Episode 2: Carbon sequestration and regenerative farming
In this episode, we discuss the benefits of regenerative farming with regard to carbon sequestration. Chris Hollingsworth provides a personal insight into the business benefit, having made the switch to regenerative farming 5 years ago. Simon Haldrup, CEO of Danish environmental and sustainability company Agreena tells us how sequestered carbon is measured and turned into valuable certificates. Policy expert Ali Capper explains some of the remaining barriers and what needs to be done to get over them.
Contributors in this episode
Simon Haldrup
Agreena
Ali Capper
Stocks Farm
Chris Hollingsworth
Clopton Hall Farm
Florian Ritzmann
FutureFarm
“So, I think we need to look very positively at all of this. Not only are we solving some of the issues of soil erosion, we are solving issues of nutrients leeching into the water supply. But also, we’re key to sequestering carbon and all the benefits that brings in terms of climate change. ”
Florian Ritzmann: Hello and welcome to the FutureFarm podcast. On this special feature series we invite farmers to talk about agriculture topics that matter.
My name is Florian Ritzmann and on today’s show our three guests are talking about regenerative farming and carbon sequestration. We’ll be using the terms almost synonymously, so a bit of scene setting is in order.
Regenerative farming is the recognition that modern, intensive agricultural practices exhaust the soil. A measure of that exhaustion is the decline of organic matter in the soil – which is carbon. Less organic matter means less biological activity, amongst other things, and over time soil is less able to nurture and protect the plants growing on it. We make up for that decline with chemical fertilisers and pesticides, but a regenerative farmer would tell you that by treating the symptom in this way – which is a decline in gross yield - we’re not treating the underlying disease. Over time the quality of our soils will keep getting worse, perhaps irretrievably so. Chris Hollingsworth Is a regenerative farmer from the East of England and he will talk to us about his experience.
Now, regenerative farming has a huge additional benefit, which is that by increasing the amount of carbon being held in the soil, we reduce the amount of that same greenhouse gas in the air and potentially make a huge contribution in the fight against global warming. Simon Haldrup is the CEO of Agreena which helps farmers quantify the amount of carbon they can sequester and issues them with certificates they can sell for money. That is a powerful market-based incentive designed to accelerate the take-up of regenerative farming practices and Simon will tell us how it works.
This all sounds like a slam dunk win/win, right? Too good to be true maybe? Ali Capper is a hops and apple farmer and on the board of the NFU and tells us about remaining adoption barriers, particularly outside the arable and grasslands world, and within government – because we have to face it: regenerative farming was not on the agenda of the recent COP26 agenda which means much more needs to be done for the world at large to take a closer look.
Right, so let's jump straight into it. I'd like to lead with Chris, Chris, you've converted your land to regenerative farming and are therefore first in line when it comes to reaping the benefits of carbon sequestration. But before we go into what that was like for you - what actually prompted you to make that switch?
Chris Hollingsworth: Okay, Florian. My grandfather started farming here in the late 20s, early 30s. And he started growing a lot of fruit on the farm, apples, pears and soft fruits. He planted a lot of orchards in the 30s in the 40s, which, which were grubbed out in the late 70s, early 80s, when fruit growing became far less profitable. So quite a part of our land was farmed in an arable rotation, and part of the farm was in fruit.
The orchards had been in there for about 40 years before they were grubbed out. During the 90s and later, combines developed systems of having yield monitoring systems on them, where you could monitor the yield across the field. And it became quite clear to me when I looked at the yield map of the fields, that the yields were better on all the areas of the fields that had been in orchards.
And the correlation, once we looked at the soils and had the soils analysed was that there was a higher level of organic matter in the orchard soil, in the ex-orchard soils, which reflects the degenerative effect of arable farming. The continual cultivations that had gone in every year had effectively reduced the amount of organic matter in that soil.
This led me on the path towards trying to regenerate the soil, improve the soils and brought us into the idea of regenerative farming.
Okay, so we don't actually at this stage need to describe exactly what regenerative farming is. But the idea is to regenerate, is to improve the soils, to improve the health of the soils. And we do this in a number of ways. We do it by growing cover crops. So there's always vegetation, growing on the fields. We do it by reducing or having no cultivations at all.
Why did we go into it originally - one of the reasons that drove us was to reduce our cost of production.
One of the benefits of stopping cultivating the fields is that you need less labour, you need less machinery, so you've got less depreciation, you've got less repairs, and you use less fuel.
