Towards Carbon Positive Through Improved farming

Challenges

The agriculture sector is an important source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and has a key role to play in helping to reduce net GHG emissions by sequestering carbon into the soil and vegetation. However, progress in achieving emission reductions in this sector has been slow. The climate change plan 2018-2032 requires the agriculture sector to achieve net zero emissions by 2045 necessitating a fundamental transformation of land use to deliver a low carbon, holistic, sustainable integrated food production systems. This needs widespread adoption of low emission farming practices. The organic carbon content of soils and GHG emissions from the agricultural sector cannot be easily measured, which is a key barrier for implementing programmes to achieve NetZero. There is a need for credible and reliable measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification platforms, both for national reporting, emissions trading and to track progress towards Net Zero.

Questions

Solutions

This project aims to better assess each mitigation practice for its additionality, permanence, and uncertainty in achieving Net Zero.

Improving national GHG inventory

We are focussing on developing Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 3 methodologies using process-based models to reduce uncertainties in the current national GHG inventory. This involves:

• Developing national soil, climate, and farm management database.
• Bottom-up modelling and scenario analysis.
• Top-down modelling of GHG emissions using tall tower observatory.

Identify potential measures of GHG mitigation

We focus on two tasks: first to provide evidence of new GHG mitigation measures and second to identify region-specific GHG mitigation options using Tier 3 models. The former activity assesses the impacts on GHG emissions relative to current conventional crop management practices across six of the most grown arable crops in Scotland using the Centre for Sustainable Cropping, a platform that provides long-term baseline data and context for whole-system responses to an integrated management options. GHG emissions are highly variable over space and time.

GHG emissions from agriculture systems under contrasting environments can affect mitigation potential of practices. The UK has developed Tier 2 emission factors for agricultural systems which are based on country specific conditions, however, these emission factors may not apply for climate change projections. DNDC and ECOSSE process-based models can be used to predict the impact of various agriculture management practices on net GHG emissions. We are using these models to capture the interaction between management practices, climate, soil, and crop. We use upscaled DNDC and ECOSSE to find appropriate region-specific mitigation options and its potential to contribute to NetZero 2045.

Scalable digital carbon calculator to enable mitigation actions at farm level

This project is extending the development of a digital carbon calculator to estimate changes in soil carbon and GHG emissions to produce near real time GHG emission estimates from agriculture at national and farm scale. We are developing a prototype digital carbon calculator and mobile app with enhanced features widening its applicability to estimate GHG emissions in near-real time.

Co-production of outcomes with land managers and key stakeholders

We are involving farmers and key stakeholders in co-producing a farm level digital carbon calculator, to ensure that it meets their needs and is designed in a form accessible to them. We are conducting a literature review on land manager perceptions and behaviours relating to nutrient management, and hosting workshops exploring land manager nutrient management practices.

Life cycle analysis of agriculture commodities and potential towards net zero

This project is evaluating the environmental impacts of Scottish agricultural commodities, including imports and exports, and explore the potential changes in impacts and dangers of ‘off shoring’ emissions of switching to a future fully renewable energy scenario. This includes:

• Mapping agricultural commodities that are produced, imported and used nationally.
• Assessing the environmental impact of current key agricultural commodities.
• Assessing the change in environmental impact of agricultural commodities under a fully renewable energy scenario.