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Farmers are using innovative methods, on their farms and further afield, to reduce their environmental impact. Some are creating products you may not know about, others are using techniques and technology designed to slash their carbon footprint. Just how far has environmentally friendly farming come, and what questions should you be asking about how your food is produced?

Slashing food waste

Fruit farmer Charlie Fermor has two main environmental focuses: to reduce food waste and find the most environmentally-friendly packaging for his farm. And he’s found ways to do both.

“We’ve always tried to be as efficient as possible on the farm, and reducing waste is probably the biggest part of that.”##

Growing up on the family farm, it was Charlie’s dad who initially looked at ways to reduce food waste. Charlie remembers one incident where they harvested 40 tonnes of strawberries, only to be told by the buyer they weren’t required any more. “It was all packaged, ready to go, and it was just thrown out”, he says. This kicked off a chain of events that eventually led to a solution: to dehydrate excess food.

After a bumper crop of apples, they dehydrated excess apples into healthy snacks. Then they started experimenting with other produce.

As the business started to grow, they expanded their range in order to make use of food that would otherwise go to waste. Now Charlie dehydrates the produce of other food companies and farms. “It’s saving that container-load of produce that otherwise would just be thrown out”, he says.

Charlie’s environmental work doesn’t end there. After becoming frustrated by plastic waste, he became the first fresh food producer in the country to use . “Every year between Christmas and New Year, I’d go around all the hedgerows on the farm and pick up plastic waste – things like cola bottles and crisp packets. And every year I’d get five or six truckloads of it. I thought; ‘we’ve got to do something to help combat this’”, he says. He’s now investigating a further type of plastic that could be easily recyclable. Watch this space.

Making the land a carbon sink

Representing the North-eastern region on the NFU’s national environment forum, food farmer Richard Bramley is often trying to find solutions to environmental issues – and for him, it’s personal.

“We were severely flooded in 2012 and lost a lot of money. That’s the other side of the climate we see – the effect it has on our weather and land.”

Based in Yorkshire, his farm has been hit by flooding several times, ruining crops and the land. “The 2012 flood was in September, so we had high-value crops in the ground such as potatoes, which we hadn’t been able to harvest. We had put all the investments in and they were just killed. That was a painful experience. There is no insurance and you don’t get compensation, so you have to take it on the chin.”

So what is Richard doing to help the environment? He is helping to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, ensures no food goes to waste and produces his own energy.

“While we don’t have livestock on the farm, straw – a co-product of our wheat and barley – goes to two other farms that have beef cattle, and then comes back to us as a lovely manure that we can put on the land to enrich the soil. Nothing goes to waste.”

Out of season, they use cover crops on their fields. “Essentially, these are sacrificial plants. We harvest the crop in the summer and then sow a mixture of six species of plants, all with different characteristics. They grow until March, when the crop will be incorporated into the soil, and we’ll then sow the next year’s crop. This process harvests carbon from the atmosphere and locks it in the plant fibre.” The land effectively becomes a carbon sink.

“There is a cost to go through this process and the benefits to me aren’t measurable, but it’s a gut feeling that this is right.”Richard also buys in seed to help feed wild birds in the winter and has let the farm’s hedgerows grow and enhanced them with flowering plants so they act as a pollen source. He uses solar panels on the land and, perhaps most importantly, he invites farmers, politicians, “and anyone who’ll listen” to the farm to discuss environmental steps.

Tracking the environmental impact of your food

As individuals and businesses want to know more about food’s provenance, farmers need to be able to demonstrate their animal welfare standards, transportation processes and the environmental impact of their food.

Australian Ian Wheal, who grew up on a cattle farm, has developed an app that demonstrates these things to others in the supply chain. “Inefficiency in the supply chain has a huge impact on lots of things, including the commercial sustainability of farms”, he says. Crucially, he hopes the app can help improve animal welfare and environmental standards.

“It pays to have a happy animal and a high welfare standard. The app can track where the animals are, how many days they’ve spent on grass and how much energy they’ve used on feed, and this can help farmers build a picture of their own welfare standards and find ways to improve them”.