Florian Ritzmann: So let me just stop you there for just a second. You said cover crops - because if I drive through the countryside at this time of year, the first thing I see is a lot of tilled soil that is exposed to the weather and just waiting for the next growing season from the looks of it.
And just for the non farmers listening to this, why do farmers turn over or till their land?
Chris Hollingsworth: Because they believe that they need to do that in order to get the best yields in the springtime, right? If they don't cultivate and loosen up all the soil, they believe they will have poor yields as a consequence.
Florin Ritzmann: Okay. And you've adopted regenerative farming and it's basically led you to look at farming differently. But before we get into that, how many years ago did you make the switch?
Chris Hollingsworth: We made the switch about five years ago.
Florian Ritzmann: And when you made that switch, the whole carbon agenda was probably not first and foremost on your mind at all, was it?
Chris Hollingsworth: No, it wasn't no, we did it because we wanted to improve the health of the soil, we could see that if we increase the organic matter in the soil, the soil would become more active. And there would be lots and lots of benefits, including benefits to the plant health. And we would reduce the amount of fertilizer, both nitrate fertiliser and the main phosphate and potash fertilisers that we put on the soil, we could reduce those. The plants can start to build a symbiotic relationship with the biology, the fungi, and the bacteria in the soil can start to get some of their nutrients that way, but also, the symbiotic relationship gives the plants better health as well. So we could see that we could reduce a lot of our inputs, fertiliser and fungicide, and insecticide inputs, as well.
Florian Ritzmann: So you didn't come at this from an ideological angle, you discovered that there was something going on in the soil, you experimented, you investigated. And five years later, as a businessman with your, with your numbers hat on, how do you now approach profitability and yield?
Chris Hollingsworth: Well, I think a lot of farmers really only look at the gross output, they look at what the yields are. What we are looking is what are our margins and our net cost. So we looked at the usual margins, which are the seeds, fertilisers and sprays. But we also included the labour and machinery costs as well.
We've not done that alone. There's a group of regenerative farmers in our area, which we've combined together. And we have a guy called Gary Markham from a firm of accountants called Land Family Business, and they benchmark our farms and cost them against conventional farms. So we can watch and see how we're doing compared to conventional farming practices, which would include plowing and cultivating the land.
And the point that we're most interested in are our margins, not the gross output. We find some of our spring crops don't yield as well as conventional farmers. But if you take the whole picture and look at the reduction in costs, then we think we are actually better off.
“Well, I think a lot of farmers really only look at the gross output, they look at what they what the yields are. So we looked at the usual margins, which are the seeds, fertilisers and sprays. But we also included the labour and machinery costs as well.”
Florian Ritzmann: Okay, I think it's time to point the mic into the direction of Ali for a moment.
It sounds to me from my own research and from what Chris has just told me that regenerative farming and the subsequent benefit of carbon sequestration, meaning the ability for the soil to regenerate organic matter in the soil makes business sense. This is what Chris has told us and unless Chris tells us otherwise, I don't think he'll go back to conventional farming. We're at a crossroads in this country. There's a new farming bill coming. Cop 26 is just behind us.
And the question I have for you because you've got your ear to the ground in these matters - is regenerative farming and the related topic of carbon sequestration on the agenda for the government and the new farming bill?
Ali Capper: Thanks Florian. I think it is starting to get on the agenda. And I think it's clear that the new sustainable farming incentive and future iterations of it will start to think about carbon sequestration in more detail.
But I think that there is an awful lot of work to do for the government.
As usual, I think if there is a value to the carbon that we sequester, this government will want the market to work that out, I hear that a lot from this government, that it's a market issue. And it's difficult for carbon, to really create a market until there is clarity on whether there will be - and this is quite technical - but whether there will be carbon border adjustments or not. And we don't have clear policy from government on that, they've started to discuss it. But there's no clear policy.
And I guess I would say, there's also a balance here between, do we want to be a nation that produces food, not just for our own society, but to export around the world? And do we want to be able to compete with other food producing nations? Or do we want to move to becoming a nation where we give over our land to biodiversity and carbon sequestration? And I think these are the challenges that governments are trying to work out at the moment, because sometimes, the two are in conflict with each other. You can grow food in a regenerative farming system very successfully. I think there is a question mark about whether you can do that and compete with other parts of the world as successfully, You know, Chris is quite rightly saying, well, it's going to cost less money. Basically, for me, regenerative farming is do things a bit more slowly, and you push the land less hard. That does mean reduced yields. And Chris would say, well, that's reduced cost as well as reduced cost of inputs. I think the jury is out about whether there's going to be enough value back from the combination of that kind of food production. And whether it's a biodiversity payment, or a carbon sequestration payment to make us able to compete with food producers and the rest of the world for whom carbon sequestration biodiversity is not even on the agenda yet. Or a lot lower than on our agenda. I hope that makes sense.
