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This is my chapter 1 and so today I am focussed on expanding the brand and retailers. As the journey unfolds, I will be looking to expand production in my new studio kitchen and I’ve even started research and development for the next range of products. Watch this space 🙂

 

To buy Pestle curry pastes, visit The Ethical Butcher here. 

Follow Neha on Instagram and Facebook.

The environment has always been at the heart of everything we do and we are so proud to be officially certified by the United Nations as carbon neutral, highlighting our commitment to sustainability.

 

What is carbon neutral?

Carbon neutral means achieving net zero carbon dioxide emissions by balancing carbon emissions with carbon removal (often through carbon offsets).

Many large companies and even governments have set carbon neutral goals, typically to achieve carbon neutrality within 10, 20 or even 30 years. Amazon have pledged to be carbon neutral by 2040, the UK government has said they aim to reach this milestone by 2050 and Delta, an American company, have pledged to become the first carbon neutral airline in the next 10 years.

All of these companies have given themselves plenty of time, which can be needed for big corporations. However, we knew that something needed to be done sooner than this. Thanks to our LEAF Marque audits, we have been monitoring our emissions for many years so were in a great position to become carbon neutral a lot sooner. Read on to find out how we became carbon neutral…

 

How did we become carbon neutral?

The first step was measure. This involved us looking at every part of our business, from each employee’s commute to work, to the amount of electricity used in our office and factory, to the fertiliser used on our fields. We calculated the greenhouse gas emissions from each and this gave us our carbon footprint.

We then signed up to the United Nations Climate Neutral Now Initiative Pledge. This pledge showed our commitment to measure, reduce and offset our carbon emissions. This pledge has been signed by many other companies and governments that are prioritising our environment and making a meaningful difference.

 

 

After measure, the next step was reduce. We are constantly working to reduce our emissions and through our LEAF farming practises, we are able to accurately measure this and continue to reduce them. Some of the ways we have reduced our emissions are:

 

– The installation of solar panels on our barn roofs in 2018 which now produce 50% of our total yearly electricity. In the summer months, we are producing a huge 80% of our electricity from the solar panels!

– We have dramatically reduced our fuel usage on the farm by stopping ploughing in 1998 and since then, have continued to reduce this further by using less fertiliser on our fields as the soil health increases and provides more nutrients to the crops. As well as reducing fuel usage, by stopping ploughing, we are actually locking in huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the soil, you can read more about this here.

– We use GPS systems on all our tractors to make them as efficient as possible, lowering our fuel usage and keeping emissions to a minimum.

– We use LED energy saving bulbs and timers on our lights to keep our electricity usage as low as possible too.

 

 

As we are a LEAF farm, we have a yearly audit to ensure we are doing the best to farm in harmony with nature, and we are always working to find new ways to reduce our emissions and our impact on nature!

The next step in our carbon neutral journey was to offset our remaining emissions. We used United Nations approved offsets and have been able to support a reforestation initiative in Uruguay and a United Nations clean energy project.

With this last step completed, we became certified as carbon neutral in January 2020 and received the Carbon Neutral Gold Standard from the United Nations!

 

What’s next?

Becoming carbon neutral is a fantastic achievement, but we aren’t going to stop there. We aim to be carbon negative, that means we will be absorbing more carbon from the atmosphere than we put into it, so we would be removing carbon rather than adding it.

In order to become officially certified as carbon neutral, we had to use the United Nation’s way of calculating net carbon emissions. this unfortunately meant we could not take into account all the incredible work we do with our soils as the carbon stored in soils is not yet officially recognised as a carbon store. From our own calculations, if this was taken into account, we would already be carbon negative!

Duncan is now involved in European project to find an internationally accepted, verifiable and certifiable method of measuring soil organic content on a continental scale, encouraging farmers and land managers to adopt carbon capturing methods improve their soil carbon content. The project aims to empower farmers to become agents of climate mitigation, where soil carbon and health will become a financial asset for the farmer and provide natural capital for the wider society by reducing global carbon emissions.

 

 

Every year at the start of August, farmers are encouraged to share their day online as part of 24 Hours in Farming #Farm24. We took part again this year and shared all the goings on from Bottom Farm.

