Trees.....

This is way left of field, but I would really welcome your thoughts. I will also try to keep this as short as possible !!

In my daily job I work with Doctors in ICU using inhaled anaesthetics to keep patients in their "induced coma".

All sedation is bad for the environment in someway. The Intravenous stuff is poisonous to the patients liver and kidneys and once excreted in urine isn't exactly great in our water system. Similarly inhaled anaesthetic gases if they escape are bad for the air / ozone layer, and equivalent to many times their weight in carbon emissions.

The system we employ captures and reflects over 90% of the gas with approximately 3ml an hour leaving the patient and then being captured in a carbon filter. Despite this as part of our environmental campaign and carbon offset I am looking at the feasibility of starting a tree planting scheme for each bottle, box or whatever that is used in ICU.

So here is the ask.

Is this kind of thing of interest to land owners?​
Is it best administered through something like the Woodland Trust or a grant system?​
Should I just forget it and think of something else?​
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
This is way left of field, but I would really welcome your thoughts. I will also try to keep this as short as possible !!

In my daily job I work with Doctors in ICU using inhaled anaesthetics to keep patients in their "induced coma".

All sedation is bad for the environment in someway. The Intravenous stuff is poisonous to the patients liver and kidneys and once excreted in urine isn't exactly great in our water system. Similarly inhaled anaesthetic gases if they escape are bad for the air / ozone layer, and equivalent to many times their weight in carbon emissions.

The system we employ captures and reflects over 90% of the gas with approximately 3ml an hour leaving the patient and then being captured in a carbon filter. Despite this as part of our environmental campaign and carbon offset I am looking at the feasibility of starting a tree planting scheme for each bottle, box or whatever that is used in ICU.

So here is the ask.

Is this kind of thing of interest to land owners?​
Is it best administered through something like the Woodland Trust or a grant system?​
Should I just forget it and think of something else?​
Please , please, please, concentrate on what you know and leave what you do not know to others. There are far too many setting up offsetting schemes which do absolutely nothing for the environment but salve a few consenscences .
Nearly all off setting schemes that I have seen, have very little benefit and most after a few years are actually a negative effect on the environment.
If you really want to make a difference, persuade your friend and family to give up foreign travel and imported food
 
Please , please, please, concentrate on what you know and leave what you do not know to others. There are far too many setting up offsetting schemes which do absolutely nothing for the environment but salve a few consenscences .
Nearly all off setting schemes that I have seen, have very little benefit and most after a few years are actually a negative effect on the environment.
If you really want to make a difference, persuade your friend and family to give up foreign travel and imported food

This is why I asked. I'm not looking to start a scheme, rather support one if it is of use to land owners and the environment.
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
UK ag is lower carbon than the general public think. It harbours more biodiversity than the general public think. Grassland sequesters carbon in a longer term format than woodland. Support what is working at several layers ~ food, sequestration, biodiversity ~ and be ruddy proud of all your and your colleagues efforts as you look at our working countryside.
 
if you want to help the environment, persuade your hospital to only supply locally sourced food to the patients and in canteens

I think I'll just knock it on the head. Was looking to see if (as part of industry) I could support local farmers with an environmental scheme, be that supporting an existing one or in some other way.
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
This is way left of field, but I would really welcome your thoughts. I will also try to keep this as short as possible !!

In my daily job I work with Doctors in ICU using inhaled anaesthetics to keep patients in their "induced coma".

All sedation is bad for the environment in someway. The Intravenous stuff is poisonous to the patients liver and kidneys and once excreted in urine isn't exactly great in our water system. Similarly inhaled anaesthetic gases if they escape are bad for the air / ozone layer, and equivalent to many times their weight in carbon emissions.

The system we employ captures and reflects over 90% of the gas with approximately 3ml an hour leaving the patient and then being captured in a carbon filter. Despite this as part of our environmental campaign and carbon offset I am looking at the feasibility of starting a tree planting scheme for each bottle, box or whatever that is used in ICU.

