New five-year pilot to calculate farming’s true carbon footprint

Over the last few weeks the hot word for Quality Meat Scotland has been 'collaboration'. Proper, old fashioned, 'let’s sit down and agree the best way to do this' collaboration; across a number of key areas for us. We've collaborated on some big new projects; on consultation responses; parliamentary receptions; briefing papers, and much, much more.

It hasn't been easy. Proper collaboration is hard. It takes time, it requires moving on a timeline that isn't always your own, it means being prepared to compromise on detail for the greater good of the wider objective.

But when it comes together, it’s extremely satisfying to look back over the last few weeks of hard yards and see some of the big pieces come together, all with a core purpose of delivering better, delivering more for the businesses through our red meat supply chain.

One of the best examples of that focus launched in mid-May, and will see the intense pressure faced by farmers to deliver on environmental targets addressed through a new collaborative pilot. Launched by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), with support from QMS, it will individually baseline up to 170 farms across Great Britain.

AHDB and Quality Meat Scotland are to invest a combined £2,875,000 of levy-payers’ money into a major new research project to calculate agriculture’s true environmental impact including emissions and sequestrations. They’re currently recruiting farms to join the five-year pilot.

The £2.875m pilot focuses on accurate measurements to reveal the net carbon position (the balance of emissions and carbon removals/stocks) of farm businesses, including carbon sequestration potential. It will provide a dataset which shows the range and variety of results from individual farms, which will allow the industry to move away from relying on national and international averages.

By measuring greenhouse gas emissions, landscape and soil carbon stocks, water run-off, as well as using soil analysis of individual farms, the data collected will help to demonstrate the real environmental benefits of British agricultural products, both at home and in export markets. It will also provide a more accurate reflection of its position and progress towards Net Zero.

The pilot will allow farming to demonstrate how it delivers a collection of public goods, benefitting all of society, such as improving water quality, reducing greenhouse gases, building carbon stocks, enhancing soil health and supporting biodiversity both above and below ground. The ambition is that baselining should be rolled out to every farm across the country.

This pioneering project means we have a unique opportunity to showcase tangible evidence of what we already know: that Scotch Beef, Scotch Lamb and Specially Selected Pork actively contribute to landscape preservation and carbon sequestration as well as food production. Working with AHDB on this will allow us to underline the positive environmental credentials of food production in Scotland - a tangible, positive, wide-spread and lasting outcome from close collaboration. 

After submitting your expression of interest, AHDB and QMS will review the information to understand each farm's suitability for the pilot project and we will share more information on this as it progresses. You can express your interest here.