 

First, we headed out to find Marvin cultivating. This field was growing wheat this year which has now been harvested, we leave the wheat stubble in the field to biodegrade and nourish the soil. We are planning on planting beans in this field in October and beans need to be planted quite deep into the ground. Marvin has to cultivate the soil to loosen the top layer to make it possible for us to plant the beans. This is a big field and the cultivator needs to be driven quite slowly so this will take the majority of the day!

 

We then headed back to the farm yard, passing the combine harvester which is having a rest until the spring barley is ready to be harvested.

Here are the wild flowers we have growing around our spring barley. These flowers provide habitats for insects and is great for pollinators.

We even have these beautiful daisies in the wildflower meadow margins, and Duncan explained these are actually chamomile for making into tea!

The last stop on our way back to the farmyard was these trees. Duncan planted them back in 1989 and they are just a few of the 8000 trees he has planted on the farm over the years.

Heading into our rapeseed oil production area, we watched the team pressing and bottling our Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil. We cold press our rapeseed on our farm. Our presses run 24/7 to produce Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil for kitchens up and down the country! We call it the process of no process. Simply sow, grow, press and bottle!

 

We harvested our rapeseed a few weeks ago and this what the little seeds look like. They’re bright yellow inside and packed full of delicious and nutritious oil!

After lunch, Duncan headed out to do some mowing. Tidying up the edges of fields already combined and making sure the various public footpaths we have going through the farm are clear and accessible for people on their daily walks!

Before we harvest the wheat, we need to check the moisture content, still a few more days of sunshine needed for this field! Duncan is winnowing here – blowing air through the wheat to remove the chaff!

We then left Marvin finishing off the cultivating and that was our day!

 

We had a great time sharing our day on the farm and we hope you enjoyed getting an insight into British farming! See you next year!

This month is #PlasticFreeJuly and we thought it was the perfect opportunity to share our plastic neutral story…

The environment has always been at the heart of everything we do and earlier this year we took the next step in our sustainability journey and became plastic neutral! Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly what this means, read on and we’ll explain. 

Becoming plastic neutral is a lot like becoming carbon neutral which is more commonly understood (and something we have also achieved, read more here) but the general idea is that we now fund the removal of the same amount of plastic from the environment as we use in our packaging, meaning Farrington’s Mellow Yellow is certified as plastic neutral.

MEASURE

The first step in becoming plastic neutral was to measure our plastic footprint. We looked at our products and how they are sent out and started listing all the plastic used at each stage. As our bottles are glass with a metal cap, there isn’t a huge amount of plastic on the product itself, but, for example, the label is plastic, as is the little pourer inside our cap. We also had to look at the way we send out our products. When sending large quantities of our glass bottles to supermarkets, we have to wrap each pallet in plastic wrap to stop breakages which would lead to food waste, so this plastic had to be counted.

Once we had a list of all the plastic used, we worked out how much each item weighed and how much of it we use in a year, and this created our yearly plastic footprint. With this figure, we had a really accurate representation of the amount of plastic that we, as a company, are putting into the environment each year. This is our plastic footprint.

OFFSET

Once we had our plastic footprint, we got in touch with rePurpose Global. rePurpose Global are a global community of conscious consumers and business that are committed to taking action against climate change.

rePurpose partnered us with a recycling project in India so that we could directly fund the removal of the equivalent weight of plastic as our plastic footprint. 

 

 

rePurpose work with vetted recycling projects tackling the waste crisis in India. A lot of the plastic they are removing from the environment is typically low-value plastic, which recyclers don’t often want to collect as it doesn’t bring them as much money. However, this plastic (such as crisps and chocolate wrappers) is incredibly polluting, especially when it reaches our oceans. rePurpose enables the ethical collection and recycling of this plastic, paying the waste workers a fair wage and giving them proper employment opportunities.

We are tackling a global issue, a lot of the UK’s waste is unfortunately exported to developing countries where it is sent to landfill or ends up in our oceans, so working with rePurpose is helping to finance crucial recycling infrastructure and improving wages and working conditions of waste pickers in India. 

