As a Farm Carbon and Soils Project Assistant with FCT, I have a range of day-to-day bits and pieces to keep me busy!
Primarily, I help our advisory team to complete work with farmers who are exploring the impact of their businesses on carbon storage and emissions and the ongoing impacts of climate change.
Sometimes this means heading out from home early (with my breakfast coffee in my mug) to do a day of soil sampling on a farm. This usually involves donning wellies and waterproofs and hoiking buckets and various metal implements up hills and over/ through gates to walk a W across a field, stopping about 18 times per field to extract a core of earth. This earth is then amalgamated according to sample depth, then posted off to a laboratory for analysis. I’ll also be digging cube-shaped pits the width and depth of a space to assess soil structure at different depths, and count the number of worms present (this can be a useful indicator of soil health). A farm will have between 3 and 5 fields to be sampled, so it’s usually quite a physically demanding day, but the privilege of viewing the landscape from places the public can never usually access is never lost on me. I see glimpses of creeks and reservoirs, magnificent trees and ruined buildings and very often, as I’m the only person out there, wonderful bird life, butterflies and majestic deer. It’s also fascinating to encounter so many different farming systems and business priorities.
I joined FCT just before completing a Masters in Agroforestry and Global Food Security, so I also use every opportunity to encourage and engage with landowners and tenants who might be interested in expanding the number of trees in their farm system. This might be through chatting with other advisors, developing relationships with local tree nurseries, or cheering on those already giving it a go.
A huge bonus of my role is that I can be part of a variety of projects FCT are working on. I was recently able to do some work in beautiful rural Scotland with LUNZ, have been down to the Isles of Scilly to shadow an organic horticulture business and will be heading to Yorkshire next month to examine the carbon footprint of Willow, Flax and Hemp farming and processing.
Although my office is a laptop perched at home, we have a brilliant team of highly knowledgeable and motivated people, all passionate about improving the world we live in for the farmers we serve and the food system they are the core of. I’m lucky to be part of such a passionate team and when we do get together at events or for training, I feel like I’m going to work with ‘my tribe’.