Genetics are the key to lowering farm emissions and improving farm profits, according to speakers at the recent British Cattle Breeders Club (BCBC) conference.
EMEA beef director at Genus ABS, Mark Smith, said sustainability starts with genetics as it is “permanent and cumulative” and carries on generation after generation.
Smith pointed to Genus ABS’s NuERA dairy beef breeding programme and how it uses beef progeny data with feed efficiency data to create a genomic index to demonstrate the profitability of sires within a beef-dairy system.
The difference between the best and baseline sires equated to £180 and the most profitable ones also emitted 17% less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Smith said.
Soil health
Spring calver Wil Armitage, said good soil health is also a key part of a healthy business alongside genetics and good cow health.
“Dead soils produce empty calories with very little mineral content which challenges our stocks’ immune systems,” Armitage said.
Steps taken by Armitage to maintain good soil health included growing a diversity of crops and avoiding bare soils.
Recent audits show one of his farms is producing 0.74kg of carbon/L of milk after sequestration.
Director of sustainable agri-food sciences in the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) in Northern Ireland, prof. Elizabeth Magowan, is encouraging other farmers to carry out carbon audits to take steps to reduce gross emissions.
“The magnitude of change expected in the next 30 years [to meet targets] is stark. It’s a real wake-up call for us to understand where the agricultural sector needs to be,” she said.
Efficiency and balance
Delegates at the conference, which took place in Telford on January 24, heard how applying both new and old methods could drive farm efficiency and reduce emissions.
Veterinary centre manager at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), Tim Geraghty, said existing cattle tracing data could be used to identify “wasted days”.
Geraghty said monetary values and carbon emissions could then be calculated for this waste against an optimal model.
A pilot study of cattle movement database in England and Scotland from 2015 to 2020 revealed there were 550 million ‘waste days’ costing £860m and producing 3.1m t/CO2.
This was largely caused by poor growth and fertility and early death and improving these three areas would be the most cost-effective carbon reduction strategy, Geraghty said.
Head of dairy at Agri-Epi Centre, Robert Morrison, showcased some of the latest innovations the agri-tech centres were testing.
One of these was the on-farm slurry treatment system H2OPE which separates dairy slurry producing clean water and a fertiliser pellet that drastically reduces volumes.
BCBC chair, Ben Harman, said: “The technology that is just around the corner is hugely exciting.
“But, as we learned, there is plenty we can already be doing – efficient use of natural resources and strong data-driven decision making is the path to sustainable and profitable production.”
