- Location
- Derbyshire
However, if I'm in the last couple of years of an FBT and I sell every credit my acres can show on paper then BOOM!
Where does that leave the viability of the farm for the next tenant (or even the landlord
)
Entrade, Environmental Offsetting and Trading
- Thread starter sahara
- Start date
Where does that leave the viability of the farm for the next tenant (or even the landlord
)
What happens to the credits if a tree gets cut down and is burned?
The only way to permanently capture Co2 is turn it into coal or stone or never let the wood rot or be burned. It’s hard to see the real value in credits over any long term past 100 years or so.
However, if I'm in the last couple of years of an FBT and I sell every credit my acres can show on paper then BOOM!
Where does that leave the viability of the farm for the next tenant (or even the landlord
Where does it say in your tenancy that the credits are yours to sell? Or where does it say that they aren't???
I don't think you'd ever do a deal in your situation, but I appreciate that it's a dilemma worth considering. There is a thread about this here;
Who "owns" the carbon on a farm? Landlord or tenant?
This came up in a discussion yesterday. An estate with a long history of the same family ownership wants to provide public goods such as carbon sequestration by working with its tenants to manage the land accordingly. Without getting bogged down in the type of tenancy, though the length clearly...
thefarmingforum.co.uk
- Location
- Derbyshire
This is the fundamental flaw in anything that is actually 'alive'. Whether it be cows farts or managed woodland, carbon had a natural cycle..
Ultimately it is soil, then rock that stores it.
I see those goals being tied to what ever form subsides take, but Co2 will end up front and centre at some point, and if Co2 credits become a thing that effects even farms then I think I need to do a Co2 budget now to see where I fall and plan forward.
If it takes 10 years for a woodland to really start to kick out credits then maybe we need to plan now not 2030 or 2040.
- Location
- Derbyshire
Exactly. This is where the problem of landowners having the 'carbon rights' are in direct conflict to the interests of the land managers (those actually farming)Where does it say in your tenancy that the credits are yours to sell? Or where does it say that they aren't???
I don't think you'd ever do a deal in your situation, but I appreciate that it's a dilemma worth considering. There is a thread about this here;
Who "owns" the carbon on a farm? Landlord or tenant?
This came up in a discussion yesterday. An estate with a long history of the same family ownership wants to provide public goods such as carbon sequestration by working with its tenants to manage the land accordingly. Without getting bogged down in the type of tenancy, though the length clearly...
Oh, and it certainly doesn't mention carbon credits in my tenancy, but I'll bet it would be in the next one
It's all bollox and it needs stopping now. It needs a national moratorium in the same way as we have a national moratorium on hormones in beef and GM crops and for the same reasons. Because if we don't have a national moratorium then anyone who signs up for this bollox is at an unfair advantage in that their farming is subsidized compared to their neighbour. Anyone who wants to see a speeding up of the 'consolidation' and 'rationalizing'of farming, then support this bollox, it will be another reason for the small person to be left behind. And the only way we will get a national moratorium is for our national bodies to all come out against this bollox now. Did I say, it's bollox.
Are you considering planting now, just in case? That's taking a big punt if you fall down later over one tiny detail unless you have other reasons to plant.
So........ these carbon toolkits....... which one is actually correct? Does anyone believe any of them are correct? Do,we get to see the formulae hidden in behind the front of the spreadsheet? Or is Joseph Poore doing the spreadsheet? How the Hell does the world arrive at an accepted standard for measuring carbon that everyone agrees with?
Think the value of them at the moment is that by using them you get a feel for what is going on with your business. So that when this all takes off you have more than half an idea what is going on and where you may need to rethink things. Better than being hit by a juggernaut you saw coming but chose to file under B for bin...... or should I say B for Bollox.
I'm not saying any are the gold standard........
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Ah, but Becky Wilson of the Farm Carbon Toolkit clearly agreed on a webinar earlier this month that all of these calculators are approximate and some more so than others. She said we can't take their output as gospel and should only use it to provide a trend in what our land is doing by comparing it each year.
Robust carbon accounting is a very complicated, time consuming and expensive business where soil carbon stocks are involved.
Yes, thinnings along the way will probably be burnt or used for fibre, thinning them increases the biomass accumulation of the trees left behind and allows those left to grow better and bigger. As I said earlier in the thread if the eventual timber crop is used in construction then all the better........ and that is being viewed as highly possible as concrete becomes less attractive in the future.
"The best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago but next best time is today." - quote often heard!
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
That's the rub, Nobody can agree at the moment.
Rothamstead North Wyke are doing huge work on this with people like Prof Jenni Dungait but the current answers are: it's variable.
Generally soil carbon levels are rootcrops< Conventional arable< arable rotations with leys< No till arable < permanent pasture = woodland. There's huge variation in each group though. Poorly managed PP can have lower carbon stocks than well managed rotational arable.
Throw in that soil type has a huge influence with sand < loam < clay, again with big variations, and nothing is simple.
Even if you take soil samples (which are essential for any approximation to accuracy) then how many and to what depth (15cm? 30cm? 50cm? ) and use which lab and assessment method? They all give different results.
"We need more research" say the researchers!
Not a surprise.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
The way I see it is a bit like the way I see ELMS. You can’t have your cake and eat it. So yes if farmer Giles plants a wood he might be sequestering carbon and get paid for it but he won’t be carrying on with agriculture as we know it which struggles to even get to nett zero as things stand.
Our organic matter levels here are stable, and quite good but they aren’t rising very much so where is all this sequestration going to come from without doing something radically different like becoming a forester. It all sounds like desperation to me. Casting around to see how they can carry on as they are without having to do anything fundamental about themselves- like stop burning fossil fuel.
Our organic matter levels here are stable, and quite good but they aren’t rising very much so where is all this sequestration going to come from without doing something radically different like becoming a forester. It all sounds like desperation to me. Casting around to see how they can carry on as they are without having to do anything fundamental about themselves- like stop burning fossil fuel.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
If you are a conventional arable farmer (let alone a veg or root crop grower) in the UK then you can significantly increase the sequestration of carbon in your soil. It requires a big change in management though....
For long term PP farms planting trees could actually lose you soil carbon!
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- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Just mulling over the reverse auction thing. What would happen if we farmers set up an online page for sharing our thoughts on an acceptable price for an open auction and so fixed it to a decent level? Would the CMA step in claiming it was "anti-competetive"?
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Yes we can increase the carbon sequestration in our soils to some extent, maybe ramping it up over a decade but I think it just reaches a new ceiling and equilibrium which is why my 200 year old deciduous wood isnt up to its neck in leaf mould but has a stable 6” layer of organic matter with mineral sand underneath. Dehydrate that layer of organic matter and it might be an inch thick.
It would interesting to do some real analysis on that rather than listen to the high priests.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Anyone who claims to know the answers is talking, to quote @delilah , utter b0ll*cks.
Some of the academic researchers have a reasonable working understanding.......
Many don't it seems!
I was more thinking about the time scale, with up to 30 years mentioned .