Adam Twine, a founder and director of the Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit, has been nominated for the 2013 Farmers Weekly Awards Green Farmer of the Year.

The full article can be read here, but below is the Farmers Weekly’s profile by Gemma Mackenzie:

FCCT's Adam Twine

Many would think overseeing and directing the planning and construction of the UK's largest community-owned wind farm would constitute "doing your bit" for green energy generation. However, for Adam Twine, this was only the beginning.

Building on the success and learning behind the 6.5MW wind farm - installed five years ago following 12 years of relentless work to get the community on board, as well as an expensive and lengthy planning process - Adam has gone further and created the largest community-owned solar farm in the UK on his 485ha organic farm.

Sitting alongside the five 1.3MW turbines, which are owned by more than 2,500 people through the Westmill Wind Co-op, a total of 5MW of ground-mounted solar PV was installed in July 2011.

The solar farm is owned by 1,600 people, as part of the Westmill Solar Co-op, with finance arranged through a novel debt funding model in the form of a 25-year £10m bond from a county council pension fund.

The wind farm generates approximately 11GWh/year, while the solar array generates 4.8GWh/year. Combined, the two projects have CO2 savings equivalent to 3,900 homes' annual electricity use.

As a result of these two community-owned projects, more than 7,000 people have visited the farm through the Westmill Sustainable Energy Trust - a sustainability charity mainly funded by the wind farm, with Adam acting as an advisor.

The aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and raise awareness of renewables within a 25-mile radius of the farm. In his advisory role, Adam is assisting the local parish council on both energy reduction and solar PV installation.

"It's about making a low-carbon future," says Adam. "The aim is to inspire and inform."

Smaller-scale green energy efforts on the mixed beef, dairy and arable enterprise include 30kW of roof-mounted solar PV installed a year ago to feed into farm electricity use, as well as off-grid solar panels installed more than 15 years ago to pump dirty water to a reed bed system designed for cleaning dairy yard washings.

Adam says the two drivers behind these projects were to diversify farm income streams and also to extend his personal climate change campaigning work.

Future aspirations include plans to replace farm vehicles with electric ones to harness the energy produced by the solar PV, the possibility of installing a ground-source heating system in the loose-housed dairy shed and installation of a waste heat recovery system in the dairy later this year.

He is working with the National Trust - 300ha of the farm is owned by the trust, with Adam and his family on a lifetime tenancy - to upgrade farm cottages and make them more energy efficient.

Natural resource use is also paramount on the farm and a borehole, dug last year, has cut the farm's mains water consumption by 50%. Adam has also made the conscious decision to only purchase fertiliser from factories with guaranteed nitrous oxide abatement technology.

He also hopes to try to reduce emissions by trying different soil cultivation techniques, with the added benefit of using less diesel.

"We mill and mix our own oats and beans to reduce the amount of imported feedstocks brought onto the farm and do not use soya, which can be associated with high greenhouse gas emissions, associated with land use change overseas," says Adam.

In a bid to extend his knowledge, passion and enthusiasm to other farmers, Adam was involved in setting up the Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit (FCCT) in 2009. A not-for-profit organisation, the FCCT aims to provide support and free advice to farmers about reducing farm greenhouse gas emissions.

He also speaks regularly at farmer events to promote on-farm renewables, occasionally takes part in Open Farm Sunday and the farm is under an HLS agreement, with trees, hedgerows and wild flowers being planted.

Soil helps to store a third of the carbon on Earth, so using cover crops to keep more of that carbon underground could help farmers of all kinds to slow the pace of climate change.

Researchers in America may have proven what organic farmers knew all along: organically farmed soil stores more carbon than soil farmed by non-organic methods.

In research reported on ClimateWire, scientists from Michigan State University believe that a group of chemicals known as phenolics - found in high levels in cover crops like legumes - are responsible for helping store more carbon in the soil of organic fields than conventional ones.

Cover Crops add valuable nutrients to the soil, reducing fertiliser use

The researchers from Michigan State’s Kellogg Biological Station tested fields that had been farmed organically, without additional chemicals, and fields that had been treated with typical amounts of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. They also tested plots that used a third of the chemicals of the conventional system. They measured the activity of the plots for a period of 20 years.

Where a no-till method was being adopted, the larger soil particles helped to stop carbon dioxide from leaving the soil, so these fields retained more carbon.  But the organic fields were ploughed, breaking up the larger soil particles, and they still retained higher levels of carbon than conventional fields.

