices on GHG emissions are present. However, there is a clear consensus for the positive impact of the vast majority of the practices listed on pollination, biodiversity, soil and water quality, alongside flood regulation. In fact, all the elements of ecosystem service provision are enhanced through the adoption of these practices.

Table 2. Selected FAB measures and their contribution to ecosystem service provision and farm management.
Table 2. Selected FAB measures and their contribution to ecosystem service provision and farm management. GHG = GHG emissions. Source: Maskell et al. 2023.
Table notes: GHG= GHG emissions, SOC= Soil Organic carbon, ↓=Decrease; ↔= no significant effect, ↑= Increase. The cells have been shaded green (positive effect on ES), red (negative effect on ES), orange (mixed). Presence of multiple arrows indicates good evidence for different effects, often depending on specific context.

As a follow-up to the likely impact of these practices on soil carbon sequestration, we carried out desk research to identify the likely range in potential for some of these practices. We reviewed a report produced in January 2022, led by the Green Alliance for the Oxford Farming Conference, which reviewed the evidence for soil carbon removals and reduction in emissions following the adoption of some  “more regenerative farming” practices and land management changes. The authors reported a relative scarcity of robust data for the impacts on soil carbon stocks arising from a shortened range of farming practices. In addition, a large range of results was found from some practices (see Table 3), which makes it difficult to assign any specific level of carbon removal or reduction in emissions without measurement.

PracticeLand efficiency
tCo2e/ha/yr		Source of dataTotal UK potential
MtCo2e/yr		Assumptions
Paludiculture19.0 – 39.0*C Evans et al, 20172.0 – 4.1*25% of lowland peat drained for agriculture becomes paludiculture to meet CCC targets
Halving drainage depths for arable on peat12.7 – 18.9*C Evans et al, 20215.3 – 7.9*Drainage depth halved on all drained lowland peat
Agroforestry4.4 – 10.0(mainly tropical data so likely a lower range in the UK)D Kim et al, 20161.8 – 4.2Adoption at 416,700 hectares, A Thomson et al, 2018
Hedgerows3.1 – 7.3S Drexler et al, 20210.5 – 1.2Adoption at 168,200 hectares, A Thomson et al, 2018
Organic matter incorporation from residues or amendments-0.9 – 2.3 depending on clay content in soilC Poeplau et al, 2015-1.1 – 2.8Mid – range rate, adoption at a third of arable area
No till system as part of conservation agriculture0.3 – 0.6S Jayarama et al, 20210.4 – 0.7Mid – range rate, adoption at a third of arable area
Table 3: On-farm measures and their carbon sequestration land use efficiency. Source: Green Alliance (2022). The opportunities of agri-carbon markets. Available online.

Agroforestry and hedgerows are the best on-farm measures for carbon sequestration but will need management of woody biomass to sustain sequestration as the trees and hedges reach maturity. While soil carbon measures have low potential per hectare, and appear to be limited in terms of the length of sequestration possible, they have perhaps the highest potential for adoption whilst also keeping land in food production. 

In the next article, we focus on what we found out: which regenerative farming practices have the most potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions together with the financial impact of their adoption.  You can also read the previous article on this topic here.

The Need to Understand the Financial and Climate Impacts of Regenerative Farming

Posted on May 2, 2024 by - Insights, News

It’s often cited that there’s limited, robust evidence for the financial and climate impacts of adopting more regenerative farming practices. This article explains our recent work to explore the evidence base and conduct financial analysis on regenerative farming practices.

Context

The UK market for ecosystem services, including carbon offsetting, has been developing rapidly over recent years in response to the growing urgency of the climate crisis and rapid loss of biodiversity1. With 70% of the land mass in the UK under agricultural production2, farmland managers are being encouraged and incentivised towards more nature-friendly farming practices. As such, new revenue streams are opening up, from public and private sectors, which are looking to meet statutory or voluntary greenhouse gas emissions and nature restoration outcomes3. 

