CO2 Emissions | Manor Farm Hampshire - UK Glamping, B&B, Business Units

27 Sep 2021

0 Comments By Anna Brock Animal Welfare, Autumn, Biodiversity, Cattle, Climate Change, CO2 Emissions, Coronavirus, Countryside, Education, Farming, Farming News, Food, General, Glamping, Habitat, Luxury Camping, Luxury Camping in Hampshire, Schools, Sheep, Topical Conversation

Clarkson’s Farm, Trade Deals and Carbon Trading

Inspiration our news page come in many shapes and forms. It may be the time of year, the weather, the future or quite often a question from one of our guests. We have had a busy summer on the campsite and although restricted somewhat by Covid in our interactions there have been lots of questions. A lot is happening in the agricultural world and a lot of it in the public eye.

Thanks to Mr.Clarkson (Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon) the realities of managing a working farm have been brought to a new audience and you’d be hard pushed to find a farmer who didn’t relate to most of the trials Jeremy put himself through. Our guests were very disappointed I didn’t own a Lamborghini and I don’t have a Caleb telling me how to do it. Yes at times there was creative licence but Clarkson did try and portray what most farmers face and was open to the fact that as much as he enjoyed it ,if he didn’t have his extra income from his day job, things would be very tough. This allied to a recent comment I saw “A farm isn’t just a farmer’s workplace, it is his heart and soul”.

Many of the guests had read the reports on recent trade deals with Australia and while at present I do not feel too threatened by them, the precedent set will open the flood gates for other deals that could undermine British Agriculture completely. I appreciate deals like this could work both ways but farming in this country has many more hurdles to jump through that our Australian counterparts don’t, and this is without even touching on their advantages of scale. I’m sure this topic will crop up in future articles, but it is undermining British farmer’s confidence and their willingness to invest in their farming enterprises.

One topic that kept cropping up was carbon trading or offsetting. A few of our guests asked me whether I see our future on the farm as primarily being food producers or will we be sequestering carbon for those industries unable too? Thus offsetting their impact i.e the airline industry. Whilst I am by no means an expert on this subject I think it has along way to go before income is derided from the way I farm, rather than what I produce. We are already someway into our journey of farming in a more sympathetic way and now have an idea of our biodiversity gains but at present this is because I think it is right and the way I like to farm. Whether I will be able to make a living out of it remains to be seen. It was pointed out to me the other day that sequestering carbon will only really slow climate change so if we want to stop it or even reverse it we have to change the way we live or reduce the need to offset it, something for us all to think about.

For those wanting a good read on farming I thoroughly recommend Field Work: What land does to people and what people do to land, by Bella Bathurst.

01 Sep 2021

0 Comments By Anna Brock Animal Welfare, Baby Animals, Biodiversity, Cattle, Climate Change, CO2 Emissions, Countryside, Education, Farming, Farming News, Food, General, Habitat, Summer

Eco Warriers

When walking our livestock fields here is an interesting thing to look out for. ‘Dung beetles’. They help to keep our land cleaner as they break down sheep and cow dung which in turn helps reduce greenhouse emissions. So next time you walk our fields have a look at the cow pats and if they look like this our little black eco warriors are at work.

13 Jul 2021

0 Comments By Anna Brock Biodiversity, Cattle, Climate Change, CO2 Emissions, Communication, Countryside, Education, Farming, Farming News, Food, General, Glamping, Habitat, Luxury Camping, Luxury Camping in Hampshire, Schools, Sheep, Summer, Topical Conversation

What do you Think a Farmer Looks Like?

Throughout a normal year I find myself talking to various groups of children whether guests on the campsite or classes of children. I wouldn’t call myself a natural by any means but with children it is all about keeping it simple.

To break the ice my first question is normally ‘What do YOU think a farmer looks like?’

This normally gets a good response with a good number of hands shooting into the air. Interestingly the answers are always the same – “really old”, “he wears a straw hat”, “always wears wellies”, “grumpy”, “checked shirt”, and my personal favourite, “hairy chest”. And whilst it should be noted that in many cases, they’re quite close to the mark with those descriptions (I confess to owning a few check shirts), it doesn’t really portray the way that we like to see ourselves as part of a modern dynamic and increasingly diverse agricultural industry.

But leaving aside the work we need to do in changing children’s perceptions of us, their answers do often lead me to ponder what the role of a 21^st century farmer really is, and whether we’re in the midst of an identity crisis. My father who was born during the war in an era when the British public were still experiencing rationing has always known his role with absolute certainty – to produce as much food as he can, as efficiently as possible. This he has done successfully for his entire farming career, whilst been backed up by Government.

For most of my career, having been taught to farm in that way both at home and college and on other farms, I thought that was my role too. Why would I question it. In the UK we have the climate, the infrastructure, the technology and the expertise which many other countries do not have so we should be pushing on to produce as much as possible to feed ourselves and export any surplus. A simple business decision.

Now being older and hopefully wiser I have questioned whether I was right to follow this path and what is my role from here? You cannot turn back the clock, but what is the role of today’s farmer? Obviously it is to run a profitable business but we must also leave the land in better condition than we found it, and all this while making a positive contribution to reducing climate change.

All three of these aspirations require long term thinking and solutions, from individual farming families, from the wider agricultural industry, and perhaps most crucially of all, from policy makers. Because if we want those things, if we really value our rural communities and our planet and to help them survive and thrive, then we need to look at what’s working and what isn’t, seriously address the barriers we’re facing, and realise the grave consequences of both inaction and getting it wrong.