The researchers believe that the phenolic compounds coming from cover crops are what allowed the organically farmed soil to store more carbon:

“Phenolic compounds enter the soil when farmers plant cover crops like beans and legumes that enrich the soil with nitrogen before planting. These compounds create a barrier around the carbon in the soil, protecting the carbon from microbes that process it into carbon dioxide gas.”

While organic farmers are not the only ones to use cover crops on their fields, because they rely on them much more than non-organic growers to fix nitrogen into their soil, their fields store more carbon. The findings could lead to a new ways to cut Greenhouse Gas emissions within the agriculture sector.

Jonathan Smith, a director of the Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit, said:

“Here at the FCCT, we would encourage farmers and growers to use green manures (cover crops) where practically possible. Leguminous species like clover can fix vast amounts of Nitrogen for free, whilst building up the organic matter levels in soils (SOM). Increases in SOM are good all round – better soils, better yields and more carbon sequestered. 1 ha of soil that increases SOM by 0.1% per year, which is perfectly feasible, sequesters nearly 9 tonnes of CO2 per year. Green manures are a great tool for building SOM levels.”

Trees have so many benefits on farms, from wildlife habitat to source of timber, aesthetic value and carbon absorbers. It is this latter point that is of greatest interest to Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit, for a hectare of broadleaf woodland can sequester anywhere between 1 and 35 tonnes of CO2 per hectare, depending on age and species.

It's therefore very encouraging that the Woodland Trust are providing practical help to farmers to increase the tree coverage on their land. This includes help with surveying and planning, and financial support for trees and guards. 

Find out more in their information PDF here.

Defra’s recent survey into Greenhouse Gas mitigation practices adds up to good news for British farming and climate change, but there is still plenty of work to be done.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has published the findings of its latest Farm Practices Survey, looking into farmers attitudes and practices in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) mitigation.

The annual survey drew responses from over 2,000 farm holdings in England and the signs are encouraging that British farmers are getting serious about mitigating climate change.

Nearly two thirds (62%) of farmers have taken some form of action to reduce GHGs on their farms, such as recycling and improving the accuracy of fertiliser application.

79% of livestock holdings have sown some of their temporary grassland with a clover mix, while nearly a third (32%) have sown all their temporary grassland with clover.

Jonathan Smith, a director of the Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit, said:

“The role of artificial Nitrogen in grassland systems is one that can very easily be replaced by the use of legumes, such as clovers. A 50:50 white clover/ryegrass mix will release less than 0.5 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year, whereas 1 tonne of Ammonium Nitrate on ryegrass will release over 7.2 tonnes per ha per year. Furthermore, green manures will build soil organic matter, absorbing atmospheric carbon and enhancing future crops. The cost of artificial N is in a different league to managing green manures and the costs will continue to rise."

The FCCT Toolkit section on grassland management explains why introducing legumes in to grassland can have such dramatic effects on your farm's carbon emissions.

However, in the same week that the British government failed to add a decarbonisation target to its latest energy bill, there is still great room for improvement both on the farm and at national policy level.

Only 16% of farms are currently generating renewable energy, with solar panels being the most common method (10%), but nearly a quarter of farmers surveyed (23%) said they intended to introduce energy generation practices on their farm in the next 2 years. See the FCCT Toolkit section on energy generation for help and advice on renewable energy options for farmers.

And less than 2% of farms process waste by Anaerobic Digestion (AD), however more farmers are planning to use AD for waste processing in the future. Anaerobic digestion plants work by breaking down waste matter to produce electricity, heat, and a natural fertiliser by-product ('digestate') that can replace chemical fertilisers. If you want to find out more about using AD on your farm, then look at the FCCT’s guide to energy generation for more information, or contact ABDA for a free consultancy session.

With only half of the farms surveyed (47%) believing it important to think about GHGs when making decisions on their farms, there are still plenty of farmers not considering climate change a priority. But despite this figure, the findings of the survey suggest farmers are starting to mitigate their GHG output, whether they believe in climate change or not.

Adam Twine is a director of the Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit and he commented on the findings of Defra’s latest Farm Practices Survey:

‘It’s great that almost half of all farmers are considering reducing GHG emissions from their farms. The FCCT toolkit is designed to help steer an effective course through what is a fairly complex process and unique for each farm. We hope that the calculator and toolkit can help turn those considerations into practical farm actions.’

A dairy farm in Devon is benefiting from two 11kW wind turbines, making a good return on investment and helping to support the income of the farm.

Read this Farmers Weekly report http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/05/06/2013/139056/dairy-farmer-reaps-the-benefits-after-installing-turbine.htm#.Ua9ZG-fktJ9