How carbon negative/neutral/positive is a farm?

[egbert]

In fact...I've an admission.
the biggest single planting i've to my name is a 2.5 acre piece, dating from 1989.
The stock benefit greatly from its shelter, it is a growing fund of potentially marketable timber, and it's capturing blah blah blah.
I've found great solace in watching the crop grow.

Sadly, some of the stock who shelter downwind of it - a round feeders worth of cattle through the winter- poach the boundary up on stormy nights, causing 6" of top soil to slough off somewhere over this period.
(Well, unless both fence and granite boulders have risen on their own.)
A quick bit of calcs, 150m, 5' wide and 6" deep..... 33.75 cubic meters has gone somewhere, and it ain't all settled at the level patch downslope..just above the riverbank.
There's still a net gain, but it sure ain't clearcut (ha ha)

 

[Muddyroads]

mebbe not the place, but are the NT going to write in the trees as a tenants crop?
I DO have that arrangement with my own landlord, in an insertion into the AHA.
It was an inspired bit of thinking by the landagent 30 plus years ago, which enabled me to plant and grow trees as a tenant.

Otherwise, your tenanted farm is simply getting smaller....

I can only speak for what’s happening locally, but FBT land is rarely being re-let when it becomes available, and plans are being made to “rewild” it or plant it in trees. If this was rough, poor, unproductive ground I don’t think it would be too big an issue, but here it’s good quality fertile land. The view seems to be that as they “only” own 5% of ag land in England and Wales, they could strop it all being farmed and it would have no real impact on British food production. Whether this is in the spirit of the agreements when the land was originally gifted, I suspect is another matter.

 

[DrWazzock]

For the reasons highlighted during the last 6 pages, offsetting won't achieve much by means of tree planting as ultimately the wood will oxidise again at some point back to CO2 probably within 100 years or so. It pales into insignificance compared to the CO2 produced by aviation. I wonder how much diesel my forestry neighbour's use on harvesting, stump grinding and replanting, done on a 50 year cycle here, with some brash left onthe ground but the soil beneath looking like the pure mineral sand it always will be, with a bit more mulch on top. Dry that mulch out and I bet it amounts to three fifths or f all carbon sequestered. The timber is going up the motorway to a paper mill about 300 miles away. That's the way the government does it.

I am interested in planting trees nonetheless, and would happily plant 10% here or maybe more if they made it worth my while. Poorer spots would be ideal candidates. Leave the easier working land to grow crops.
I can see the mileage in building soil OM and reslly it brings benefits on many levels never mind carbon sequestration so I am all for it and doing my best. It does rely on chemical weed control here, and if lose those chemicals it will be so much more difficult. The reduction in diesel and wearing parts with "zero" till is also a benefit. Stating the obvious really. I struggle with root crops though. Still trying to avoid ploughing as I like the lovely surface tilth but it's being trashed by root harvesting as I write. All those lovely worms squashed under a tyre. I think we need s whole system approach. Track laying root harvester and trailers, or maybe just give up some root crops on fragile land.

Hedges are a mixed blessing. How much diesel burnt annually trimming them? How long do they tie up carbon in the trimmings? Not long I'd expect, as the mulch under my 200 year old hedges isn't that thick.

If we are to seriously reduce atmospheric CO2 then we will need to do a lot more than biological sequestration. Reduce air travel, make folks live near their work. Localise industry and production.

To make any real reduction we need machines to pull carbon out of the air and store it in inert form using non fossil fuel as the power source, probably renewable or nuclear. That way you could lay down stable carbon but where we'd put it all I don't know. Could burn it I suppose, which would be sustainable and carbon neutral. It would however be more stable and less likely to reoxidise than biologically laid down carbon which relied on prehistoric swamps and lagoons and mass flooding events to compress it down under millions of tonnes of sediment.

The present ineffective measures are just window dressing and making scapegoats of those who really aren't to blame rather than taking more effective steps that would be unpopular with public.

But anyway, I don't mind planting a wood on some of it if they want that, and I am trying to build soil OM as well as looking to cut fossil fuel usage wherever I can so I am content with the situation.

Let them rave on and we will carry on with a few tweaks.

 

[DrWazzock]

If people were serious about climate change they would be picketing airports and travel agents.
But that wouldn't go down well would it? Too close to home.

 

[Lowland1]

If people were serious about climate change they would be picketing airports and travel agents.
But that wouldn't go down well would it? Too close to home.
[/QUOTE
Really they should be picketing all car dealers. Long haul air travel in terms of litres of fuel used per kilometre travelled per person is actually far more efficient than using your personal car . If a 747 uses 15000 litres in an hour it will travel 900 kilometres a fuel consumption of 0.06 km/l however if it's carrying 450 people it will be the equivalent of 27km/l per person carried ignoring any freight carried. My Amarok averages around 11-12km/l am usually i'm on my own so looking at it like that a fairly full 747 is better for the planet than a car with driver only. Of course if you're going to Spain you can go by Bus which is more environmentally efficient but if you're going to the States that's out of the question. I know this is a bit flippant but nothing is as simple as it seems.