So here is the ask.

Is this kind of thing of interest to land owners?​
Is it best administered through something like the Woodland Trust or a grant system?​
Should I just forget it and think of something else?​
Wtf are you on about ?
 

spin cycle

Member
Location
north norfolk
This is way left of field, but I would really welcome your thoughts. I will also try to keep this as short as possible !!

In my daily job I work with Doctors in ICU using inhaled anaesthetics to keep patients in their "induced coma".

All sedation is bad for the environment in someway. The Intravenous stuff is poisonous to the patients liver and kidneys and once excreted in urine isn't exactly great in our water system. Similarly inhaled anaesthetic gases if they escape are bad for the air / ozone layer, and equivalent to many times their weight in carbon emissions.

The system we employ captures and reflects over 90% of the gas with approximately 3ml an hour leaving the patient and then being captured in a carbon filter. Despite this as part of our environmental campaign and carbon offset I am looking at the feasibility of starting a tree planting scheme for each bottle, box or whatever that is used in ICU.

So here is the ask.

Is this kind of thing of interest to land owners?​
Is it best administered through something like the Woodland Trust or a grant system?​
Should I just forget it and think of something else?​

that is such a lovely idea :love: and thank you for coming on and posting and thanks also for the work you do...i'm sorry if you get some negative replies.......trouble is we as a 'community' feel under siege when it comes to things environmental and past bad experiences with govt means tree planting is unlikely to be taken up by us

as an example i worked out that the sheep on my little farm is equivalent to a one way trans atlantic flight......however the grass. hedges and trees i calculate completely offset my sheep's emissions.......yet the media constantly attack us over red meat consumption
 
that is such a lovely idea :love: and thank you for coming on and posting and thanks also for the work you do...i'm sorry if you get some negative replies.......trouble is we as a 'community' feel under siege when it comes to things environmental and past bad experiences with govt means tree planting is unlikely to be taken up by us

as an example i worked out that the sheep on my little farm is equivalent to a one way trans atlantic flight......however the grass. hedges and trees i calculate completely offset my sheep's emissions.......yet the media constantly attack us over red meat consumption

Thank you. I actually grew up around my uncles farm, and spend a couple of evenings most week on a local dairy farm so It's not all work. I was genuinely surprised by the negativity. Possibly caused by a poor explanation or brevity.
Knowing there are so many schemes and subsidies I genuinely wondered if there was an opportunity for the Industry to help. I'll just stick to helping on the farm and keeping my gob shut....
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
Thank you. I actually grew up around my uncles farm, and spend a couple of evenings most week on a local dairy farm so It's not all work. I was genuinely surprised by the negativity. Possibly caused by a poor explanation or brevity.
Knowing there are so many schemes and subsidies I genuinely wondered if there was an opportunity for the Industry to help. I'll just stick to helping on the farm and keeping my gob shut....
Sorry if I may have been harsh, but the world is full of poorly thought out schemes, designed by people whose only real qualification is being very capable of spending other peoples money.
I like so many in the agricultural community are highly sceptical of tree planting schemes. The science of which is highly debatable , but even worse most have a very short life, before they either die through lack of attention or are replaced by another mad cap scheme
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
I can offer you the carbon sequestration performed on a daily basis by my Sheeted Somerset Cattle. They directly convert grass grown by absorbing CO2 into beef and their waste is essential in increasing soil carbon content. They don’t eat anything other than grass or hay. The fields they graze in are sourrounded by high hedges and trees so all good.
Just a matter of how much cash your organisation would like to send me with to satisfy whatever it is you want to achieve in salving the corporate carbon conscience. PM to discuss terms.
 
