View From Europe


By Colin Ley


From COP26 to feed developments and back again This was always going to be a year of intense climate change debate as we move towards COP26 in Scotland in early November. Having given the issue considerable attention in May, I hadn’t intended to return quite so rapidly to the subject but too much is happening to allow me to take that option. We have also started to enjoy a return to face-to-face farming


and feed industry events, after more than 18 months of Zoom-based presentations (and other formats, of course). The result is that industry watchers are once again able to assess the mood among producers easily and accurately, something which happens more when meeting real people in the middle of a field than is ever possible when you’re looking at a screen. The big difference is that farmers, wandering around the UK’s


recent Cereals event, the first major face-to-face exhibition of the year, had time and space to chat while they were exploring new cropping options or trying to persuade a commercial exhibitor that they were good enough customers to quality for a free lunch. (Or maybe it’s just the press who do that!) Anyway, the early feedback from Cereals was that a clear shift


in attitudes on climate change issues was detected, certainly in terms of the type of production and variety-choice questions farmers were asking.


Practical response to net-zero “Producers are responding at a practical level to the net-zero debate,” said Professor Adrian Newton, Cereal Pathologist/Agroecologist at the James Hutton Institute, Dundee, when I called him after he’d spent a day on the Institute’s event stand at Cereals in Lincolnshire. “Low-input agriculture is now being actively discussed at events


like this, where before the talk tended to centre on which varieties would yield the most and what inputs you needed to give crops in order to maximise output. These are no longer the dominant questions we are being asked, and I’m hearing the same from other researchers. “Today’s growers are much more interested in production


efficiency, wanting to know which varieties do well under systems which target reduced inputs, while also seeking to improve soil quality. Farmers are taking this whole issue very seriously and not just because of a feeling that they are being made to change but also due to seeing there are potential gains to be made as a result.” There was a similar insider report from the farmer debates which


took place during Arable Scotland, still very much online in presentation, but well supported by growers, many of whom, I’m told, placed carbon and net-zero issues at the forefront of their discussions.


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Very calculating Another climate-related development worth noting, this time concerning livestock producers, is the unveiling of a free calculator to help sheep, beef, and deer farmers in New Zealand keep track of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Developed by Beef + Lamb New Zealand, the calculator is largely


designed to help the country’s farmers provide solid evidence to the general public that they are taking responsible action on climate change. “Knowing and managing farm GHG emissions is critical for our


future as a trusted provider of sustainable food,” said NZ Meat Industry Association Chief Executive, Sirma Karapeeva. “We have to front-foot this and show our customers that we are serious about managing our impact on the climate.” The development is interesting in itself, of course, but perhaps more


significant as an expression of farmers’ frustration that producing meat is being demonised due to methane emissions, without any balance being brought to the debate. For example, when I discussed the NZ calculator with David Barron,


chairman of the Scottish Beef Association, he said it ‘wasn’t fair’ that so much of what is being done by farmers to reduce emissions, continues to go un-noticed and un-counted by the general public. He also stressed the need to present Scotland’s beef sector as an


essentially grass-based process, with farmers increasingly moving away from cereal feeding and towards more use of grass. Such a picture, of course, has obvious implications for the compound feed industry, as companies are only too well aware. Gathering the facts and presenting both sides of the GHG farming


story will definitely be crucial for us all, with big decisions to be made in Scotland later this year.


And on the cloud Before moving away from the calculator story, it is worth noting that the NZ development is just the latest ‘cab off the rank’, a point made to me by Anna Sellars, Rural Business Consultant with SAC Consulting, part of Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). Referring to SRUC’s development of its own Agrecalc calculator,


she said we can expect future government support schemes across the UK to pivot payment towards practices and farmers that reduce carbon emissions. “Agrecalc’s ability to create and compare scenarios and test the


effect of mitigation proposals is critical as food supply chains strive to reduce their carbon footprint,” added Ms Sellars. “We’ve long been involved in helping to deliver UK government schemes such as the Beef Efficiency Scheme and the Farm Advisory Service, and we’re seeing more and more demand for similar services outside of Scotland and wider across the industry. We now support many retailers, suppliers, and farmer groups in calculating their emissions, as well as advising on practical carbon mitigation measures and management strategies going forward. “From beef, sheep, dairy, pigs and poultry, to cereals, pulses,


potatoes, forage and soft fruit, Agrecalc provides whole farm and enterprise footprints, supporting the granularity of results and benchmarks


Comment section is sponsored by Compound Feed Engineering Ltd www.cfegroup.com


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