 

 

REDUCE

The next step is to gradually reduce our plastic footprint year on year. We are deeply committed to sustainability, so are searching for the most environmentally friendly options for our packaging. We know that sometimes removing plastic and replacing it with other materials isn’t always ultimately the best option for the planet. For example, plastic bags have the lowest carbon footprint of shopping bags, as long as they are reused many times, whereas a paper bag requires more energy to produce and isn’t as reusable. So when we look at reducing our plastic footprint, it is incredibly important to us that all environmental aspects are considered and the best option is chosen. We are working hard to find the best solutions, so make sure to keep reading our blog posts for more updates! 

 

If you would like to work out your own plastic footprint, rePurpose have a simple calculator for you here and even have options for individuals to offset their personal footprints and become plastic neutral. 

We’ve all been affected by the pandemic in some way. At Farrington Oils, most of our office is now working from home, which has allowed our production team and core office staff to remain on the farm producing food for you, safely.

We know how difficult it has been to be isolated from our friends and families. We have found, however, that food and cooking has bought us together, from afar. We’ve loved trying new recipes and sharing hints and tips with our followers, but we wanted to do more. So we set up a giveaway of 20 Mellow Yellow gift sets. We asked our followers on social media to nominate a friend, family member or neighbour that they missed sharing a meal with to receive one of these gift sets.

We were overwhelmed by the incredible nominations we received. Hundreds of heartfelt messages about key workers, missed family members and friends and those going out of their way to support others. We randomly selected 20 winners and sent a Mellow Yellow gift set to their nominee. After reading all the amazing nominations, we wanted to share some all the amazing winner’s stories.

Here are our winning isolation nominations…

• Samantha nominated her friend Karl as she was missing their weekly meals together.
• Chloe, who has been working so hard at her school looking after the children, was nominated by Tracey who is missing her and looking forward to when they can spend family time together again.
• Karin nominated her son Sam as he was supposed to be getting married this year to his lovely fiancee Kav but the wedding has had to be postponed. 
• Cheryl chose to nominate her mother in law Maureen. Although Maureen is old enough to retire she has carried on working as a hospital cleaner, going in doing early morning shifts to make sure the frontline staff can work in a clean environment.
• Ann nominated her friend Louise as she has been there for her throughout lockdown.
• Jury was nominated by her daughter Gayatri for doing a fantastic job teaching throughout lockdown.
• Donald was nominated by his sister. Donald and his wife Gillian both work for the NHS in Scotland and love to cook.
• Ann nominated her neighbour Rosemary. They regularly share home grown produce and Ann is hopping Rosemary will bake her something with the oil in the gift set!
• Ian nominated his daughter Rebecca who throughout the lock down has been serving the general public in her role at Waitrose and also keeping an eye on her elderly neighbours to make sure they have everything they need.
• June wanted to nominate her daughter in law Sarah as a thank you for doing June and her husbands shopping and looking after them as they have been unable to leave the house due to being in the vulnerable category.
• Stephen nominated Leeann as he hoped it would help her get into baking and discover the wonders of banana bread.
• Fiona chose to nominate her friend Hannah who is kind, lovely and working hard for the NHS. Hannah works long hours as a nurse at a hospital in Dorset and Fiona is so proud of Hannah working through these difficult times. She is looking forward to their regular meet ups and meals with Lizi, Immie and Holly when this awful virus has cleared.
• Claire was nominated by Catherine as she is a frontline key worker who went into work on her day off to create a beautiful rainbow mural to lift spirits.
• Sam nominated Sara, his best friend, who turned 50 in March. They have had to put her birthday celebrations on hold until the lockdown is over.
• Mandy was nominated by Alan as she has spent lockdown cooking for her large family and deserved a treat.
• Christina nominated Elizabeth who is a key worker, filling our supermarket shelves day after day on long shifts.  She is a mum of 3 and on top of that she does 3 lots of shopping for her elderly neighbours, baking cakes for them and sharing good advice to keep their spirits high. 
• Kerry nominated her auntie Cheryl as she misses her lots.
• Peter wanted to give Andrea a pick me up as she on lockdown with a severe long term illness.
• Sharon was nominated for being an amazing friend and continuing to make everyone smile every day despite how hard it may be.
• Catherine was nominated by her Mum for her tireless commitment as a hospital doctor in central Birmingham, away from family and working in the thick of Covid-19 with a punishing work rota. She got engaged the day before lockdown, but sadly no opportunity for celebrations!

