Farmers were told there was no ‘silver bullet’ when it came to reducing emissions on farm and that planning needs to start now.
Tom Gill, Head of Sustainability at Promar International, said farmers needed to start measuring and monitoring their emissions and called on producers to start having conversations with companies about emissions.
“You need to think big, start small and act fast,” he said. “Be more demanding of companies. Let us broaden the conversations we have on the farm to adopt and incorporate a wide set of metrics to what we traditionally have done,” he said at the recent virtual Women in Dairy Conference (30 September).
The starting point he said was to sit down and look at what information is already available.
“If you do milk recording you can get sampling on fatty acids to get a level of the methane emissions; you can get data from feed companies. All these little bits of information can help you.
“For the N (nitrogen) balance, look at what N are you feeding, what is being used by the cow, and what is the proportion of N coming out. Then use that information to say how can I take that information to the next level and then break it down simply.”
Mr Gill also suggested something as simple as conducting a slurry sample for £65 to determine how much bought in fertiliser needs to be spread. “If you can knock out a third off your fertiliser bill then it is money well spent.”
Mr Gill outlined off the shelf tools farmers can use to measure emissions including the Farm Cutting Carbon Tool; Cool Farm Tool and Agri Cow from SRUC.
He said all sectors needed to take responsibility, with the key part from an agricultural point of view looking at the methane emissions.
Current situation
This year, since the pandemic, there has been a drop in emissions from energy and industry by between 2-7%. However, an 8% reduction in emissions was the figure Mr Gill said was needed each year to prevent the global average temperature rise going above 2oC.
“That is the size of the reduction on an annual basis we are starting to look for when it comes to projections going forwards. The question is, how do we do that in an environmentally and socially responsible way?”
Since the 1990’s there has been a 21% reduction in emissions from agriculture. “We will want to see further reductions to maintain our contribution to this global picture.
“Looking at how we manage manures and slurries, and the type and size of the animal we have all can make positive contributions to the reduction of methane within our systems,” he added.
More news from the event can be found at https://www.womenindairy.co.uk/conference