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Saving Money and Helping the Environment
We have found that when we make changes to help the environment on our farm, they often save us money too...writes LEAF Board Member and LEAF Marque farmer, Matthew Naylor. There were a few years when oil and water were unrealistically cheap and this...
LEAF Board Member and LEAF Marque farmer, Matthew Naylor~Wednesday, 14 September, 2011 - 16:37  |  0 comments
RHI takes the heat off investing in renewables
The launch of the Renewable Heat Incentive on 10th March was welcome news to many farmers and rural businesses. Farmers can now invest in renewable heat technologies, reduce their costs and carbon footprints.The £860 million government scheme i...
Rebecca Seaman~Friday, 18 March, 2011 - 09:49  |  2 comments
The heat is on
The Government have today announced the long awaited Renewable Heat Incentive but will it be enough to make Anaerobic Digestion (AD) financially attractive to farmers? In the UK we have all the right ingredients for a strong farm-based AD industry. E...
Dr Matthew Aylott~Thursday, 10 March, 2011 - 14:11  |  0 comments
Carbon storage = bigger veg = happy farmers?
A new heat and power box stores CO2 in tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers while delivering electricity to nearby homes. A British company, Alfagy Ltd., is launching a new heat and power plant in a box. Aptly named ‘The Green Box’, the d...
Claire Wyatt~Monday, 7 March, 2011 - 09:44  |  0 comments
Barriers to low carbon farming - your thoughts wanted
Here at Cottage Farm we have demonstrated that it is perfectly possible to farm sustainably and in a resilient manner, that is organically, without using fossil fuels but still utilising machinery and energy. The best place to find out what else we a...
Paul Sousek~Tuesday, 1 March, 2011 - 18:20  |  0 comments
Power to society: think again on the FIT review
Sheep under solar panels Farmers, landowners and hundreds of communities across the country will be the biggest losers following the Coalition Government’s threatened backtracking over funding for community scale solar energy schemes. That’s why we’re launc...
Mark Shorrock~Tuesday, 22 February, 2011 - 09:30  |  0 comments
From a long history to a sustainable future
A combination of history, modern science and childhood memories, can provide important insight into how we can work towards a more sustainable future.  This mixture of information is also a great way of raising the awareness of non-farming resid...
Chris Stoate~Monday, 21 February, 2011 - 11:57  |  0 comments
New funding now available for Yorkshire farmers
Farmers in Yorkshire can apply for RDPE funding for equipment that will help them save money and be more efficient, it was announced this week.Farms can get up to £25,000 to spend on new equipment that will help them use less energy or fewer ra...
Claire Wyatt~Wednesday, 2 February, 2011 - 11:27  |  0 comments
Food system revolution...who’s hungry?
One of the most striking things about the obesity report that the Foresight team produced in 2007 was the fiendishly detailed ‘systems map’ developed by the research team. For me, one of the most striking things about  the launch of...
Julian Hunt~Tuesday, 1 February, 2011 - 10:33  |  0 comments
Let’s shout about our environment and make people accountable for it!
The last year has seen tectonic shifts in the way we will live our lives. The new government has heralded a new dawn of politics and with it slipped in a few words that we have all been challenged to define in the next five years. It is like being gi...
Paul C~Wednesday, 26 January, 2011 - 11:12  |  3 comments
Who are the dynamos and who are the dinosaurs?
Attending the Oxford Farming Conference for the first time it was my intention to absorb every bit of information thrown at me but it was the very first person that I met who gave the most pertinent piece of advice, “Establish who are the dynam...
Patrick Barker~Friday, 21 January, 2011 - 09:32  |  0 comments
Prof Tim Lang on why we should see food security as sustainability
The only way to achieve food security is to have a sustainable food system. That’s the message from Professor Tim Lang of City University’s Centre for Food Policy, who we met at the Inside Government Food Security Conference back in Novem...
Will Frazer~Thursday, 20 January, 2011 - 15:09  |  0 comments
Why are 75% of beef & sheep producers missing out on better returns?
Soil Good nutrient management and soil analysis can save time, money, and improve your returns, so why are only a quarter of soil samples at target index? At EBLEX we discovered this statistic as part of the PAAG study. Overall in 2009/10, just 29% of gra...
Dr Liz Genever~Monday, 17 January, 2011 - 17:14  |  0 comments
2011 - a new dawn for agriculture?
Looking at the newspapers, optimism seems to be in short supply at the start of 2011. But amid all the doom and gloom I’m positive for the long-term future of agriculture after some difficult times.I’ve been farming all my life and I...
Richard Scott~Thursday, 13 January, 2011 - 09:46  |  1 comments
The challenge facing the next generation
The issues of food, farming and population are undeniably immense. The combination of population growth, land and water shortages, along with climate change and peak oil are the challenges that our generation of farmers are facing. So I was really ho...
Angharad Evans~Tuesday, 11 January, 2011 - 14:50  |  1 comments
The threat that dare not speak its name
Crowd of people Climate change is everywhere, Peak Oil is rising on the political agenda, the fate of the economy is still uncertain, resource wars are looming and yet still very few people mention the elephant in the room that could be the root cause of it all; pop...
Claire Wyatt~Friday, 7 January, 2011 - 13:18  |  1 comments
An energy crop that cleans toxic soil?
Green grass Australian researchers have developed a fast-growing giant napier grass that cleans up toxic soil, and can also be converted to ethanol for transport or combusted for electricity. Grown at an experimental plantation at Shaoguan University in China, t...
Madeleine Lewis~Tuesday, 4 January, 2011 - 09:00  |  0 comments
Making more moo-lah from your milk
Glass of milk A material produced from cow milk protein that is strong enough for commercial use, yet biodegradable, could replace traditional Styrofoam packaging say US scientists. The casein protein found in milk is already used to make adhesives or paper coatin...
Madeleine Lewis~Thursday, 30 December, 2010 - 09:00  |  0 comments
Climate change - it's snow joke
Tractor in snow Back in the middle of November, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research released a rather gloriously timed piece of work. “Global Warming could cool down temperatures in winter” said the headline just a matter of days before the snow h...
Madeleine Lewis~Thursday, 23 December, 2010 - 09:00  |  0 comments
21st century farming versus 20th century attitudes
Highland cattle As a young couple, both from farming families in the Staffordshire Moorlands, we were keen to put our own stamp on our new farming enterprise. We purchased land that had been intensively farmed, and our aim is to lovingly restore it and farm with the...
Catherine Webster~Wednesday, 15 December, 2010 - 09:08  |  0 comments