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INNOVATION IN PRACTICE
The truth about carbon on the farm
By Jessica Martyn
Known for having achieved his goal of running his farm at carbon zero only to revert to a carbon-emitting model, Mark Wootton is one to watch within his niche – a case study for many progressive farmers. In a recent conversation, he shared his insights into managing carbon on the farm and the key things farmers need to know as the trajectory shift towards carbon zero continues.
TAF: How did you take your farm to carbon zero? MW: So initially, there were a number of things. There’s the supply, and then there's the demand side. In terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) or emitting equivalents, it’s predominantly methane. Eighty per cent of that footprint is methane, and then there's nitrous oxide, but then all the rest is really single digit stuff - your car and your energy and stuff like that. First of all, we had to work out what our foot- print was. So we went through a carbon audit. And then we discovered that we were producing all of this. Then we said, well, what are we sequestering? There was an audit done on two significant parts, which was at that point in the initial study was our soil carbon. Which then we, in the first study, we're about three and a half percent for organic cut. In, our measurement, and then in the second study, that had reached saturation point, so we couldn't get any more out of it so that in effect, we're back to zero. It's there, but it's not growing. The largest piece of it was the trees and what they were sequestering. Then at the same time, we were looking at our supply side; we were trying to opti- mise our fecundity – produce more lambs and more calves per maternal unit – through genetics and management, trees for shelter and better utilisation
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