The agriculture and land management sectors are in a unique position in the UK's Net Zero strategy. This is due to the potential for these sectors to not only reach Net Zero carbon emissions, but to become carbon negative. This is due to the carbon sequestration potential of the land that we farm and manage.
Both changes in land use and management will be important in achieving this. A royal society paper on 'multifunctional landscapes' demonstrates the complexity of this challenge, when we are considering all the value that our land can provide in terms of, food production, biodiversity, carbon, water quality and other ecosystem services like flood prevention. Access the paper HERE.
The challenges that farmers and land managers face in relation to Net Zero are therefore complex. The frameworks and knowledge that support agriculture will undoubtably have a significant role to play. At FarmPEP, we would like to know what the key challenges are, and what tools and information might be useful in addressing them.
Please leave comments under this topic page to share your thoughts and questions you would like answered as we move towards Net Zero.
Discussion
Interesting article from Rothamsted here.
It warns against overestimating the potential of soils as a carbon store and highlights the challenges this presents when we consider land use and management.
It is important that we understand the relationship between soil and carbon better as policy is designed for mitigating climate change.
While this is a vital subject I fear as an industry we need to be cautious. Very few if any carbon capture schemes in agriculture are sustainable. They buy time but ultimately the last cow is replaced by the last tree. Carbon only increases to a point and then stops whether contained in trees or soils. If other emissions increase (perhaps nitrous oxide when direct drilling?) in the long term capture strategies might increase greenhouse gas emissions.
Sequestration must not allowed to displace the reduction in emissions from improving production efficiency and replacing use of fossil fuel with renewable such as green electricity. Quad bikes and other machinery is already available in electrical forms and can be easily powered cost effectively from roof top PV (check on an envelope!). Electric farm vehicles can also now be used for power storage to operate lights and milk tanks over night. Soya meal and even fertiliser does not have to have a high carbon footprint since emissions depend on source and manufacture. Feed additives to reduce methane look likely to be promoted by Defra next year. Legumes in forage mixtures can replace a lot of fertiliser. Disposal of organic wastes in anaerobic digesters may effectively replace fossil fuels.
What other actions are worthwhile?
You raise important points, Simon. The aim is to move beyond land use change alone and to also consider improvements in management paractices. We need the correct balance between land use change with land management and improved practices. I hope that is what this topic area will be able to help progress. It would be really helpful to know the practical challenges land managers face in adapting their businesses, or land they manage, to get the correct balance. There will be balances we need to make. What is important is that we can identify what they are and get well evidence and clear rationales for the choices that need to be made.
Please use this space to highlight specific concerns that as land managers you and other contributors feel need to be the priority to address. Where we know of relevant information we will try to highlight it.