Sorry if I may have been harsh, but the world is full of poorly thought out schemes, designed by people whose only real qualification is being very capable of spending other peoples money.
I like so many in the agricultural community are highly sceptical of tree planting schemes. The science of which is highly debatable , but even worse most have a very short life, before they either die through lack of attention or are replaced by another mad cap scheme

thanks, genuinely that's why I asked. I have little understanding of these things but do know they exist. Hence rather than re-inventing the wheel I was looking for what is best. I can't persuade a hospital to eat local produce etc but I thought I would ask about this.

I have a genuine love of the country (not in a Packham kind of way) from childhood right up to the present day. In fact being out in the fields has probably saved my mind a few times over the last eighteen months or so !!!
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
BP please don't 'keep your gob shut'! Suggestions and comments provoke discussion and that's how we progress. Yes, as some have said, it is a lovely idea, but not terribly practical. My thoughts were, who owns the trees once they've been planted? Presumanly the land owner. If he wants to fell/trim them, does he ask permission of the donor? You see, it soon becomes complicated.

Maybe donate an equivalent sum to Cancer Research? Lots of deserving charities out there and all have been having a hard time recently because of C-9. Saving the environment is another matter and far too complicated for my tiny mind.
 
BP please don't 'keep your gob shut'! Suggestions and comments provoke discussion and that's how we progress. Yes, as some have said, it is a lovely idea, but not terribly practical. My thoughts were, who owns the trees once they've been planted? Presumanly the land owner. If he wants to fell/trim them, does he ask permission of the donor? You see, it soon becomes complicated.

Maybe donate an equivalent sum to Cancer Research? Lots of deserving charities out there and all have been having a hard time recently because of C-9. Saving the environment is another matter and far too complicated for my tiny mind.
Thank you.
Nice thought. I would have seen it as a donation. Donated directly there would be no problem. I guess if they were donated via a third party, that would be different.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Thank you. I actually grew up around my uncles farm, and spend a couple of evenings most week on a local dairy farm so It's not all work. I was genuinely surprised by the negativity. Possibly caused by a poor explanation or brevity.
Knowing there are so many schemes and subsidies I genuinely wondered if there was an opportunity for the Industry to help. I'll just stick to helping on the farm and keeping my gob shut....
I have read a lot on the subject, and yes, trees are important, great for wildlife and visual enhancement of our environment, in terms of carbon sequestration though, it is a bit more nuanced, grassland managed appropriately sequests far more and is better for climate change. Problem is saying "eat traditional breeds fed on pasture that is ideally mob graze or regeneratively farmed sequests carbon" does not have the same ring to it, and is a harder sell. Studies have shown, birch taking over the hills in Norway is increasing global warming! And all this is without planting trees on peat land (which emits so much carbon held in the peat), or the loss of biodiversity with blanket spruce planting (which also destroys communities through loss of critical mass needed to keep vibrant). Those are why, some people are negative. Listening to Prince Charles on the radio today, he gets it, but the general population do not listen to him.
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
I think I'll just knock it on the head. Was looking to see if (as part of industry) I could support local farmers with an environmental scheme, be that supporting an existing one or in some other way.
sorry you're not getting the response you might want.
We're being bludgeoned day after day in the media, -see tomorrows dimblbey food policy statements.

Growing trees to store carbon (or whatever it is you're wanting them to grab) sounds good, but the trees grow, die, and rot in just a few decades.
(forget the mighty 1000 year oak....oaks reach their max carbon level in the UK at about 100...after that they rot off as much as they gain each year)
Grass grabs as much.
By comparison, CO2 from burning fossil fuel was lying safe underground for 350 million years til we came along.

We, as a body, are coming to terms with the ideas being put upon us as a conscience salving lot of hokum, and are often pretty short in our response.

As farmers, we're doing what we have evolved into the most sensible way of gropwing food on what dirt we have, albeit being pushed and pulled by gov policy and supermarket dominance.
The idea of planting trees wholesale to save the world is hugely contrary to us, and we can see the crash that it precipitates.
(Happily, I'm almost without scruples, and have little problem with the crash in itself)

So please don't think we're Rsoles. We're just sick of hearing it.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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