 

 

We hope everyone is continuing to stay safe and we look forward to being able to share meals with our loved ones again soon!

Here at Farrington Oils, we were incredibly proud to become the world’s first company to be certified as both carbon and plastic neutral earlier this year. As a small company, we were over the moon to have achieved a world-first! Especially as this ground-breaking achievement acknowledged our environmental credentials, something we all are very passionate about. As a business, Farrington Oils is now carbon and plastic neutral, so as employees we all felt that we could and should be measuring our personal carbon & plastic footprints and working to reduce our environmental impact.

Here we have a look at various members of the Farrington’s teams personal carbon and plastic footprints and hear how they have been working to reduce their environmental impact…

 

Rachel, Sales

Carbon: 5.04tonnes

Plastic: 69.59kg

I like to think I am a fairly careful person and try to avoid waste where I can, I like to cook from scratch, keep an eye on the heating and hot water and switch off lights that aren’t being used. With so much information in the media and with Duncan talking more about it at work, I have realised there is a lot that me and my family can do, small changes will add up to make a significant difference. 

I’m a big tea drinker and at home fill the kettle and then work my way through the water in the kettle during the day, I was shocked when I realised how wasteful I was being with this and now only heat the water I need each time. I am gradually changing my family meals, we are already quite healthy but I want to move to a more sustainable diet, so we are eating more meat free meals, buying British meat from the local butcher whenever we can, and eating more fish from a sustainable source. 

My plastic footprint was a big surprise – I eat a lot of fruit, salad and vegetables from the supermarket which are packed in plastic. I’ve found a link on my local council’s website to the company they use for our recycling and very detailed information on what can and can’t be recycled so I’m going to use this to improve the amount of packaging I recycle and to help make decisions when buying items based on their packaging. My local school has a recycling collection point for toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and crisp packets too which I have started to use.

I’ve learnt recently that plastic bags can be reused until they wear out and use 3 time less energy than paper bags and 113 times less energy than cotton bags to make, they were invented for reuse but as a society we have decided to treat them like single use items rather than seeing the value in them, so I am also trying to focus more on the ‘reuse’ part of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’.

 

Emily, Sales

Carbon: 8.21tonnes

Plastic: 64.28kg

I was really surprised that both my carbon and plastic footprint were so high. I no longer use single use plastic drinks and use refillable cups and water bottles. I buy food in larger packs, batch cook and freeze to reduce waste. I could go to a butcher that supplies meat in brown wrapping paper, but my local butcher uses plastic bags, which aren’t recyclable. I think producers, shops and supermarkets need to continue to work on giving consumers more sustainable options. I also ensure that all my electric appliances are A grade and all my light bulbs are low energy.

 

Becs, Technical

Carbon: 9.23tonnes

Plastic: 58.63kg

I have a lifelong interest in sport and health and in recent years the natural progression from this has been to extend into a consideration for the environment and sustainability through an appreciation for energy expenditure and time spent enjoying the outdoors on my feet or bike. Though I have also recently come to realise that I have a genetic trait to see the value in all things and materials based on an unwanted tendency to hoard!

 

Sustainability was a factor in my decision to become vegetarian 10 years ago and also attracted me to working at Farrington Oils. At times my other interests such as seeing more of the world conflict with sustainability – international travel is definitely the largest of my footprints. I will make a conscious effort look at options to reduce this / offset in the future. On a smaller scale I am lucky that I enjoy cycling will continue to commute to work by bike (a 25 mile round trip) when I can –  aiming for an average of twice per week over the year.

 

My next effort will be to reduce my consumption of convenience drinks whether hot or cold. With good planning I should be able to reduce this, though I will struggle to not see a convenience drink as a treat and will need to be creative to find ways to achieve this sustainably.