03 Feb 2021

0 Comments By Anna Brock Animal Welfare, Biodiversity, Climate Change, CO2 Emissions, Communication, Coronavirus, Countryside, Education, Farming, Farming News, Food, General, Glamping, Habitat, Luxury Camping, Luxury Camping in Hampshire, Schools, Topical Conversation, Winter

Some Science, Interesting Politics and Getting our Food System Right.

Will’s Online Day:

Every year there is a gathering that happens in Oxford to discuss the current trends and future of our agricultural industry. The Oxford Farming Conference has the mission statements of Inform, challenge and inspire in its logo and this the 75^th, certainly didn’t disappoint.

Brexit dominated last years and as nothing had been agreed till just before the title of this years was very apt; Business as Unusual. Of course like so many of these events it had moved onto a virtual platform and I must say didn’t detract too much from the atmosphere of a conference. There was even the facility to network with other delegates in the breaks between lecture’s .

The morning session starts with the politics session. This gives the ministers of the devolved nations their chance to outline future policies and how they might impact the industry. Interestingly George Eustice our current Environment minister chose to boldly give his parties vision of the future with the particular emphasis on technology and how it will benefit the future of food production. The other ministers chose to reassure farmers that policies were there to support the industry through very turbulent times. This different approach by each minister reflects the importance of agriculture to each government.

The trade session had Tim Smith, Chairman of the newly formed Trade and Agricultural Commission previewing their findings. The paper will be launched in February. He was joined by representatives from Arla, Waitrose and Rob Ward who runs an investment fund in Agri tech. Interestingly they all referred to a future culture with sustainability and transparency at the forefront. The other comment worth noting is the customer will be an important part in how trade develops post Brexit.

Commonly known as the ‘Godfather of Sustainability’, John Elkington gave the next lecture. He is well known for his insights into how corporates and supply chains are responding to global sustainability challenges and argues that current practices are not going far enough. He discussed how ‘Regenerative Capitalism’ is changing their mind set’s . I will let you look up the definition but he emphasised this could have big implications on how we produce, distribute and eat food in the UK.

The scene was now set for the science lecture given by Prof Tim Benton who leads the Energy, Environment and Resources Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. His theme was ‘Getting our Food System Right’. He described how our food systems are damaging the planet causing climate change and leading to biodiversity loss, environmental pollution, poor water and soil quality. For me the most profound statement was the damage to our health poor diets was causing. Apparently in 2017 11 million deaths were attributed to poor diets. This is alarming if you compare this with the 1.86 million due to Covid in 2019.

There is a fundamental mismatch in what is grown and what would be an optimal diet. If everybody tried to access all the foods needed for a nutrient rich diet (fruits and vegetables, nut ,fish and pulses) they would be able too. This suggests farming at this moment in time does not provide food that underpins Public Health.

This brings into the question is cheap food really a public good. In simple terms if we had a more varied and wholesome diet this would encourage diversity in crop production and would help create more sustainable food systems. Public Health would be improved and the environmental pressures could be mitigated. We have a long way to go but it feels now we might have the tools to help plot a path and of course we need the consumer to play their part.

Interesting reading

https://www.rethinkx.com/food-and-agriculture

20 Mar 2020

0 Comments By Anna Brock Climate Change, CO2 Emissions, Farming News, Topical Conversation

Farming and Climate Change

A lot has been said about farming and climate change. For years some have argued against the scientific evidence but with 98% of scientists being convinced I tend to believe them especially as it have such a huge impact on what I do.

The general consensus is that world farming has contributed hugely to the emission of climate changing gases. Figures often used attribute 10-20% of all greenhouse emissions worldwide (12 billion tonnes of CO2) could be attributed to farming. As a rule most farmers regard their primary role as a food producer for the world but morally how do we up our production to feed a growing population and also reach the target of Net Zero emissions by 2040?

At present it is beef and milk production that are coming under the worst scrutiny. Certain pressure groups tell us that the methane producing cows are a massively wasteful way to produce food compared to vegetable and plant based food. Beef and dairy can produce up to the equivalent of 7.5tonnes of C02 for every hectare grazed. This could account for 15 million tonnes in the UK alone.Alarming I know but let’s look at the stats for crop production (veg and combinable crops) which can produce up to 7 tonnes of CO2 per hectare. Less you might be thinking but there is considerably more land under arable production in the UK so this would amount to over 18 million tonnes.

These are eye watering figures and could be a reason to panic which is what some pressure groups want us to do. The important words here are ‘up to’ and if we look into the matter in a bit more detail we can find hope.

These figures do not take into account the ‘method of farming’. The beef and milk figures are based on intensive systems used more widely elsewhere in the world e.g beef feedlot or mega dairies, whereas most of UK production is based on grazing systems. On the arable side the figures assume all land is ploughed which can release up to 90% of the total CO2 emissions from the soil itself. A lot of farms including us and our neighbouring farmers now use either minimal cultivation or zero till to plant crops. Both these examples have the potential to reduce the emissions by at least 2 tonnes of CO2 per hectare. Ironically organic farming releases more CO2 because they use the plough method more but they do mitigate this by using less fertiliser and herbicide.

Whilst this article is not full of the joys of spring after a very wet winter what I do want to convey is that when you read statistics on climate change and who is to blame there is more to the story.

I as a farmer feel comfortable that in some cases we should take a share of the blame but I am also proud and excited by the fact that farmers are taking the issue seriously and are leading the drive for change by using more holistic methods as well as new technology.

Who knows in a few years’ time, rather than being the villain we might be heroes and I think UK farmers are already well on their way.