1. NEWS

Farming Footprints - Driving Down The Carbon Footprint

The Renewable Energy directive states that fuel will have to contain elements from sustainable sources. For transport fuel this effectively means energy from crops – in this country wheat, oilseed rape and sugar beet. Oil companies will be incentivised to improve their carbon performance and they will want to source biofuel from the most efficient sources. Farmers who have the information to prove the provenance of their crops will be in a strong position to sell that information to the biofuel producer.

Peter Kendall of the NFU is widely reported as saying, “Developed in a sustainable way, in the context of a wide-ranging strategy for alternative crops, biofuels offer society a win, win, win solution.”

As the biofuels industry builds in the North East, with Ensus already in production and others hot on their heels, there is a great opportunity for local farmers to supply grain and seed, but also to get value out of trading carbon.

Whilst this may sound like the activity of city traders in ivory towers and a million miles away from the farm office, it could be a useful source of income for farmers who are able to demonstrate good practice.  High yielding, efficiently grown crops will inevitably have a better carbon balance than others and this will be of value to oil producers, who will have to prove the sustainability of their feedstock in order to gain credits from Government.

In conjunction with Farmway, energy consultants FiveBarGate, has developed a service called ‘Farming Footprints’ which uses an arable farmer’s readily available field input data to calculate a carbon efficiency number.  This number in kgCO2 equivalent/tonne of grain or seed can be associated with a consignment of grain, traced through the supply chain and allows the farmer to negotiate carbon value in a transaction separate from the supply of the grain.

Farming Footprints gives the farmer the opportunity to profit from high performance energy crops. These crops need to be identified and the ‘Online Carbon Calculator’ will do this with the minimum of administration time.

“Inevitably grain or rape seed will be traded at a price that is determined by the local market, but because the carbon information is unique to the supplying farmer, and in fact to the field, its value will vary with each batch” explains Farmway’s Chief Executive, Peter Hull.  “It is believed that this could become a significant income source for supplying farmers”.

Political battle

There is an ongoing political battle however, as processors can currently use standard or default values which will earn the farmer nothing.  Many farmers are able to produce at values far better than the standard and Farming Footprints believes the incentives for these levels must be passed to the farmer.  The Farming Footprints system is the only assured way of providing the information, FiveBarGate and Farmway are currently meeting with all interested parties at government, trade and farmer level to try to ensure that the issues are recognised and value is maintained for the farmer.

Of direct value to the farmer is the ability to compare his performance with that of others in a similar area or soil type so that farm practice can be adjusted to improve carbon performance as desired.  Simple graphs show his carbon footprint in relation to other fields in the area.  This means that farmerscan interrogate the information to compare such things as nitrogen use and variety choice in a completely confidential way.

FiveBarGate Consultants Ltd and Farmway is committed to campaigning for the value that is in these new markets to be realised by our farmer customers and will continue to work with customers to ensure that the maximum value is passed down the chain to the primary producer. Discussions to date with a wide range of interested customers and agencies supports this approach and anticipate carbon value will be available in the coming few years. Farmers who begin to understand and manage the carbon footprint of their products now will be best placed to secure this extra value.

To understand more, please contact us and speak to Ian Waller, a leading bio-energy expert.