 

Gina, Marketing

Carbon: 5.91tonnes

Plastic: 44.73kg

My house is the highest part of my carbon footprint. Being a very old house with a fairly old boiler, it probably isn’t the most energy efficient. But I have had a smart meter and smart thermostat installed so I can keep a track of energy usage and ensure the heating is not on when it isn’t needed.

I’ve been trying to reduce the plastic footprint of my food shops by making much more from scratch. During the colder months, I make soup each week for my lunches (storing it in reusable containers), I’ve been making my own sourdough bread (with flour bought from a refill shop near to my house) and generally trying to make as much from scratch as I possibly can so I only need to buy fresh ingredients which helps reduce packaging (especially when buying loose fruit and veg). I have also swapped my shampoo in plastic bottles for plastic-free, vegan shampoo bars from Lush.

I now take a reusable water bottle and reusable coffee cup out with me so I never need to buy drinks in disposable packaging. Once you get into the habit of doing things like this, it’s actually super easy, plus, many coffee shops offer discounts when you use your own cup!

 

 

 

Living sustainably is important to all members of our team, we even have Steve and Kevin lift sharing every day to halve the carbon footprint of their commute and Jo drives an electric vehicle to work a few days a week and has purchased an electric bike to cycle to work in the warmer months. Of course, Duncan’s commute is the most environmentally friendly, as he walks 5 minutes from his front door to the office, truly net-zero! 

 

As we all work to continue to reduce our carbon and plastic footprints, plus produce our award-winning carbon & plastic neutral cold pressed rapeseed oil and dressings, we hope to see more companies taking these steps to look after our environment! If you would like to work out your own environmental impact, the carbon footprint calculator is here and the plastic footprint calculator is here. Let us know your sustainable tips by getting in touch on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or email.

Soil health is a big part of sustainable farming and I have been measuring this on one of my fields since 2002. Among the great soil nutrition and health improvements seen in this field due to my sustainable farming practices, I have farmed in a way that has increased soil organic matter (SOM) which has a direct impact on reducing atmospheric CO2 levels. Between 2002 and 2020 I have seen my SOM increase from 3.8% to 6.7% which is a significant amount when talking about soil!

 

What is Soil Organic Matter?

Soil organic matter is the organic part of soils consisting of plant and animal detritus at various stages of decomposition. Think of dead leaves off trees, straw left behind after crops have been harvested, decaying soil microbes and insects, or old plant roots in the soil.

The organic matter is made up of cells and molecules containing lots of carbon and it can be lost from soils over the years through natural processes, which is sped up if soils are moved intensively, mixing with oxygen in the atmosphere and released as carbon dioxide (CO2). Commonly this occurs when a field is ploughed.

We no longer plough our fields and have worked hard on our sustainable farming methods to keep the carbon in the soil. In the right conditions SOM can be increased over the years, as plants grow, taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to create plant material through the natural process of photosynthesis. The process of taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing in the soil is called carbon sequestration and the soil becomes a carbon sink as it reduces the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Soils have the ability to be fantastic carbon sinks when looked after. In fact, coal and mineral oils that are mined from the ground (fossil fuels) are carbon that has been stored from hundreds of millions of years ago, formed from decayed plants and animals that once grew and roamed the earth.

 

 

How does this relate to our farm?

On my field called ‘Below the Black Barn’ the increase in soil organic matter has removed CO2 from the atmosphere, locking it in the ground which is great for reducing global warming as well as making the soil more nutritious for the plants to grow in. The figures are very impressive. We know that for every 0.1% increase in SOM, around 8.9 tonnes of CO2 are sequestered on every hectare of land.

 

But what does this actually mean?

If my field has increased the total SOM by 2.9% over 18 years, it has absorbed around 258 tonnes of CO2 per hectare (ha), or 14.34 tonnes per ha per year on average. One hectare is around the same size as one and a quarter football pitches.

To put this into context, driving a 1.5lt petrol Mini (our Mellow Yellow Mini) car produces 117g of CO2 per Km. So, for every hectare of our field we are absorbing enough CO2 to off-set nearly 122,554km of motoring, which is equivalent to over 10 years driving for the average motorist!