Florian Ritzmann: It does. You said carbon border adjustments. So I want to clarify that what you're presumably referring to is the relative value of carbon certificates, depending on whether they're generated, let's say, here, or halfway around the world, is that the point you were trying to make?
Ali Capper: It is and there's also a piece of work around whether the carbon you're measuring - is it the carbon that you're producing, or whether it's the carbon that you're consuming, and again, in global terms, that is all rather undefined, ill-defined at the moment. But it's very difficult to run a proper Carbon Tax, Carbon Credit regime, without working out what your carbon border adjustment piece is going to be. Because otherwise, it will it's very difficult to put a price on things if you haven't got those carbon border adjustments in place.
Florian Ritzmann: Well, we'll probably we'll get to Simon in a minute. And I'm sure he'll tell us a bit more about the value of these certificates. But before we do, just a few more questions for you.
So let's say I'm a farmer, and I'm interested. I've done my initial research into regenerative farming and carbon sequestration.
Where do you see barriers, in terms of policy and in terms of the general environment for a farmer to make that switch or invest in measures that would result in carbon sequestration? And what could the government do if it wanted to, to improve take-up today?
Ali Capper: I think the biggest barrier is measurement, actually. Firstly, a lot of the data in this space is global data that doesn't always apply well back to the UK. And I think the measurement of methane for livestock farmers is a good example of that. There's a big debate about whether that should be measured using the GWP [Global Warming Potential] measure or the GWP Star measure. Again, sorry, I'm getting technical, but that's quite an important issue. For me as a farmer of perennial plants, actually, the carbon tools that are in the marketplace, mostly don't help me because they won't measure accurately the carbon that I'm sequestering or emitting because they're really designed around broad-acre, or livestock systems and not measured for my type of business. And then even when they are designed for broad-acre, or livestock systems, the underlying data in those tools is quite different from tool to tool. So you can use three tools and get three different answers as to how much carbon am I measuring or sequestering. So what does it feel like? I think to a lot of farmers, this space at the moment feels like the Wild West.
There are also assurance schemes for the carbon tools. Many of the carbon tools in the marketplace haven't actually been formally accredited yet, either. So I think at the last count, there were 70 plus carbon measurement tools that a farmer could choose to use. So you know, how do you choose? That's what I mean, by the Wild West, it feels like this is very new, it's very emerging. And as with any new, let's call it technology, because a lot of this is technology-based, it takes a while for things to settle. And for systems to become adopted, proven and adopted, proven and evaluated, proven and checked. And there's a lot that's lacking at the moment. So I think the biggest barrier is, how do I measure? What do I measure? And also, what's the context? In that context? Am I looking at a global context or a national context?
Some of the other barriers are - this is really complicated! It's really, really complicated. And I think that we have policy makers who lack expertise in this space. So I think it's going to take time for the policy to develop. And that's a barrier for farmers. Because if there isn't clear policy, we don't know which way the policy is going to go. Will there be common border adjustments or not? Will there be a carbon tax or not? It makes it quite difficult for farmers to make decisions about long term strategies for their business. So what should farmers do? Is that going to be your next question.
“So I think at the last count, there was 70 plus carbon measurement tools that a farmer could choose to use. So you know, how do you choose?”
Florian Ritzmann: Please go ahead and tell us what farmers should do.
Ali Capper: Read as much as you can about this space. But I think there are, there are some very clear policy drivers coming from UK Government about the fact that we need to do better by our soil, because soil and grassland are excellent ways of sequestering carbon. So are there simple things that we could all do to improve the quality of our soils? And then it's the question of will I get paid for that? To be honest, for me, I think it's a bit further down the line. And how should government do that? Well, I think government should do that by incentivising farmers to do it.
For me the process of income foregone, stop doing this and start doing this instead for a payment - it works if you're if you're working across 1,000s of acres and broadacre. It doesn't work very well for my sector for fruit and veg, plants and flowers.