Yet, it is still often cited that there is limited, robust evidence for the financial impact of adopting more regenerative farming practices. This uncertainty poses a significant obstacle to more widespread adoption4. Alongside the lack of robust evidence around the financial impacts of many regenerative farming practices, there is also often a knowledge gap which affects the effectiveness of practice adoption. This gap is being addressed as practitioners learn more, share their experiences, alongside greater research that’s happening on how best to implement these practices. It is certainly true that research into the impact of these practices in the UK is in its infancy, with farmers often leading the way in investigating their impact in the field.  

What we did

To respond to this challenge, SOS-UK commissioned the Farm Carbon Toolkit, using funding from NEIRF, to conduct financial modelling on the costs or benefits to farm businesses of adopting a range of regenerative farming practices. This work supports SOS-UK’s Farming for Carbon and Nature Project, providing a better evidence base to explore ‘carbon insetting’ opportunities for university and college farmland across the UK. Carbon insetting describes the approach when actors within a value chain collaborate to reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions, and may involve interventions in the financial relationship or transactions between those actors. 

This work builds on previous work that’s explored the financial implications of shifting to regenerative or agroecological farming (such as the Cumulus report for the Soil Association5) in two key ways. First, it gives granular data on specific regenerative farming practices, whereas previous modelling work was based on farm-level or food-systems level outcomes. Secondly, it incorporates payment rates for the recently confirmed Sustainable Farming Incentive in England (January 2024 rates). 

FCT approached this task through:

  • Evaluating the most up-to-date and comprehensive research into the carbon, climate and financial impact of the adoption of an agreed suite of farming practices considered as “regenerative”. 
  • Developing farm models for three key farming systems – dairy, arable and lowland beef and sheep farms based on data within the Farm Carbon Calculator database which enabled us to identify the impact on farm greenhouse gas emissions from adopting more regenerative farming practices and systems.
  • Developing partial budgets for the adoption of key regenerative farming practices using information from key industry sources and innovators in this space.

For the first time, we have been able to bring in real-world data from the Farm Carbon Calculator to demonstrate the impact of practice change on-farm GHG emissions. 

Click here to read the report in full

In the next two articles on this topic, we explore:

Footnotes

  1. IPCC (2022). Factsheet – biodiversity. Sixth Assessment Report: Working Group II – Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
  2. Office for Statistics Regulation (2024). Agricultural Land Use in United Kingdom at 1 June 2023 [website].
  3. Green Finance Institute (2024), Farming Toolkit For Assessing Nature Market Opportunities [website].
  4. Magistrali, Amelie at el. (2022) Project Report No. PR640-09 Identifying and implementing regenerative agriculture practices in challenging environments: experiences of farmers in the north of England. AHDB.
  5. Cumulus (2002). The Economics of a Transition to Agroecological Farm Businesses: Report for the Soil Association.

Lessons Learnt at Erth Barton

Posted on December 14, 2023 by - Farm Net Zero

Wednesday 18th October 2023

Tim Williams has now completed three years of a contract farming agreement with Antony Estates, working to convert Erth Barton into a regenerative farming system, rebuilding soil fertility. This event was a chance to hear about some of the successes and challenges encountered during the transition. This event was made possible with thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund who fund the Farm Net Zero project.

Tim took on the 300-acre (121 hectare) farm in two halves, arriving with very little kit and limited funds for inputs. This has meant he has built a simple, zero-input system focusing on restoring and feeding the soil microbiology in order to provide fertility.

A very diverse cover crop/herbal ley was drilled to increase rooting depth and diversity and then grazed with beef cattle (averaging 0.8 Livestock Units per hectare) with the aim to eat a third, trample a third and leave a third. Tim has learnt that it is best to focus on managing grass to build up a reserve rather than eating into it. Frequent moves leave grass to regrow, meaning there is always grass ahead of the livestock throughout the rotation.

