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Soil carbon is a highly flawed climate policy ?

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Does the iron post that was sunk into one of the fens when it was drained and now sticks 10 ft out of the ground not tell a story?
Flip side of that, when you watch time team and they dig down a few feet to find the floor of a building that was there 100's of years ago why do they have to dig down ? why are these things buried ? did folk years ago dig a big hole and build in the hole or is it the soil that has built up over the years and buried these old buildings ?
does that not tell a story ?
 

CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
Does the iron post that was sunk into one of the fens when it was drained and now sticks 10 ft out of the ground not tell a story?
Flip side of that, when you watch time team and they dig down a few feet to find the floor of a building that was there 100's of years ago why do they have to dig down ? why are these things buried ? did folk years ago dig a big hole and build in the hole or is it the soil that has built up over the years and buried these old buildings ?
does that not tell a story ?

IMG_0960.JPG
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Does the iron post that was sunk into one of the fens when it was drained and now sticks 10 ft out of the ground not tell a story?
In this thread's context, yes it does. The real "climate issue" is water, not carbon on its own like they would have us believe. Nor methane, which is just food for methanotrophic bacteria.

We've wrecked the C balance by burning fossils, sure, and various other practices - but we've stuffed the hydrological cycles first and foremost.

It's really important to look at how closely these two (carbon and hydration) are linked and what we can do about that... one problem is how we view land use.
Tends to be "all this" or "all this" and seldom "this and this", eg if you can get to around 10% tree cover then the water cycle (ie recharging aquifers) improves immensely.
However we still tend not to do that in favour of areas of 100% and areas of 0%, and we fix nothing.

Then the 100% area goes on fire and it's a loss, thanks to an own goal.
 
In an ideal world I would see every person on the planet having an annual carbon allowance. Every product and service we consume would be subject to a full standardised lifecycle assessment and you would be required to either live within your allowance or buy surplus allowance on a global free market from those who don't need all theirs to cover your shortfall. It would be a powerful incentive to each cut our emissions and would provide massive funding from the developed world to the developing one. It would also be a powerful incentive to manufacturers and service providers to reduce the lifetime carbon impact of whatever they produce. It'd never work though because all of the vested interests who would see their business model shattered by it would stop it dead by fair means or foul.

Oh, well.

It would be a way to incentivise low carbon transputer within the UK though. We each get an annual travel carbon allowance to spend as we see fit. Choose to run a Hummer or Bugatti Veyron and you only get to do a few hundred miles a year.....
I have cattle ...and crops ...and till soil ...and spread muck ....
....but I have offset all my carbon woes by buying a Formula 1 racing team 👍
 

JohnGalway

Member
Livestock Farmer
Aren't most of those peat soils, ones the climate experts say must be re-wetted to stop their carbon emissions?

Ask how they intend to replace the food grown there on what are the highest yielding areas of the UK and they talk about "pluviculture". Isnt that rice growing?

I'm not so sure that they do. Though it IS true if they are re-wetted and moss starts to regrow they should stop emitting, I'm not at all sure that's the ONLY way to do it on say peaty land that has been already drained for decades.
 

farmerm

Member
Location
Shropshire
Flip side of that, when you watch time team and they dig down a few feet to find the floor of a building that was there 100's of years ago why do they have to dig down ? why are these things buried ? did folk years ago dig a big hole and build in the hole or is it the soil that has built up over the years and buried these old buildings ?
does that not tell a story ?
its tells the story that soil blows in the wind, plants anchor in the soil and trap more wind blown soil
 
No idea who Woldmarsh grain are, have they posted their grain store on twitter? Have they said they are planting trees?
Are Woldmarsh grain on here telling us how carbon friendly their farming is, how they will only accept direct drilled grain. Perhaps they could sell the carbon credits of the land under the store as that carbon ain't going anywhere.

Never had to plant trees around a single building ever put up here. Latest last year.
But then they haven't got a massive concrete base are not very high and mediocre in size.
Hello, I believe you may be referring to Woldgrain rather than Woldmarsh?
 

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Webinar: Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer 2024 -26th Sept

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On Thursday 26th September, we’re holding a webinar for farmers to go through the guidance, actions and detail for the expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer. This was planned for end of May, but had to be delayed due to the general election. We apologise about that.

Farming and Countryside Programme Director, Janet Hughes will be joined by policy leads working on SFI, and colleagues from the Rural Payment Agency and Catchment Sensitive Farming.

This webinar will be...
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