Examining the energy used from the feed is particularly important to the environment. “If animals are inefficient on feed, they’re not using that feed for growing, and it comes out as a by-product: methane, nitrogen, all of the environmental gases.”

Ian’s already looking at further developments with the app, which could detail the off-setting a farmer has done to reduce his or her carbon footprint. “You’re never going to be able to buy an animal that has a zero carbon footprint, but you are going to be able to buy an animal that is at net zero output.”

Finding cutting-edge tech to cut your carbon footprint

High-tech equipment helps Ryan McCormack address environmental impact and cost-effective farming. And the farm manager in Kent is for his work.

“We’ve got the technology to drill straight into the field without any prior cultivation to plant seeds, so we’re not having to loosen up the soil.” What this means is “we’re not using big, heavy machinery to cultivate the land, so we’re saving on diesel.”

Ryan also uses GPS and yield maps to get data on what nutrients are required. “We can pinpoint the areas that need a bit more attention. And as you go through the field applying fertilizers, one machine reads the green matter, so it knows what its potential is.” This means he isn’t treating all areas of a field in the same way, but can pinpoint what’s needed where.

Ryan hopes his farm will become self-sufficient – and that technology could help with this. “I believe, in 10 years’ time, we will be self-sufficient. I know there’s electric vehicles coming out and we could use methane biofuel too.”

“We could make a biofuel using methane gas, which could then power machinery, which would then be used to feed the animals – and also feed the world.”

However, it’s not just about the latest gizmos and gadgets. Like Richard, Ryan uses cover crops on the fields. He goes into the local community and helps educate the next generation of farmers on the importance of looking after the environment.

Improving the quality of the soil

North Yorkshire crop farmer David Blacker, a third-generation farmer, is always learning and trying to improve the environment. “You’re handed the reins when your father retires. He improved it a certain amount and then, as the next generation, you want to go further.” So, seven years ago he decided to change the way he farmed.

David had become concerned that the processes on his farm were damaging the soil – not only failing to keep nutrients in, but organic matter was starting to disappear too.

He had been operating a four-pass system, which means before seeds were planted the soil was churned up multiple times. After the change in process? “From an emissions point of view it's gone down from a four-pass machinery operation to one tractor and one pass”. This means he’s using far less diesel to achieve the same outcome.

David’s also a fan of technology – he mentions a contraption he has on his tractor which tells him how much fertiliser needs to be applied. “It looks a bit like a surfboard, but the sensors can pick up what green mass there is on the leaves, which then helps to inform the amount of fertiliser that’s needed.” Reducing the amount of chemicals that could be released from the farm is vital to David. He’s visited a water treatment works to see what they have to do to ensure water’s fit for human consumption. “If nitrates are running off the field, when the water companies are extracting the water for us to drink, they have to do a lot to clean it and make it healthy”, he says.

David uses cover-crops on his fields and has taken part in trials with organisations testing various seed mixes to see which will help farmers get the best yields. He’s hoping with time this could impact policy in the future. In the meantime, he's thinking about what else he could do to make the farm more environmentally friendly. He’s already seen more partridges and lapwings arrive at his farm and he hopes that he could improve his ponds to encourage nature further.

What can you do to help?

When it comes to food, you’re probably already trying to do your bit for the environment – reducing your plastic, cutting down on food waste and checking to see if there’s a way to reduce your food’s carbon footprint.

So what else can you do?

Buy in season – cook with seasonal produce so you can shop locally, which will reduce your food’s carbon footprint.

Get the kids involved – plenty of farms hold educational events or tours so children can see where their food comes from and what it’s impact is on the environment. Ryan ran an event where he taught children where the ingredients in bread come from and interactive sessions on how bees are beneficial to the environment. Check your local area to see if there are similar events near you!

Check the welfare standards – if you’re buying meat or dairy, check that it adheres to welfare and environmental standards. Ian Wheal argues that happy animals tend to come from farms that are also trying to help the environment.