Understand natural capital in your livestock enterprise to create better business resilience
Farm businesses, including livestock enterprises, should be taking control of their natural capital as data shows a positive link between sustainability improvements and the bottom line. However, to maximise a farm’s true natural capital potential, a thorough and analytical approach to understanding the farm’s natural assets and emissions is needed.
A solution to the problem
“Over the past few years livestock farming has responded incredibly well to the challenges of a growing human population. However, as a result of this need for more food, there have been some unintended consequences such as increased greenhouse gases (GHG) and higher land usage for feeding and grazing,” explains Dr Alasdair Sykes, managing director of sustainability at Trinity Agtech.
“Despite problems arising from the growth in livestock production, there are evolving opportunities to pair food production with good environmental outcomes.”
Farmers are best placed to deliver the solutions, but before they can begin to address them, they need to have a clear view of the opportunities to ensure they are implementing progress in the correct areas.
“This requires data input and farmers should be choosing a reliable tool, that will best account for their specific farming system,” says Dr Sykes.
“As a livestock farmer, you want a tool that’s going to accurately represent your system to ensure the resulting data is credible. This means not just accounting for the number of animals that you have, but also for the nuances of your flock or herd management.
“For example, you need to be able to capture what livestock are eating how they are performing, and then track how that is impacting their carbon footprint,” Dr Sykes explains.
The latest science
“To obtain the most credible information, it’s vital for livestock farmers to be using the most up to date tool which draws on the latest science. This will capture the inputs and outputs from the system accurately delivering a meaningful assessment of the impact of on-farm practices on carbon footprint and emissions.
“For example, if an animal has been bred to convert feed more efficiently and therefore requires less food, then farmers need to be able to capture the resulting reduction in carbon footprint. However, much of the science and data behind first generation calculators and tools, do not allow for this differentiation when number crunching.
“As a result, by not accounting for the good management processes and improved environmental performance of livestock, farmers could be incorrectly representing themselves, to their own detriment,” warns Dr Sykes.
Missed opportunities
“One of the many environmental benefits of ruminant production is the ability to graze them on land that is potentially unusable for anything else. Historically, using first generation carbon calculators, it has been a challenge to account for this type of land as they use outdated scientific data.
“This is typically as a result of the land needing little to no direct maintenance, such as fertiliser application, and without these management factors many of the first generation tools and calculators see no impact on the land, either good or bad, so fail to record it.
“However, we know that this is not a fair representation and rougher grazing is a very precious natural asset that typically yields very high levels of carbon sequestration,” says Dr Sykes.
“At Trinity AgTech, we have worked very hard to ensure Sandy takes on board these crucial pieces of information such as; how the livestock are grazed and rotated, the grazing intensity and the variety and sward composition of grassland being recorded.
“All of this information is vital to accurately assess on-farm carbon. If all of these factors are not accounted for, many farms will be under valuing their natural capital potential.”
The importance of natural capital
“Natural capital presents a significant opportunity for British farmers. Trinity Ag Tech has set out to help farmers understand the true value of all their natural capital, and not just carbon, to keep them firmly in the driving seat when it comes to making on-farm decisions.
“By understanding these assets and their value, farmers are going to be able to massively increase the management efficiency within their particular system while working towards their environmental and sustainability goals,” he explains.
Dr Sykes believes that credible data could also provide a marketing edge.
“We now live in a truly data-centric world and the farming sector should be taking full advantage of this.
“Providing farmers use a tool with high analytical integrity, it’s possible to communicate with conviction all of the good farm practices that are happening that support positive environmental outcomes. This is something which I feel is hugely relevant to those in the livestock sector and could help counter some of the negative conversations around meat and dairy and the environment,” concludes Dr Sykes.
To book a demo or find out more about Sandy visit: www.trinityagtech.com.
Farm businesses, including livestock enterprises, should be taking control of their natural capital as data shows a positive link between sustainability improvements and the bottom line. However, to maximise a farm’s true natural capital potential, a thorough and analytical approach to understanding the farm’s natural assets and emissions is needed.
A solution to the problem
“Over the past few years livestock farming has responded incredibly well to the challenges of a growing human population. However, as a result of this need for more food, there have been some unintended consequences such as increased greenhouse gases (GHG) and higher land usage for feeding and grazing,” explains Dr Alasdair Sykes, managing director of sustainability at Trinity Agtech.
“Despite problems arising from the growth in livestock production, there are evolving opportunities to pair food production with good environmental outcomes.”
Farmers are best placed to deliver the solutions, but before they can begin to address them, they need to have a clear view of the opportunities to ensure they are implementing progress in the correct areas.
“This requires data input and farmers should be choosing a reliable tool, that will best account for their specific farming system,” says Dr Sykes.
“As a livestock farmer, you want a tool that’s going to accurately represent your system to ensure the resulting data is credible. This means not just accounting for the number of animals that you have, but also for the nuances of your flock or herd management.
“For example, you need to be able to capture what livestock are eating how they are performing, and then track how that is impacting their carbon footprint,” Dr Sykes explains.
The latest science
“To obtain the most credible information, it’s vital for livestock farmers to be using the most up to date tool which draws on the latest science. This will capture the inputs and outputs from the system accurately delivering a meaningful assessment of the impact of on-farm practices on carbon footprint and emissions.
“For example, if an animal has been bred to convert feed more efficiently and therefore requires less food, then farmers need to be able to capture the resulting reduction in carbon footprint. However, much of the science and data behind first generation calculators and tools, do not allow for this differentiation when number crunching.
“As a result, by not accounting for the good management processes and improved environmental performance of livestock, farmers could be incorrectly representing themselves, to their own detriment,” warns Dr Sykes.
Missed opportunities
“One of the many environmental benefits of ruminant production is the ability to graze them on land that is potentially unusable for anything else. Historically, using first generation carbon calculators, it has been a challenge to account for this type of land as they use outdated scientific data.
“This is typically as a result of the land needing little to no direct maintenance, such as fertiliser application, and without these management factors many of the first generation tools and calculators see no impact on the land, either good or bad, so fail to record it.
“However, we know that this is not a fair representation and rougher grazing is a very precious natural asset that typically yields very high levels of carbon sequestration,” says Dr Sykes.
“At Trinity AgTech, we have worked very hard to ensure Sandy takes on board these crucial pieces of information such as; how the livestock are grazed and rotated, the grazing intensity and the variety and sward composition of grassland being recorded.
“All of this information is vital to accurately assess on-farm carbon. If all of these factors are not accounted for, many farms will be under valuing their natural capital potential.”
The importance of natural capital
“Natural capital presents a significant opportunity for British farmers. Trinity Ag Tech has set out to help farmers understand the true value of all their natural capital, and not just carbon, to keep them firmly in the driving seat when it comes to making on-farm decisions.
“By understanding these assets and their value, farmers are going to be able to massively increase the management efficiency within their particular system while working towards their environmental and sustainability goals,” he explains.
Dr Sykes believes that credible data could also provide a marketing edge.
“We now live in a truly data-centric world and the farming sector should be taking full advantage of this.
“Providing farmers use a tool with high analytical integrity, it’s possible to communicate with conviction all of the good farm practices that are happening that support positive environmental outcomes. This is something which I feel is hugely relevant to those in the livestock sector and could help counter some of the negative conversations around meat and dairy and the environment,” concludes Dr Sykes.
To book a demo or find out more about Sandy visit: www.trinityagtech.com.