Because we're not going to stop producing high value fruit and veg. And surely we haven't got a government that wants us to stop producing high value fruit and veg. But what the government should be saying to my sector, and I think others actually is, let's put some incentives in place so that the food production you are doing, is being done alongside best practice for biodiversity, or best practice for carbon sequestration. And of course, best practice is going to evolve and change. I hope that makes some semblance of sense?
Florian Ritzmann: Absolutely. And I'll try and summarise before we'll go to Simon. So essentially, the barriers are a lack of standardisation. It's complicated. We need education. And there's a lack of expertise in government, which we need to grow.
So, summarising that as the Wild West, hopefully there's a new sheriff in town and his name is Simon Haldrup. And he can perhaps explain to us particularly the commercial aspect of turning sequestered carbon into cold, hard cash. Your company specialises in helping farmers make that transition, essentially to regenerative farming with the byproduct or end result being certificates that can be traded. I've got a lot of questions around that.
The first one is, what does it actually take for a farmer to enrol in an Agreena programme?
Simon Haldrup: Thanks. I don't know about a new sheriff but at least we're working the market to try to overcome some of those barriers that are being discussed here. And just to take a step back, we're currently working with farmers in eight different countries, and I just have to say it: the challenges are exactly the same in each geography.
The way we've come into this is actually by working through a trade marketplace. And what we can generally see is that there's zero financial incentive for farmers to adopt these practices and very few do, like Chris, and actually run the numbers. Because they're working very short term. And therefore our belief is that by actually creating a carbon asset, by actually creating a financial incentive, we can overcome those two first, two, three years that for many actually means a lower gross yield, as Chris also alluded to, to get to the other side and reap the benefits of a transition.
But what does it mean to a farmer? We built a technology platform to remove the friction, because as Ali also alluded to - it's a Wild West, there's a lot of different carbon tools and calculators out there. But the fact of the matter is that applying a carbon tool is only half the way because in order to actually receive some kind of payment first requires a verified carbon asset to be in place. I believe that will be the same, regardless of whether the payment comes from the voluntary market or from a government.
And that is fundamentally what we've built. We've integrated the process of data capture. This is complex, as it was also suggested here.
So we capture the data from a farmer. So if I use Chris as an example here, the farmer signs up on a digital platform, finds his farm, starts to identify his fields and enters data on historic practices. This allows us to establish the baseline as the starting point.
And then we help the farmer start building a strategy, how to convert over a one to three year transition period, going from conventional tillage into minimum tillage, or maybe even to no tillage; at some point; starting to adopt cover crops, starting to reduce the inputs and fuel consumption. And what the technology fundamentally does is to translate those changes of practices into an adjusted GHG [greenhouse gas] profile of that land.
That's the first part of the equation. The second part of the equation is the entire verification and carbon issuance process.
Because simply to ask a farmer whether they have started using cover crops or not is not necessarily enough for the market. And therefore we run an integrated verification process using satellite imagery, a lot of advanced analytics, running these kind of programmes, across a lot of different farmers. We look at pattern analysis, that allows us to use technology to verify these processes at scale. And then we combine all of that with both infield inspections and independent third party verification, to ensure the validity and integrity of the carbon sequestration that has happened.
“Simply to ask a farmer whether they have started using cover crops or not is not necessarily enough for the market. And therefore we run an integrated verification process using satellite imagery, a lot of advanced analytics, running these kind of programmes, across a lot of different farmers.”
And then there's a third step of actually issuing a carbon credit and having public open ledgers that allow for reconciliation of these claims. And we're issuing those to the farmer. So in short - it's a little bit of a hassle to get started. Because you need to deliver a lot of data in order to have a strong baseline.
And then every year - it's a little bit like taxes. So a prediction of what is my strategy for this year, and after harvest, delivering data on what actually happened on each of my fields that allows us to compute and verify the carbon sequestration that has happened and ultimately issue the carbon credit that can be sold in the market.
Florian Ritzmann: So the first step is quite easy - I go to your website, and I register as a farmer, and that's free. But to get to that third step, which clearly is the financial incentive that you mentioned - how many years are we talking about before I can reap the reward of what I've done?
Simon Haldrup: Yeah, so typically it's a year delay. We're following the harvest year. So there's a harvest cycle and maybe just to clarify at this point - I completely agree that there are different coverages and we only cover arable rotation at this point in time. So if I sign up right now, farmers are planning their 2022 harvest cycle and building in the strategies, those certificates will be issued end of 22 after verification. We expect within the next two weeks, to be able to finalise the third party verification of the 21 Vintage.