 

Let’s look at the whole farm…

This is just off one hectare, but Below the Black Barn Field has a cropped area of around 20ha and our whole farm cropped area is around 272ha. Therefore, from the way we farm our soils, we are sequestering an impressive 3900 tonnes of CO2 per year, off-setting enough CO2 to fly one person 500 times around the world in economy class! (or take 2,778 cars off the road) each year.

 

 

The story does not end with the cropped area

We have a medium sized family farm, which not only includes the cropped area, but all the other bits we do around the edges of our fields as part of our LEAF farming and sustainable farming practises. These include areas of woodland and hedges, a grass meadow, areas of native wild-flowers and grass margins. Over the years we have planted well over 8,000 metres of new hedges and over 8,000 native trees on the farm to add to the existing trees and hedges. All these conservation areas can be calculated to sequester a further 240 tonnes of CO2 per year, as well as being areas for wildlife to thrive and prosper.

In summary on our medium sized family farm in Northamptonshire, following our LEAF and sustainable farming principles of a common-sense approach to sustainable agriculture and soil management, we are absorbing over 4,100 tonnes of CO2 per year, which is equivalent to an awful lot of car journeys or air miles.  If all farmers around the world were to farm in a similar manner, there is the potential to offset all the global carbon emissions created by global transport, which is about 30% of the carbon dioxide emitted. Or another way of looking at it, by increasing soil organic matter content from 1.7% to 5.2% on agricultural land globally, would take 1 trillion tons (0.9 trillion tonnes) of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, bringing it down to pre-industrial levels.

The good news is that we are not the only people practicing some fantastic sustainable farming techniques growing quality crops, livestock and wildlife habitats on our farm. As well as pressing rapeseed grown on our farm, we buy seed off four other LEAF Marque farmers who are just as passionate as we are in the way they farm. So, between us we are all doing our bit to preserve and protect the planet for future generations.

 

Further reading, in no particular order:

Montgomery. D.A, 2017. Growing a Revolution, Bringing our soil back to life. (Available from Amazon here.)

www.farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk

www.indigoag.com/the-terraton-challenge

www.co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new

www.soilquality.org.au/factsheets/organic-carbon

www.cereals.ahdb.org.uk/media/176733/g57_understanding_carbon_footprinting_for_cereals_and_oilseeds.pdf

www.theguardian.com/money/2019/jan/14/average-uk-car-mileage-falls-again-on-back-of-higher-petrol-prices

www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en

The environment has always been at the heart of everything we do, which is why LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) is so important to us. As a LEAF Demonstration farm and LEAF Marque producer, we are so proud of the work the LEAF team do to encourage other farmers to take a more sustainable approach to their farms.

 

Here, Caroline Drummond, Chief Executive of LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) talks about early beginnings, driving forward more sustainable farming and connecting communities…

 

Our Roots

 

LEAF celebrates its 30th anniversary next year. We began life in 1991 with a tiny office at the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE) at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire and one very ancient computer! Initially set up as a three-year project, with seed funding for only three years, we had to become self-financing. And we did just that! The focus in those early days was to set up a national network of LEAF Demonstration Farms – to showcase sustainable farming in action. We launched five farms in that first year and created a membership offer that farmers could sign up to.

 

 

LEAF was set up to do two things: to promote sustainable farming through Integrated Crop Management (ICM) which, as more livestock farmers came on board, later became Integrated Farm Management (IFM) and secondly, to raise public awareness of what farmers were doing to farm with environmental care. LEAF has grown to become a global leader in delivering more sustainable farming and those two objectives remain as true today as they did then.

 

Sustainable Farming Through IFM

 

Consumers increasingly want to know more about what they feed their families; they want to eat healthily; they want to know where their food has come from and how it was produced; they want assurance of its sustainable credentials. As people started to visit our growing network of Demonstration Farms, they were asking where they could buy food they were seeing bring grown. This heralded the beginnings of LEAF Marque – our environmental assurance system.

