Despite a wide range of farming systems, there are common areas of farming responsible for a significant amount of emissions.

Chief amongst them, spanning all considerations, is efficiency. Increasing output while reducing input is the holy grail of business strategy, something also true for a carbon reduction strategy.

Whether fertiliser, energy, feed or any other facet of farming life, efficiency will increase productivity and profitability while decreasing emissions. Carbon calculators, fed by reliable data, will reveal emission ‘hotspots’ unique to a holding. The measures below are four other key considerations to examine when addressing the most common hotspots. 

Health

Efficiency is intimately linked to health, particularly with livestock. It goes without saying that a healthy animal will yield more product than one blighted by disease, decreasing the volume of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions per unit of product.

In diseased animals as well as yields decreasing, GHG emissions increase, particularly with diseases or parasites affecting the gastrointestinal tract. Improving animal health through a combination of veterinary and farm management plans will therefore produce long-term benefits not just for the bank account, but also for the carbon account and, of course, for animal welfare.

Keeping carbon stored in soils is of crucial importance as it is far easier to lose soil carbon than accumulate it. Central to retaining that carbon is soil health. Over 10 Gt of carbon are stored in UK soils, equivalent to around 80 years’ worth of emissions. Each cultivation of soil causes the oxidation of soil organic matter (SOM), resulting in emissions but also harming yields in the long term.

Reducing the frequency, intensity and depth of cultivations, perhaps even switching to min-till or no-till systems, will give an immediate reduction in emissions. Combining these diverse cropping systems, a reduction in compaction from machinery, and  rotation with livestock will all contribute to improved soil health, reducing emissions, improving yields and lowering inputs. 

Nutrients

Changing the nutrients fed to crops and livestock will have a significant effect on carbon accounts through nitrogen. Nitrogen that is not fixed by plants becomes highly mobile and can cause environmental damage. Some will be utilised by microbes in the soil to produce nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is a particularly potent GHG, it is able to capture around 300 times more heat than a molecule of carbon dioxide, and has a lifetime around 10 times greater than methane. For these reasons nitrous oxide has a large effect on carbon accounts when recorded as carbon dioxide equivalents. 

As much as 30 per cent of the nitrogen applied as fertiliser is not utilised by crops but reducing application levels can affect yields. Here benchmarking is essential to achieve an optimum application rate. There are simple measures that can provide more immediate results, such as the timing of application. Applying fertiliser in waterlogged, warm or wet soils increases emissions significantly while windy conditions increase fertiliser loss. Adopting precision techniques, either through machinery or by matching nitrogen use to specific crops, will improve fertiliser efficiency. 

Livestock emissions primarily occur in methane-producing ruminant livestock and many believe there is nothing to be done about this. However, livestock nutrition can have an effect. While feeding seaweed to reduce methane emissions is simply not an option for the majority, adopting high sugar diets or increasing the oil content of feed may be. Both options have been shown to reduce methane emissions.  

Manure

Ruminants excrete between 75-95 per cent of the nitrogen they ingest, explaining why precise feed management can minimise emissions. But emissions through this are inevitable, however efficient the feed may be. Taking proactive steps to manage manure can minimise those emissions.

By covering manure and slurry stores, emissions can be reduced by up to 80 per cent while maximising the nutrient content of the slurry itself and improving compliance with regulatory requirements.

Arable farms can also improve their use of digestate by investing in new infrastructure such as trailing hoses, disc injection and covers to achieve a similar effect. As well as reducing emissions, the quality of the digestate is maintained, reducing the need and cost of mineral fertilisers.  

Energy

Anaerobic digestion can be used to turn manure, crops and organic waste into energy, reducing emissions  but also offsetting the need for fossil fuels.

Carbon dioxide emissions from generating energy, such as for transport or in buildings, make up 9 per cent of agricultural emissions. Fortunately, this is one area in particular where taking measurements can highlight opportunities for significant savings. 

First steps should be to reduce use where possible and improve efficiency. For pigs and poultry, this may include investing in insulation and high quality equipment to make savings in the long run. Investing in renewable energy where possible will further offset the need for fossil fuels and therefore reduce emissions. 

Further information

Contact Joe Lloyd

Savills Spotlight: Rural Land and Carbon