So we'll be issuing the first carbon credits fully verified in a few weeks time. So generally, that means that the farmer will have a payment 12 months after registering.
“We’ll be issuing the first carbon credits fully verified in a few weeks time. So generally, that means that the farmer will have a payment 12 months after registering”
Florian Ritzmann: Okay, so a year, that's doable and sounds good. Now, about the certificates themselves, I've go a bit of a background trading on the EU ETS, and a few years ago, last time I looked at this, what happened on the EU ETS, which is the EU's carbon trading market is that the market crashed. And the value of these certificates went from 10 Euro to 50 Cent.
And so I'm wondering, as a farmer, if you're issuing certificates at the end of this year, what kind of assurance can you give a farmer that they'll be worth what you say they're worth. Where do they actually get their value from?
Simon Haldrup: Yeah, absolutely. So I think there are two things. There's a distinct difference here between the allowance trading market of the EU ETS [EU Emissions Trading System], and then the voluntary carbon market. So these credits are eligible within the voluntary carbon market. These credits are bought by companies offsetting their unavoidable or transitional emissions. We do screening of all buyers to ensure that and that's a market integrity approach to ensure that carbon credits are not used as an alternative to decarbonising their own supply chain.
But therefore, these are companies that can be from the food supply chain, using these credits as insets to produce carbon neutral food products. Or it can be outside the food supply chain to create carbon offsets for corporate carbon accounting purposes. But it's all within the voluntary carbon market.
Florian Ritzmann: I understand. Worst case scenario: there's a flood one year and all the carbon that has been sequestered on Chris's land - I hope that never happens - gets washed away. What happens then to the value of these certificates and what type of insurance is built into these schemes - I guess you can never avoid it, but to at least mitigate it?
Simon Haldrup: No, and I think you're alluding to an even bigger challenge that has to be overcome if we're looking at the entire category of farmland, soil carbon credits, which is permanence.
Because, you know, even before the point of flooding or fires, what can happen is that farmer starts tilling again. And even though we concluded earlier that Chris will never go back, there's a risk of reversals - a farmer starts cultivating their soils and therefore releasing some of the carbon that has been sequestered in the soil. Therefore, it's critical to have some checks and balances. And what we do is that we retain a proportion of the issued certificates in a non permanence pool which is covering both the unintentional carbon reversals - that might be a a flooding situation - so it doesn't impact the carbon credits that have been issued; It's an insurance buffer on top that captures that. But it also captures the case where some farmers start going back and actually start tilling the soil. We will we'll be able to see that in our monitoring and will cancel those credits that have been issued from that farm, because they are ultimately invalid, and to a potential buyer replenish them with another credit from the buffer. And that is quite instrumental in actually creating value in the carbon market. Because without these kinds of safeguards, there's fundamentally very low value in those credits.
Florian Ritzmann: Thank you. Stepping back to the individual farmer. One question that I have in my mind, knowing a little bit about farmers, is that a lot of them live hand to mouth. And in terms of putting a crop in the soil you often end up borrowing money from the same people you sell your harvest to. Say I wanted to adopt regenerative farming - and this is for Ali - how much a barrier is that, say you need finance to produce a crop and then you needed to produce a plan that said, well I am actually adopting regenerative farming - is that a barrier, are farmers locked into their current financing requirements and would that stop them from changing the way they grow things?
Ali Capper: I think whether you’re borrowing your money from the supply chain or whether you borrowing your money from the bank, whoever you’re borrowing that money from will want to know that you have a sensible business plan and I think the comments that we both made about the Wild West and the slightly unknown values for - again coming back to whether its a carbon credit or a biodiversity measure or indeed whether there’ll be a carbon tax on farmers means that it’s a difficult space at the moment to build a robust business plan at the moment. So I think the answer is to me, if I went to my bank and said actually I am going to produce a bit less but I am going to put in place all these measures which are much better for the environment and will mean that I sequester soil, at the moment I can’t put a value on what the government will pay me for those biodiversity measures or indeed what the market might pay me for the carbon. And actually in my world, in fruit and vegetables where we’re in an integrated supply chain it may well be that the retailer wants to take the reductions for themselves and that might not leave me with a value. They may be telling me that that’s going to improve my price, but all of those are unknowns at the moment, Florian. So it makes it very difficult to put a robust business plan in place - today. In three years’ time we may all be in a different place.