 

Today we work in 27 countries with over 900 LEAF Marque certified businesses worldwide and over 40% of UK grown fruit and vegetables is grown on LEAF Marque farms. Farrington’s Mellow Yellow were one of the early trailblazers as both a LEAF Demonstration Farm and one of the earliest adopters of LEAF Marque – the first rapeseed oil to be LEAF Marque certified!

 

 

We are hugely proud to have worked with the Farrington’s team over so many years. Their commitment to LEAF and all we stand for, has recently been demonstrated with them becoming the world’s first carbon and plastic neutral food brand.

 

Building Connections

 

People have always been at the heart of LEAF’s vision of a world that is farming, eating and living sustainably. Building knowledge and understanding of sustainable farming helps highlight the connections between all living things – soil, plants, animals and people. This understanding gives rise to an attitude of responsibility and care. As a LEAF Demonstration Farm and LEAF Open Farm Sunday host farmer, Farrington’s Mellow Yellow welcomes people from all walks of life to experience farming first hand. Bringing people closer to farming and how their food is produced is opening people’s eyes to the importance of sustainable farming and, in turn, encouraging them to make more sustainable food choices.

 

 

The way forward

 

Reflecting over nearly three decades, LEAF has come a long way! We haven’t achieved this growth alone. There is no magic bullet to optimising sustainable food production. It requires collective efforts of farmers, governments, retailers, NGO’s, scientists and individuals. All of us working together to achieve shared outcomes – more productive soils, cleaner water and air, greater biodiversity, efficient energy use and improved connections with people, farming and the natural world.

The partnerships LEAF has built over its nearly 30-year history will be key as we navigate the next critical few years.

www.leafuk.org

 

On a very wet Sunday in February, with Storm Dennis doing his best to ruin the weekend, we were joined by 30 local volunteers in waterproofs and wellies to tackle climate change head on for our tree planting day.

Trees are the lungs of our planet, they absorb carbon, fight flooding, reduce pollution, nurture wildlife and enhance the beautiful English countryside. Since 1987, we have planted over 8,000 trees on the farm and this time, we thought we would ask the local community for their help with our next tree planting effort.

 

 

With the support of The Woodland Trust, we were advised to choose trees that suited the wet conditions of the area the trees would be planted in. They suggested hawthorn, crab apple, hazel, goat willow and holly, which will grow to create a wild wood area. We bought the trees from The Woodland Trust, they sell small saplings that are UK sourced and grown to help prevent the spread of trees diseases and pests. By buying trees from The Woodland Trust, it helps support the fantastic work they do in protecting, restoring and creating the UK’s woodlands. To buy your own trees from The Woodland Trust, visit their shop here. 

 

 

To start the day off, all our volunteers gathered in our grain store and were served delicious tea and coffee from local coffee roastery, No. 13 Coffee. They roast their own beans in nearby Kettering and then serve their coffee from a converted horse box, which is solar powered! Eli Farrington made a wonderful selection of cakes, all using Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil. With everyone settled with a hot drink and slice of cake, Duncan explained why planting trees is so important and the correct tree planting technique. Then it was time to head out into the rain. Armed with spades and umbrellas, we handed out the saplings and our trusty volunteers got digging!

By the time all the trees were in the ground, everyone was pretty wet and cold, so we went straight back to the grain store to enjoy another hot drink from No. 13 Coffee and another slice of cake, after all, we had earned it!

 

 

The weather didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits and we hope all our volunteers had a nice time. Trees absorb carbon dioxide all their life, but are most efficient during their teenage to middle age years. So for the next few years, these trees will focus on growing and then in about 10 years, will start really making a difference to global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Planting trees is a true investment for the future of our planet, so we are incredibly grateful for all our volunteers and the help they provided! If you want to learn more about why planting trees is so important, have a read of this blog post.

If you want to plant your own trees or attend a tree planting day, visit The Woodland Trust’s website.

What is carbon sequestration?

“Carbon sequestration is the long-term removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to be stored in plants, soils, geologic formations or oceans.”

 

This sentence very simply defines what carbon sequestration is, but I will explain a bit more about what it actually means and how soils and sustainable farming practices can have a major impact on reducing global warming by reducing the carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere.