Another method Tim has trialled to improve soil microbiology has been applications of compost created using a system called “complete microbial composting” developed by the Land Gardeners. This involves mixing brown (cattle dung, soil, straw) and green (fresh cut plants) material from around the farm in long windrows and turning. Three methods of application were trialled – direct spreading, compost tea brewing and “biopriming” (mixing compost with the seed prior to drilling). Tim felt that the biopriming technique has the potential to be the most successful. However, soil microbial testing conducted by the University of Exeter showed no difference so far between areas with and without compost application.

Tim has also experimented with pasture cropping alongside WildFarmed, this involved using a Moore Unidrill to direct drill a heritage wheat blend into a hard-grazed herbal ley. The aim was for the existing ley to provide ground cover and nitrogen-fixation. Tim described the first attempt at pasture cropping as a “disaster”, with chicory swamping the wheat and making harvest impossible. A second attempt meant tweaking the herbal ley mix to make it less competitive, grazing tight, sub-soiling and spring tine harrowing for seed/soil contact and then direct drilling. This appeared to have good establishment up until May, at which point Tim noticed that about two-thirds of the crop was Westerwolds grass. Again, harvest was abandoned and the field grazed instead to utilise the crop and keep organic matter in the field. In future, Tim plans on removing grass from the mix and replacing with a species that has more winter-kill such as sunflowers/millet/sorghum.

As Tim’s time at Erth Barton draws to a close, we would like to thank him for his work on Farm Net Zero and wish him all the best for his future endeavours.

Key takeaways:

  • Bringing pasture and livestock back onto the farm has helped to improve soil quality.
  • Fertility extraction should be balanced with fertility building. This can be done as part of a rotation.
  • Even when experiments do not go the way we first thought, we can still learn valuable lessons from them.

Press release: 2024 Carbon Farmer of the Year Winner Announced!

Posted on October 3, 2024 by - News

The winner and runners-up of the 2024 Carbon Farmer of the Year competition were announced at the Farm Carbon Toolkit’s Annual Field Day in Herefordshire.


Now in its second year, the annual Carbon Farmer of the Year competition is organised by the Farm Carbon Toolkit and generously sponsored by HSBC Agriculture UK. The competition aims to find farmers and growers who are engaged with–and passionate about–reducing their business’s climate impact through changing management practices to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

2024 Carbon Farmer of the Year Overall winner:

  • Andrew Brewer of Ennis Barton, Fraddon, Cornwall (Dairy farmer supplying Arla UK)

2024 Carbon Farmer of the Year Runners-up:

  • Jason Mitchell, Gary Logue, and Adam Moore of Greenville Dairies Ltd, Newton Stewart, Northern Ireland (Dairy farmer supplying Lakeland Dairies)
  • Tom Burge of Oaremead Farm, Lynton, Devon (Upland beef and sheep farmer)

Competition judges, Steve Dunkley (HSBC UK), David Cope (Head of Sustainability at Duchy of Cornwall), and Liz Bowles (CEO Farm Carbon Toolkit) were very impressed with the commitment and innovation shown by all the finalists in identifying sources of GHG emissions on their farms and developing strategies to both reduce emissions and increase the rate of carbon removal into soils and non-crop biomass.

L to R: Steve Dunkley / HSBC UK Ltd, Liz Bowles / Farm Carbon Toolkit, Tom Burge / Tom Burge / Oaremead Farm, Andrew Brewer / Ennis Barton, Adel Tajouri/ Greenville Dairies Ltd, Terry Mitchell / Greenville Dairies, David Cope / Duchy of Cornwall


Liz Bowles, Chief Executive Officer at Farm Carbon Toolkit, says:

Once again, the Carbon Farmer of the Year competition has identified some truly inspirational farmers. All our finalists have made great strides in reducing business reliance on fossil fuels through changes to their farming practices and careful soil management to reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon.

It was particularly positive to see a dairy farm winning this year’s competition, given that dairy farming is often in the media spotlight for  its adverse environmental impact. We are looking forward to showcasing the many effective ways that our finalists are reducing on-farm emissions and increasing carbon storage for others to see at free farm walks over the coming months. Watch this space!