Florian Ritzmann: So in order to conclude I should hand over to our farmer who’s done it. And the question is - Chris, do you agree / disagree with Ali’s view that regenerative farming is about pushing the soil a little less hard but getting more out of it in the long term so therefore it might not be for everyone, there is a risk involved. You have your own experience and the experience of your peers to fall back on. How difficult was the switch and how much of a financial burden was it on you?
Chris Hollingsworth: I can understand Ali’s concerns about it all and I can appreciate concerns that farmers have. I mean to go down the regenerative farming route, it is such a change in the way you do things. The comments that I could make is, when we did it, actually our cashflow was much better because we weren’t putting so many inputs during the year prior to the harvest. So, for instance, we don’t put a seed dressing on, we use far less insecticides, we use less fungicides, we reduced the amount of nitrogen we’re putting on and are still achieving comparable yields to our neighbours in a conventional system.
So actually the cashflow works in your favour. I think the other thing which we must appreciate, well, two or three things: Firstly, in the UK were losing the BPS, the Basic Payment Scheme, and as we lose that, we’ve got more lines of income coming in. We’ve got a line of income, from harvest 22, through Agreena. We worked out we’re sequestering about 4.4 tonnes of carbon per hectare, so that’s giving us quite a significant income. We also get incomes through the Countryside Stewardship Scheme because if you put a cover crop in the ground and leave it in the ground until February time then you receive an extra £115 a hectare. If we look at ELMS [Environmental Land Management Scheme] and we look at the the sustainable farming incentive that are coming through now, there are going to be further grants and further subsidies paid to farmers who will farm in a regenerative way.
“Traditional farmers love to see brown fields with lovely green stripes running up and down it, as the seed germinates and comes out of the ground. You don’t get that with regenerative farming. The farms do look quite different.”
So we are at a crossroads here, I appreciate the difficulties that some farmers face with their cashflows and everything else. And you also have to mention the fact that many farmers are very traditional. And traditional farmers love to see brown fields with lovely green stripes running up and down it, as the seed germinates and comes out of the ground. You don’t get that with regenerative farming. The farms do look quite different.
I think the other point that Ali made - I look at regenerative farming from basically an arable, combinable crop point of view. I do get involved with vegetable farms as well and under a vegetable farm system regenerative farming in my view is - Simon may say differently - almost impossible. And I am sure Simon will very soon get the computer to work out how much carbon Ali and her fruit growers are sequestering in a perennial planting system.
So, I think we need to look very positively at all of this. Not only are we solving some of the issues of soil erosion, we are solving issues of nutrients leeching into the water supply. But also, we’re key to sequestering carbon and all the benefits that brings in terms of climate change. So, a good positive approach from Ali and her friends at the NFU to push the government into having a very close look at regenerative farming would be my wish.
Florian Ritzmann: Well, that’s a Christmas list and a half. So Ali - you have your work cut out.
I’d like to say thank you very much to all of you for joining, it’s been a very rich session. Certainly I’ll enjoy listening to this again, because I learned a lot here. Shades of grey everywhere we look but the overwhelming picture seems to be that this makes sense. Looking at this as an arable farmer, this should become unavoidable in the years to come. So thank you once again for joining, it was lovely to have you all on board.
Florian Ritzmann:
So here is what I took away from our conversation –
For Chris, the move into regenerative farming was the result of observation, not ideology. Some of his land was more productive, so he made a business decision to convert the rest of it. His margins and cashflow have improved and this is all before taking into account any revenue from carbon credits.
Ali pointed to the lack of standards and rules - she calls if the Wild West - as a main barrier for adoption. To overcome it, the government would have to provide a much more activist steer and become a better champion of food produced in Britain.
But thanks to Simon’s contribution we also know that there are very serious players out there than can help farmers make sense of regenerative farming and help them de-risk changing their farming practices. Just pay a visit to agreena.com and have a look at their evolved calculator today.
Chris is now enrolled with Agreena and will receive his first certificates in 2022.
So I am really struggling to find what’s not to like about regenerative farming.
Taking carbon out of the air is something that science tells us we must do, so why not put the carbon where it can do good things, like our soil? Feels like a no-brainer to me.
Please join us again in the New Year, when we’ll be tackling the particularly thorny topic of competition - or perhaps the lack therof - in agricultural inputs buying. Until then, have a Happy New Year, see you in January.
“So I am really struggling to find what’s not to like about regenerative farming.
Taking carbon out of the air is something that science tells us we must do, so why not put the carbon where it can do good things, like our soil? Feels like a no-brainer to me. ”