 

Soil carbon sequestration is a natural process powered by growing plants, through the process of photosynthesis. Plants photosynthesise with the energy from sunlight, taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and converting this into new plant material, both above and below the soil surface, locking up the carbon and releasing the oxygen back to the atmosphere. The process works in symbiosis with the minerals, water, bacteria, fungi and other organisms in the soil. Plants grow, die and decay, feeding the soil and the life within it. Over the long term, CO2 is removed from the atmosphere, locked into the soil and, stored in the plants. This is carbon sequestration and the soil is known as a carbon sink.

 

What is soil?

Soils are naturally made up of four different components, a typical soil consists of:

50% Mineral

20-25% Water

20-25% Air

1 to 12% Organic matter

 

Obviously, the specific percentages will vary from one soil to another and whether or not it is in wet or dry conditions for example. In winter soils will contain more water than in the summer. The organic matter is made up from all the living and dead material: bacteria, plant roots, dead leaf litter and animal manure for example. This organic matter is full of carbon that is locked in the soil. Different soils will have different soil organic matter (SOM) contents and therefore different carbon contents. For example, a sandy soil will have a low SOM of around 1%, where as a peat-based soil will be at the top end, with clay soils somewhere in between.

 

A bit of soil history

Around 10,000 years ago man evolved from being a hunter gatherer to a farmer as they started growing crops and grazing animals. They managed the soils, changing the natural habitat to one more favourable to their needs. Right from the first farmers, man has not been very successful at looking after our soils. In fact, every empire in human history has eventually failed due to starvation, mainly bought about by soil degradation. From the Roman Empire, to the more recent collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

President Franklin Roosevelt once stated, “A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.” Wise words indeed, based on thousands of years of proof. However, when Roosevelt made this statement, he was probably thinking of the dust bowls in the mid-west of the American prairies and the loss of the natural habitat caused by farmers ploughing up their land to grow crops. He was very aware of the nutritious soil literally being blown away and was no doubt aware that unless farming practices changed, in time this land would not be able to produce food. But he was probably not aware that the general degradation of the soil was also releasing many thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, adding to what we know today as Global Warming.

 

Traditionally farmers plough the land, a process to turn the soil over to create good conditions in which to plant the following crop or pasture. However, when the soil is moved intensely as it is in ploughing, the carbon that is locked into that soil is suddenly exposed to our oxygen-rich atmosphere, resulting in the carbon combining with the oxygen to make carbon dioxide, which is released into the atmosphere. At this point the soil changes from being a carbon sink (removing CO2 from the atmosphere) to become a carbon source (releasing CO2 into the atmosphere). Over a few short decades, soils will lose their carbon content and thus reduce the soil organic matter, not only releasing global warming CO2, but also making the soil less nutritious and resilient to extreme weather conditions, which is not good for the farmer.

 

How are we improving our soils on Bottom Farm?

There is a better way we can grow our crops and graze our animals, using sustainable practises carried out by the likes of LEAF farmers (Linking Environment And Farming). These sustainable farming practises have three crucial but simple requirements to make soils healthy:

– Reduce soil disturbance from intensive cultivation and ploughing

– Keep something growing in the soil all year

– Vary the crops and livestock grown on the soil

 

By reducing cultivation, and especially ploughing of the soil, the loss of CO2 is greatly reduced. By keeping something growing in the soil as long as possible, not only are the plants utilising the power of the sun, photosynthesising and actively absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere, but the roots are feeding all the microbes in the soil to keep a healthy biodiversity. Finally, by varying the crops and livestock grown on the soil, the farmer better mimics what would happen in nature keeping the soil in good health.

 

If farmers follow these simple principles, they can again turn the soil back into a carbon sink, sequestering carbon in the soil and increasing the soil organic matter. I have done this on our farm over the last two decades and on one field which I have been monitoring, I have increased the soil organic matter from 3.8% to 6.3% between 2002 and 2016. To put this into context, if every farmer around the world practiced sustainable soil principles, our soils have the ability to remove 1 trillion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, taking us back to pre-industrial levels. So, the prize is extremely big and very worthwhile aiming for.