The Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) has confirmed that the Farm Quality Assurance Scheme (FQAS) will be used as a carbon survey platform in Northern Ireland.
This, it said, will allow a complete carbon footprint determination of 11,600 farms.
In essence, the work being undertaken will represent the collective outworking of a whole industry agreed approach for all the sectors that, when taken together, constitutes agriculture in Northern Ireland, i.e., beef, lamb, dairy, pigs, poultry, crops.
Carbon survey
Many industry businesses are already actively engaged in carbon measurement and mitigation activities at their own sectoral level.
However, all of the key farming and processing representative groups in Northern Ireland are supportive of a collaborative, whole-industry approach to this initiative, which would bring both scale and consistency.
According to LMC chief executive Ian Stevenson, the carbon challenge will manifest itself at a number of levels for farmers in Northern Ireland.
“First-off, there is now climate change legislation in place that mandates all sectors, including the farming industry, to specifically reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emission levels,” he said.
“Later this year, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and
Rural Affairs will publish its first climate action plan.
“This will go out for public consultation. But the bottom line is that the first tranche of specific climate change mitigation measures will be finalised on the back of this process,” he said.
“Of equal importance is the fact that customers for our beef, lamb, dairy and other food products will want to see hard evidence of the local farming industry’s progression towards carbon emissions reduction targets.
“The days are over when we can simply say that agriculture in Northern Ireland is one of the most climate-friendly in the world. We have to have the accredited data to back this up,” he added.
The significance of the envisaged carbon survey was confirmed by LMC’s industry development manager, Colin Smith.
“FQAS is unique in comprising a farm membership that is active across all our agricultural sectors,” Smith said.
“As a result, Northern Ireland Food Chain Certification staff, who are already on farm, are extremely well placed to facilitate the collection of additional data required to complete a carbon calculation for each farm.
“The carbon survey will be a supplementary bolt-on carried out immediately after the FQAS inspection and will cover all the enterprises featured within the farming operation, not just the beef and lamb enterprises.”
Smith explained that the information gathered will be used to determine a carbon footprint for each individual business. The Agrecalc model will be used in this determination.
“Agrecalc is a tried and tested whole farm carbon footprint tool that is currently being used by CAFRE [College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise] for carbon benchmarking and by different sectors of the agri-food industry within their supply chains and is therefore the agreed tool of choice by all partners in this initiative,” Smith stated.
She added that it will deliver outcomes that are now widely recognised as industry standards. The initial assessments will specifically provide a carbon baseline for each business that is surveyed.
“The results returned to each farmer/participant will be accompanied by a series of focal points where each business can target to reduce their emissions profile,” Smith said.
“Their implementation will help to mitigate the carbon footprint of the business in question.”
Participation
Farmers will be asked to participate in a carbon survey every three years.
The carbon survey will be carried out on the same day as an FQAS inspection. However, these are two separate processes.
The LMC has stressed that the carbon survey has no bearing on the outcome of an inspection and vice versa. There are no pass or fail criteria associated with the survey.
Its purpose is to help generate a specific carbon footprint for individual farm businesses, according to the LMC.
The details of the actual questionnaires to be used on-farm to capture the necessary data points have been agreed. The time taken to complete the survey will depend on the number of individual enterprises that make up a specific farm business.
Colin Smith confirmed that participation in the carbon survey will be mandatory on the part of all FQAS members.
“Given the importance of the data that will be generated, this principle has been agreed by the FQAS Industry Board,” he said.
It is anticipated that the carbon surveys will commence later this year.
