Back in the days before the internet provided access to a myriad questionable weather forecasts, an old analogue barometer always hung at the farmhouse back door.
While it might never have given the same sort of detail as its on-line equivalents, focusing more on predictions such as ‘fair’, ‘dry’ and ‘stormy’, the direction of travel of the single indicator hand always gave you a pretty good idea what sort of change might be on the way.
Giving it a gentle tap in the morning would let you know if the pressure was rising, or falling and so some idea of what way the weather was moving.
So, while that would have been useful for the change in the weather which we saw earlier in the week, I found myself thinking that it might also be handy to have some sort of policy barometer to at least give us a bit of forewarning on what might lie ahead on that front …
At the time of writing, it still remained to be seen if last week’s concerted push to get some movement from Scot Gov and kick-start the apparently stalled development of future farming policy would bear fruit. But the various reports certainly laid bare the scale of the challenge.
NFU Scotland’s policy document – based on the work of the Farmer-Led Groups (FLGs) – alongside the letter from Jim Walker, which was supported not only by the leaders of most of the main farming organisations but also by the FLG chairs, together with the report produced by the Farming for 1.5°, all highlighted an urgent need to get things moving.
But there was also an important subtext in there as well for each and every one of us – and that is the fact that business as usual isn’t going to be an option.
It was the SRUC’s Steve Thomson who pointed out that while some producers – across all sectors – were already performing at close to the top of the game when it came to delivering not only on an efficient production front, but also on the climate change and biodiversity areas which are going to be of key importance in the future, others would need to have their hands held and be pointed in the right direction.
While we might all be guilty of immediately imagining that those needing to be dragged by the nose by the advisory services – which themselves will need to be ‘rebooted and re-aligned’ according to the 1.5° report – will be small-scale producers who have been scraping a living, it’s worth remembering that there’ll need to be a big change in mindset amongst the big boys as well if all the future responsibilities which will be placed on the industry will be delivered.
It’s also worth noting that it won’t just be government agencies which will be driving this agenda. The major supermarkets and other buyers are being pressurised to show their environmental credentials by eco-conscious consumers and you can rest assured that no matter who you sell to, the requirement to jump through these hoops will be passed back down the line to us as primary producers.
Even the banks, being leaned on to show due diligence in their lending habits, will soon be asking us for some sort of environmental assessment when we go to them looking for a loan or to extend our overdraft facilities.
So, there’s going to be a lot for us all to take on board over the next few years, and by push or by pull we’ll have to change how we look at our businesses.
While I only have direct experience of the Arable Climate Change Group, I believe that all the FLGs reached two conclusions. One was that the co- and inter-dependent nature of Scotland’s agriculture means that the issues need to be tackled at an all-sector level, and the other was that no one approach held all the answers. No single line of attack could deliver in every case.
With no single silver bullet, how we adapt will inevitably be different in each and every case and the process will be as unique as individual systems which we currently operate.
So, while I’ve always been a bit cynical when any specific approach claims to be ‘the next big thing’ in agriculture, I’m possibly even more so now.
While I guess it’s been a bit of a slow-burn for a few years now, in recent months, I’ve been a bit guilty of expressing these sort of doubts about the attention which has been given to the growing regenerative farming movement. However, having chanced upon some trial results, I have to admit that cynicism shouldn’t blind me to the merits that might be there.
When a company – with its roots deep in the current paradigm of arable production and which has a major stake in the supply of crop inputs, as well as breeding new varieties – produces a report which backs a lower input, more integrated approach to farming systems, then I have to admit that my interest was piqued.
That’s pretty much what happened when I stumbled on the report from Syngenta which was released a few weeks back at the increasingly popular Groundswell event – which is the big annual event for those involved in the regenerative agriculture movement.
While Syngenta didn’t actually specify that they were looking at regenerative techniques, their report found that ‘conservation agriculture’ crop establishment techniques could deliver an 18% uplift in growers net profits at the same time as also providing significant enhancement of key environmental and ecological measures.
Part of the Syngenta Sustainable Farming initiative, it highlighted varying performances of similar approaches on two different soil types, one light sand and the other heavy clay, and compared those with a more traditional approach on the same soil types.
Reduced tillage saw fuel use per ha fall by 50% on the heavy land and it fell by 65% on light land, with overall work rates on both soil types increasing by around 50%. Total operational costs fell by 8% on light land and 10% on heavy land.
Crop establishment, which was 3% back on the light land and 8% back on the heavy land, translated into an even more divergent 3% drop in yield on the light land, compared with 9% reduction on heavy ground.
Just to prove the figures were realistic, this translated into a 3% increase in grain margin per ha on light land, while it actually fell by 9% on the heavy site.
More telling, though, was the fact that on both soil types, after machinery costs had been factored in, the actual net profit per hectare rose in both cases – by 18% on the light land and 5% on the heavy stuff.
Environmental measures also improved, with bird sightings almost doubling on both sites.But, while the earthworm population rose by almost 50% on the light land, where the numbers had been low, the increase was only a 10th of this in the heavy soil, where numbers had been higher.
I’m not sure which measure they used, but soil greenhouse gas emissions fell by 17% and 16%, respectively, while the overall carbon footprint was down by 9% on the light land and 10% on the heavy.
Though the project – which is part of a five-year trial looking at a full rotation lifecycle – has shown some variable results, it is useful to know that there’s some proper scientific data out there which directly addresses the complex interaction between economic performance and environmental impacts, on a field scale.
Some verifiable results are what we’re going to need to make sure that the barometer hands move in the right direction.