Let them eat grass?

A herd of 8,000 dairy cows housed indoors all year round, fed, watered and monitored for optimal health? Is it the future of ‘low carbon’ dairy farming?

You’ve probably heard the mantra: efficiency, efficiency, efficiency – it’s currently the much-touted solution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. And it’s a smart approach – there is great potential to increase the efficiency of British farming, particularly in some sectors such as livestock where health, breeding, and manure management can reap good carbon equivalent savings – and cut costs too.

But the impact of feed produced elsewhere has not always been put into the equation. Yesterday, Friends of the Earth released their ‘Pastures New’ report, which they commissioned from the Royal Agricultural College. The report highlights the dependence of livestock farming in the UK on soy-based concentrates which drives destruction of rainforest in places like the Amazon.

Although Nocton Dairies – who are proposing the Lincolnshire farm above – claim that their cows will be fed on locally produced clover and lucerne – much intensive production relies on soy-based concentrate, especially in pig and poultry. The GHG emissions associated with the land-use change (as well as the loss of a highly important biodiverse habitat) as a result of soy production should be accounted for in the true cost of livestock production.

So what’s the alternative to intensification? For beef and dairy, traditional grass-based systems could be the answer, say many. Over 60% of the UK’s agricultural land is only suitable for grazing livestock, and using the land in this way protects vital carbon stores in the soil. Soy is a great feed for livestock because it’s high in protein, but so are high sugar grasses, lucerne, maize and clover. Friends of the Earth claim that 8% of the UK’s cereal land would be sufficient to replace 50% of the soy in animal feed.

Focusing on single issues can sometimes lead us down the wrong path. After all, carbon is not the only game in town – what of biodiversity, waste, landscape and land use? When you bring these issues into the picture, your vision of what a ‘sustainable’ UK farming industry looks like might not add up to an intensive one. And of course, there’s the all-important question – what do consumers want?

Much of the focus in the industry at the moment is on hitting an 11% reduction by 2020. But what happens after that? With a target to reduce emissions by 80% across the economy by 2050, far bigger cuts are going to need to be made, so the pressure to reduce emissions will only increase. At Farming Futures our eye is on the long game – what will the agricultural industry look like in 2020, 2030 and 2050 in order to satisfy all these demands?

What does ‘sustainable farming’ mean to you? Do you think intensification is the solution? We want your thoughts, ideas and arguments. Get in touch – write a blog for us, comment on this blog, send us details of what you’re doing on your farm: farming@forumforthefuture.org

Madeleine Lewis co-manages the Farming Futures project: m.lewis@forumforthefuture.org

For more information see:

• The NFU's news item on the proposal.
• Graham Harvey’s interesting article.
• David Hugill’s two blogs – on livestock emissions and grass-fed systems.
• The Carnegie Institute's report on intensive farming and an interesting comment on one of our blogs about it.