How can farming become carbon neutral?

He hosts AHDB’s Malmesbury Monitor Farm and is about to enter his third and final year of meetings.

Following the NFU’s statement that farming is to become carbon neutral by 2040, Roger believes December’s planned session with Becky Wilson, Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit officer, is particularly timely.

“In our final year I am most interested to learn how farming can become carbon neutral,” he said.

Roger has held meetings for other farmers at his business, Lower Odd Farm, since June 2017, as part of AHDB’s Monitor Farm programme.

“Other farmers continue to comment on how brave I was to expose the farm/business to all as a Monitor Farm. Like myself many can’t quite believe that we’re about to begin the third and final year, it won’t only be me that will miss the meetings.

“We’ve got a wide range of topics for this winter’s meetings, all of which will hopefully help farmers take their businesses forward in what currently are very uncertain times.”

AHDB Knowledge Exchange Manager Philip Dolbear helps Roger and the Monitor Farm steering group to plan meetings at the farm.

Philip said: “As an industry we need to take a longer term approach to how we farm; to take account of the bigger environmental picture and farmers’ place in it. Farms become ever more technical and expensive and we need to know which items of technology will help solve problems, reduce cost base, increase productivity or efficiency and provide a return on investment.”

The four winter meetings at Malmesbury Monitor Farm are:

• Soil physics, chemistry and biology: 4 November 2019
• Profitable rotations: 2 December 2019
• Zero carbon farming: 3 February 2020
• Technology farming – what next? 2 March 2020

For more information, visit ahdb.org.uk/farm-excellence/malmesbury