‘It’s positive to be carbon negative’ - sequestering carbon at Huxhams Cross Farm
We can now show that we are successfully sequestering carbon at Huxhams Cross Biodynamic Farm (www.apricotcentre.co.uk). Over 5 years we have implemented sustainable and regenerative practices to sequester carbon, support biodiversity, adapt and mitigate climate change, and produce food. Using the Farm Carbon Toolkit (https://www.farmcarbontoolkit.org.uk/ ) we are discovering the benefits of this approach (full details can be found in our Carbon 2020 Report).
In 2020 the total carbon sequestered on the farm (117.70 tonnes of CO2e) offset 221% of all carbon emitted by the farm business.
Key statistics for 2020
Total annual carbon emissions 53.16 tonnes CO2e
Total annual carbon sequestration 117.70 tonnes CO2e
Total carbon balance -64.54 tonnes CO2e
Carbon balance per hectare -4.78 tonnes CO2e
Carbon balance per tonne of product -2.69 tonnes CO2e
Our regenerative farming practices focus on minimum disturbance, i.e, no ploughing and reduced cultivation, keyline ploughing or ‘subsoiling,’ constant coverage with living roots, i.e, green manures, growing diverse species and varieties (agro-biodiversity), valuing crop rotation in combination with chickens and in field manure, and reintroducing and building the soil biome with the use of biodynamic preparations.
Taking an average sample of Soil Organic Matter (SOM) over 2 years up to 2020 and comparing this to baseline figures from 2015 suggests that we have increased SOM content by 25% since 2015. Further experiments are needed to analyse the SOM in full and across the whole farm.
Two of the major agricultural contributors to climate change is the release of carbon held in the soil and use of fossil fuels. We can reduce carbon emissions from soil by building soil organic matter using regenerative practices, slowing or ending land clearing and wetland drainage for agriculture, preventing erosions, reversing the degradation of agricultural soils and reducing tillage. We can reduce fossil fuel emissions by reducing the use of mechanized equipment and cutting back on chemical nitrogen fertilizers. Chemical fertiliser can be replaced with manure or nitrogen fixing plants such as legume cover crops or agroforestry support trees.
The UK soil survey estimated that between 1978 and 2003, soil carbon (the principle chemical of soil organic matter) declined by an average of 0.6% in cropped soils. The Countryside Survey records that, between 1978 and 2007, the topsoil carbon concentration in arable soils fell by 11%. The bulk of this reduction was observed between 1998 and 2007 (Soil Carbon and Climate Change, Parliament Environmental Audit 2016).
