It’s impossible to miss the warnings about the future of the planet. We have become used to news reports about heatwaves and flooding, Extinction Rebellion protests, sit-ins by activists and pronouncements by world leaders at events such as the recent COP 27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh. So where do Britain’s farmers fit into all of this?
The truth is that some conventional farming methods have long been blamed for causing pollution and contributing to global warming. But it’s less well-known that the agricultural industry has been putting time, effort and money into finding solutions.
And the clock is ticking. The UK Government has pledged to reduce the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by the year 2050. In other words, taking as much climate-changing gas (such as carbon dioxide and methane), out of the atmosphere as we put in. But the National Farmers’ Union has set an even tougher target, wanting its members to reach net zero at least a decade earlier. The 2040 deadline is a bold, ambitious goal and it’s certainly focussed my mind on what we do, and how we do it, at home on Bemborough Farm.
The starting point was to carbon-calculate the farm to establish just how much CO2 and other greenhouse gases we were emitting from using fossil fuel-based fertilisers and diesel machinery, as well as the effects of ploughing, which releases carbon from the soil, and rearing cattle that belch methane. On the plus side, plants are photosynthetic, so hedges, trees, crops and grasses suck up carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil.
Once all the calculations had been made, our carbon output was shown to be 600 tonnes a year (the equivalent of a jumbo jet flying a quarter of the way to New York). So while I was relieved that it wasn’t worse, it was obvious we had work to do.
First, we reduced our artificial fertiliser use by introducing farmyard manure, sewage sludge and more nitrogen-fixing crops, such as beans, in rotation to enrich the soil. Technology helped, too, in the form of precision applications and satellite soil-mapping to spray only the amounts needed, cutting our fertiliser and fuel use even further. Farmers now know how damaging ploughing can be to the environment, so we keep tillage to a minimum and, wherever possible, direct drill when planting crops, to disturb soil as little as possible.
Burping bovines are harder to fix, so I took some professional advice on the best food for our overwintering cattle. Their new diet contains no imported soya, with protein coming from homegrown beans instead, designed to maintain an efficient rumen (part of a cow’s stomach) and reduce the flatulence. The herd is doing its bit during spring and summer, too. That’s when they graze 240 hectares of permanent pasture, half of which is in conservation schemes that draw CO2 from the atmosphere and act as a carbon store.
What we’re doing in the Cotswolds isn’t unique – far from it. Farmers all over the UK and the world are reducing their impact on the planet and knuckling down in pursuit of net zero. Feeding a world population of eight billion in a more secure, sustainable and affordable way is a mammoth task that can’t be done overnight. But then, no one said it was going to be easy.
