Why collect environmental data?

The collection of environmental data is currently uncoordinated and fragmented, putting farmers at risk of duplication and contradiction or losing ownership of their data.

There are some positive signs, such as the increased coordination between carbon calculators following the publication in February of the ADAS report for Defra (Harmonisation of Carbon Accounting Tools for Agriculture), and funding from some devolved governments for farm-level carbon calculators. However, these do not fully address the issues of trust, data ownership and value.

Furthermore, different customer demands result in different boundaries being drawn around carbon calculations:

• System
• Farm
• Life cycle analysis approach
• National inventory

There is also concern that data from a government-managed system potentially could be used for enforcement or monitoring, undermining trust.

While farmers sharing their environmental data is likely to become a prerequisite for doing business, there is a risk they will give away their ability to use it to generate value from their own carbon credits or to access premium markets.

Supplying data easily is another concern, as many farmers sell their products to multiple customers, whether that is different products (e.g. beef cattle, sheep, wheat, barley) or the same product to different supply chains.

There is potential for each customer to ask for carbon footprint data in slightly different ways or from different carbon calculators.

This becomes time-consuming and costly both to the farmer and the customer and will only increase as businesses start to report on their Scope 3 or indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Farmers are increasingly likely to be asked to provide environmental data to banks and other financial institutions as they come under pressure to show their lending is contributing towards net zero.

Governments require similar data from farmers to inform the National Inventory, moving to reporting based on actual practice on farms and allowing the UK to report progress towards net zero based on changes in practice.

Agriculture has a central role in combining food production with environmental stewardship and there is a need for farming businesses to be rewarded and incentivised for the actions they are undertaking. However, this landscape is currently very complex, as illustrated in this diagram.

On behalf of our levy payers, we will be working with the farming unions, levy bodies and the rest of the industry (including the Food Data Transparency Partnership) across the UK to develop possible solutions.

Our primary focus is on a solution for England, but, because we have levy payers across the UK, we will work with our sister levy boards and all four nations of the UK on their solutions to this challenge and to find a coordinated solution for UK connectivity where necessary.