 

[Agrispeed]

That is true, but car journeys are a part of everyday life, whereas flying is, for the vast majority of people, completely unnecessary. especially air freighting luxury foodstuffs.

However, no one likes being told what to do, and is that something that we can morally do? reducing emissions and limiting peoples freedoms is a very complex issue.

 

[delilah]

If people were serious about climate change they would be picketing airports and travel agents.
But that wouldn't go down well would it? Too close to home.

And shopping/ eating local.
But, as you say, that's too close to home.
For most on here.

 

[Hampton]

Is anyone feeding seaweed to their cattle commercially to reduce methane emissions, and if so what product and from whom are they buying it?

 

[DrWazzock]

When I worked in industry we often went on foreign trips for meetings with clients. It often struck me that it was completely unecessary and could easily have been sorted out over the phone or Internet or even by post.

A foreign holiday by air travel is not essential. Huge distances are travelled on a whim for frivolous reasons. Yet the people who are addicted to this form of living will criticise a farmer who provides an essential service.

Mass hypocracy and denial.

Lawns are mowed for no purpose burning gallons of fuel across the country. Pets are kept, all sorts of things that have an impact on the planet but nobody criticises them because it would impact on the public. Farmers are fair game though because they are in a minority.

In my view the public will never accept the massive changes in lifestyle needed to reduce CO2 output. Nobody will go on a cycling holiday, but they pay for gym membership to use an exercise bike then get in a plane to lie under deadly UV rays and drink alcohol that poisons them.

Let's face it, humans as a species are too screwed up to avoid catastrophe. Too stupid really. Too herd like and too easily influenced by the rattlers of the swill tub as Orwell might have said.

 

[Lowland1]

I make my living exporting what no doubt people call luxury food items by air . As such I am not keen for people to stop travelling by air as our produce hitches a ride on these flights. Without people going on holidays there are no flights filling the holds with veg etc makes flights cheaper but you can't afford to kick the people off and just carry beans. With a growing population the UK has to import food like it or not or else you could put everything else down to cabbage or other non luxury veg.I think what I am trying to say is nothing is particularly simple nipping into town by yourself in the car is more damaging than flying to Nairobi is not one of them, but I can show you figures that says it is.
We always went to Skegness for our holidays as kids and loved it. I take my kids now for the afternoon for a laugh. Society has changed and turning back the clock is unlikely to be a deliberate choice so what will happen is continued innovation. Greener energy and more efficient energy use and hopefully a move away from so much plastic everywhere.
Farmers have a tendency to look back and think how good things were before, but trust me living in Africa with a rural population mostly employed on farms travelling by public transport and eating locally produced foods and definitely not taking foreign holidays this is not a carbon free utopia.I doubt you would find anyone of my staff who would not refuse a chance to live in the UK.

 

[GeorgeK]

I like the idea of biochar where wood is burned without oxygen. The burning process is fueled by the wood and releases some c02 but the rest is converted into charcoal.
This can be used as a soil improver on fields and is very stable, keeping the carbon locked up almost indefinitely.
So you can grow trees then lock up most of the c02 they capture in your soil whilst improving it

 

[Still Farming]

 

[delilah]

View attachment 856541

who do you think you are kidding......... .

 

[Steevo]

View attachment 856541

Before long there will be more people in the sky than cows and sheep on the ground.

 

[Still Farming]

 

[egbert]

When I worked in industry we often went on foreign trips for meetings with clients. It often struck me that it was completely unecessary and could easily have been sorted out over the phone or Internet or even by post.

A foreign holiday by air travel is not essential. Huge distances are travelled on a whim for frivolous reasons. Yet the people who are addicted to this form of living will criticise a farmer who provides an essential service.

Mass hypocracy and denial.

Lawns are mowed for no purpose burning gallons of fuel across the country. Pets are kept, all sorts of things that have an impact on the planet but nobody criticises them because it would impact on the public. Farmers are fair game though because they are in a minority.

In my view the public will never accept the massive changes in lifestyle needed to reduce CO2 output. Nobody will go on a cycling holiday, but they pay for gym membership to use an exercise bike then get in a plane to lie under deadly UV rays and drink alcohol that poisons them.

Let's face it, humans as a species are too screwed up to avoid catastrophe. Too stupid really. Too herd like and too easily influenced by the rattlers of the swill tub as Orwell might have said.

I'd dropped out of this thread, and missed your posts there.
Top top thoughts, i'm voting you Minister of Common Sense with immediate effect