Green Living

• Carbon
• Education
• Energy at Home
• Funerals
• The Future
• Gardens
• Health
• Homes
• Kidz Zone
• Ladies Only
• Lifestyle
• Recycling
• Resources
• Shopping
• Travel
• Vehicles
• Weddings

Green Work

• Business
• Farming
• Jobs
• Manufacturing
• Purchasing
• Teaching
• Work
• Thailand

Renewable Energy

• Solar
• Wind
• Ground-Source Heat Pumps
• Geothermal
• Biomass
• Combined Heat & Power
• Fuel Cells
• Sequestration

Established once, the crop yields for over 10 years, without replanting. BICAL have developed efficient and profitable systems for all aspects of crop production and onward processing. For more, e-mail Bical at sales@bical.co.uk or find out more at Bical.

Solar Farms?

Surprising as it may seem, most food and fibre is not "solar-grown". Agriculture is a big user of fossil energy, and as David Coley at Exeter University says, "we all eat oil", because 6 calories of fossil energy are used to make one calorie of food. This energy is used by tractors, fertilizer manufacture, food processing, chilling, storage and distribution.

A farm that used biodiesel or bioethanol tractors and only sold its produce locally would be significantly better than an identical farm selling to conventional channels. It's even possible to use pure rapeseed oil like in this tractor converted by VEG-tuning in Sweden.

Better Use of Manure

Manure is to farmers what compost is to gardeners. Farmers stand to save money (and reduce pollution) by making better use of their farm manures: used efficiently, the slurry off a typical 150-cow dairy herd is worth £3,000 to £4,000.

Fertilise a crop with Fibrophos: a dried and treated chicken manure. Pig muck also works well.

Hedgerows

Hedgerows play an important role on farms: apart from helping to prevent soil erosion and water run-off, providing shelter, controling livestock and protecting crops from the wind, they also provide an important habitat for wildlife. Find out more about funding, legal issues and maintenance here.

Create grassy field margins adjacent to hedgerows. In arable fields, sow a 2 or 6 metre-wide field-edge margin with perennial, tussock-forming grasses (eg cocksfoot and timothy).

Lined Biobeds

Pesticide pollution originating from the farmyard can be reduced by as much as 99% when biobed based handling areas are used. A biobed is a lined structure filled with biomix, a mixture of topsoil, peat (preferably a peat free substitute) and straw.

Install lined biobeds according to the Environment Agency (EA)’s guidelines.

Organic Farming

Find out more from ukagriculture.com.

• Set up Beetle Banks: tussocky-grass strips dividing large fields and sow with tussock-forming grasses (eg cocksfoot and timothy).
• Replace fences with hedgerows.
• Reduce use of pesticides and fertilisers; increase use of manure.
• Encourage wildlife (see above).

Agro-Ecology and Greener Pastures

Recently published (2008) "The Carbon Fields" by Graham Harvey is a book promoting the return to better grasslands, pastures and meadows, grass-fed food and free-range milk.

QUOTE: The global trading of grains will lead to catastrophe. It’s robbing everyday foods of the health-protecting nutrients we need, while insidiously damaging our farmland so it’ll be incapable of feeding future generations. As if this weren’t bad enough, it’s adding to our climate change woes. Who would believe our food supply could be responsible for 18% of our greenhouse gas emissions?

Find out more from Grass Roots website.

Soil Improvement

Create Carbon-Negative Soils

Burning agricultural wastes (biomass) in the absence of air leaves a charcoal composed of almost pure carbon, which can then be crushed and dug into the soil. As a soil amendment, Biochar can sequester or store the carbon in the soil for hundreds of years. Biochar is produced by pyrolysis by stoves/kilns, or by gasification systems. Find out more about Biochar.

Innoculating Soils

Everywhere on earth life on land depends on soil microbes and the service they provide. Soils are the key players in the process of storing (sequestering) and recycling carbon.

The best agricultural lands have loamy topsoil in which there is a high concentration of organic matter. History shows civilisations have tumbled due to excessive irrigation, deforestation, erosion and soil depletion.

Try innoculating farmland soils with mycorrhizal fungi! Organic farming with help from mycorrhizal fungi can take massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air. Micorrhizal innoculants are available in liquid, powder and granular forms and can be sprinkled onto roots during transplanting, banded beneath seed, used as a seed coating or watered via existing irrigation systems. Furthermore, Biochar can have positive effects on the abundance of mycorrhizal fungi.

• In areas near to woodland and copses, especially with difficult access/slopes, grass it down with meadow seeds.
• Choose plants which are well adapted to your farm's soil and situation and therefore do not need fertilisers or extra watering to survive.
• Plant native grasses: choose well adapted and disease resistant varieties of grass such as ryegrasses and bluegrasses. Wildflowers and meadow flowers, shrubs and trees too will need less watering are more likely to attract native birds, butterflies and other insects, and maybe even some threatened species.
• Use mixed grasses or herbs such as chamomile.
• Grow ground cover or use mulch
• Plant plenty of bushes, shrubs and trees which bear berries or other fruits for the birds. Rosehips are useful to the birds and colourful too.
• Plant hedges.
• Set your mower blades to high. Anything too short is hard to maintain, encourages weeds and disease and requires more intervention. Longer grass also protects the roots, offering more shade and preventing water evaporation.
• Keep your mower blades sharp. Dull blades will tear the grass, damaging the plant, making it require more water than healthy plants.
• If you have the space, put in a wildlife pond.
• Go organic: insects can take care of aphids etc, so lay off the pesticides.

Natural England works for people, places and nature to conserve and enhance biodiversity, landscapes and wildlife in rural, urban, coastal and marine areas. There is much information for farmers and land managers.

Please visit the DEFRA farming section.

Environmental Stewardship is a new agri-environment scheme which provides funding to farmers and other land managers in England who deliver effective environmental management on their land. For details on this DEFRA scheme in your region, click here.

Learn more about Environment-Sensitive Farming in your region (England).

Plan for nutrient management techniques and workshops in your region here.

Contact ADAS, UK’s largest independent provider of environmental solutions, rural development services and policy advice.

Support responsible farming by joining LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming).

Get ideas for your farm from Thrales End Farm which uses sustainable farming techniques that encourage biodiversity. Or visit Somerset County Council Countryside Services.