Steve Dunkley, HSBC UK Agriculture, says:

HSBC UK Agriculture is pleased to support the 2024 Carbon Farmer of the Year competition. The quality of entries has been superb and hugely inspiring. As a business, we’re very keen to support the agriculture industry in transitioning towards net zero. While that will take many forms, we have the ambition to help farmers fund investment in the new practices and technologies needed to evolve.

“The Carbon Farmer of the Year competition is a great way of showcasing how farmers are already achieving these changes and encouraging others to follow their lead.

About the Farm Carbon Toolkit and the Carbon Farmer of the Year competition

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. 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 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. 

This competition allows for discussions on greenhouse gas emissions and sinks on farms to be framed in a very practical way to allow for maximum engagement with the issue. Farm Carbon Toolkit facilitates discussion and information sharing between farmers and other actors, which ultimately leads to changes in on-farm practice.

The long-term objective of this competition is to create a network of alumni who are changing their management practices to better manage emission and carbon storage on farmland, and who will inspire others through activity, practical demonstrations, and advocacy for changing management practices.

ENDS

FCT and Yeo Valley at Countryside COP2

Posted on November 10, 2022 by - News

On the 10th October Farm Carbon Toolkit’s Becky Willson and Liz Bowles co-led an event kindly hosted at Yeo Valley Organic Garden as part of the second Countryside COP (CCOP2).

Countryside COP is a hybrid conference held to align with COP to create space for the agricultural sector and rural economies to push ahead on climate change and sustainability. It was established to allow rural communities to come together and illustrate the opportunities that are available, along with contributions that are already underway to reach net zero. The event is also an opportunity to explore adaptation options, something of increasing importance as our weather patterns become more extreme, as seen so starkly seen this year. 

The first Countryside COP was set up in 2021 by the Agriculture & Land Use Alliance (formerly Greenhouse Gas Action Plan GHGAP). Organisations in the Alliance include:

  • ADAS
  • Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA)
  • Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board (AHDB)
  • Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC)
  • Country Land & Business Association (CLA)
  • Linking Environment & Farming (LEAF)
  • NIAB
  • National Farmers Union (NFU)

In an NFU article leading up to Countryside COP1 the Alliance said

“This journey is complex, but there is no shortage of professionalism and knowledge within the rural community, and all who support food and farming. This is the time to utilise and invest in this expertise so we can help contribute to the government’s net-zero target, all while continuing to produce fantastic, affordable food for people at home and abroad”.

This year Farm Carbon Toolkit was one of a range of organisations including universities and farming bodies contributing to CCOP2. Through a plethora of 15 events running from the 10th-14th October all across the UK CCOP2 speakers were hosted from as far afield as Australia, Ghana and Zambia.

At Farm Carbon Toolkit we teamed up with our project partners at Yeo Valley who kindly hosted us, to talk about making the transition towards regenerative agriculture and about the findings so far in the project. The event was attended by a range of participants including farmers, education providers, NGOs and the general public. 

FCT’s event on ‘Soil Health and Water Security’ discussed the benefits that agroforestry can bring to grassland systems. It was demonstrated that the presence of trees can buffer extreme weather conditions such as the drought experienced this summer by supporting grass growth and therefore livestock performance, as it has done at Yeo Valley. Agroforestry can enable soils to retain more moisture, limiting the impacts of both droughts and flooding, so has a direct climate change mitigation potential.

Other findings demonstrated at the event included discussing how research carried out with Yeo Valley farmers has suggested that soil management practices, such as growing herbal leys, can increase soil carbon deposition below 10cm. The amount of carbon this is sequestering due to the range of practice uptake on trial sites is significant – it demonstrates a carbon stock improvement of between 20-40t/c/ha.

The event also showcased how significant discussions and events like this one can be in improving carbon literacy amongst attendees, crucial in moving forward together.

To read more about the other events in the series and the insightful recommendations that came from them please see here.