Net Zero ‘marathon’ needs best science and accurate data

Farmers at June’s Banff and Buchan Monitor Farm meeting heard that net zero was ‘a marathon and not a sprint’, and that farming needed to insist on the best science, with accurate, precise data on individual farms in order to choose the right options and to defend itself.

Key speaker Professor John Gilliland, who owns a farm as well as being a special adviser to QMS and AHDB on net zero, discussed his experience of working practically on the subject with a group of Northern Irish farms in a government-funded project. “The first thing on our journey was that everyone understood that next zero meant the sum of your emissions, minus the sum of your sequestration. It is adjusted for any fossil fuel CO₂ emissions displaced by renewables and for any methane emissions reduced by waste management. It is not zero emissions.

“And while I can talk about carbon, water quality, biodiversity and so on, profit is important, and we also need to produce good quality food to deliver good human health.”

His research so far showed that no two farms were the same, and that ‘some would find the journey easier than others’.

Choosing the right ‘tools’ for an individual farm was important. While new approaches to reducing emissions such as feed additives and green fertiliser were available, they came at ‘huge cost’, he warned. “Look at the things you can do which will drive profit and reduce emissions.”

These options were often round productivity, such as improving breeding, health and genetics. Irish work on lime showed that in some soils, achieving a pH of 6-6.5 boosted fertiliser utilisation, and he acknowledged this was an area of science which needed to be addressed in RB209 recommendations. “This is under review, but I want it to be updated and have asked that the AHDB look at the Irish science.”

Other areas the farms looked at included grazing willows, which gave double the benefit as grazing leaves reduced cattle methane emissions, and creating a field run-off risk map using the laser-generated field map and phosphate soil surveys. Multispecies pastures which provided a variety of rooting depths helped with water mitigation, reduced fertiliser use, and boosted earthworm numbers by 300%, he said. 

He welcomed the new AHDB/QMS carbon baselining project, and urged farmers to apply. “The key thing is to measure and manage, but we need more sophistication to the measurement. We can reduce emissions, increase carbon in our soils and increase biodiversity – and we can stay profitable if we get the knowledge about how to do it.’