INSIGHT - Edition Ten - Winter 2021 online - Flipbook - Page 14
CARBON: COULD LIVESTOCK
BE THE ANSWER?
The buzz word of the moment seems to be “carbon” whether it
is a discussion around carbon emissions from agriculture, carbon
audits or carbon trading, it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere
fast.
What has become clear is that agriculture will not escape the
government’s “Clean Air” agenda and that these restrictions are
likely to come about much faster than we think. Currently UK
agriculture is responsible for approximately 10% of the UK’s
greenhouse gas emissions and is receiving increasing public
scrutiny. It is also worth remembering that agriculture occupies
70% of UK land.
One argument is that a farmers key job is food production,
which is vital and that these emissions are just a consequence
of this. However, the move from the government is very clear,
they want farmers to play an increasing role in protecting the
environment. The Australia trade deal also highlights that the
government appears happy to allow cheaper imports of food
into the UK to meet food demand. The proposed Environmental
Land Management Scheme (ELMS) and phasing out of direct
payments will further require farmers to remove land from
production for environmental benefits.
What about the environmental benefit farming already provides
in the shape of woodland, hedges and grassland? Apparently 2
billion tonnes of carbon are sequestrated in UK grassland soils.
Something that the UK agricultural industry should be shouting
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about, but the public seems totally unaware of. It may be a small
minority on the public, but they are a very loudly shouting for
livestock production to cease entirely. The belief is that we
should plough up large amounts of our grassland to plant crops,
but surely this would be more detrimental to balancing UK
carbon. As an industry we need to gather the data to fight this
argument.
Understanding your carbon
The first stop is understanding what carbon your business is
emitting and removing from the atmosphere and this is done
in the shape of a carbon audit. Carbon audits are completed
using various software programmes where the data is inputted.
It allows us to see how big our own carbon footprint is and
allows you to start to consider whether there are any measures
that could be implemented now that would help and allow you
to prepare for the future. A few examples could include:
1. Increased forage legumes in grass mixes, leading to longer
grass leys and reduced use of nitrogen fertilisers helping to
encourage a better grass root structure.
2. Direct drilling to prevent disruption of the soil which causes a
release of carbon into the atmosphere
3. Livestock feed which includes home produced protein sources
rather than imported soya.
Unfortunately the calculators available for carbon auditing are