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Farm Businesses

Supporting farm businesses in transiting to low carbon production

As a farm business owner, you are facing many challenges, some of them being:

  • how to remain profitable while meeting competing needs from government and retailers in a changing market and climatic environment
  • the need to learn about the principles of carbon footprinting in agriculture and how to adapt
  • how to get a baseline for current farm emissions
  • how to benchmark emissions against other farms to contextualise results

 

To be able to meet the demands posed by the consumer perception, there are further areas to understand, for example: what the key action areas on a specific farm would be, or what you can do to mitigate emissions on your farm. Agrecalc is free for individual, non-commercial use.

Making sustainable choices is possible if you learn about the role sequestration can play in your system and what you can reasonably expect to achieve from utilising a resource calculator. We understand that you have limited time to spend on entering data, and you need to have confidence in the results.

For corporate farms, Agrecalc can provide group portals and tailored use of the tool.

If you’re an individual farm business owner, and would like to see how Agrecalc Cloud can support your business, please fill out the form below to Request a Demo.

Carbon assessments for farm businesses

On a global scale, agriculture needs to cut carbon emissions by 42% by 2050, and in Britain by 30% percent.  The Scottish Government has committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2045, including a reduction of 75% by 2030.

Whilst a number of countries have adopted net zero targets by on or around 2045, Scotland’s 2030 target was particularly ambitious and has since been deemed as unachievable. However, committing to resource efficiency and yearly monitoring, benchmarking and reducing GHG emissions is a sound business decision.

All of these targets are driven by subsidy incentives, as well as retail and consumer demand.

farmer with cow and tablet

How Agrecalc can help

Agrecalc is a leader amongst farmers in the carbon footprinting software space – and this is no coincidence. Our platform allows farmers to easily log in, create a farm report, enter the farm data for a 12 month period and view their results. The Agrecalc interface is clear, intuitive and designed for farmers by people who know and understand farmers and farming. The data can be entered in as little as 1-3 hours (for most farms) and only needs to be done once a year.

From here a farmer can view their results compared to their peers with similar enterprises, and even regionally if they wish. The results from an Agrecalc report will also allow farmers to understand what the key drivers of emissions are on their farm are and what the key action areas are. It allows to identify inefficiencies in the system – areas of higher resource use and emissions output that can be targeted to reduce carbon emissions and improve profitability.

Key features of the tool for farmers include:

  • Straight forward, simple and easy to use, and producing clear and easy-to-understand results
  • Asks for detail when it’s needed, simplifies data collection when it can
  • Rigorous calculation with accurate outputs
  • Supported by on-farm experience and expertise of consultants, who engage with users on a daily basis
  • Access to large emissions benchmarking datasets, enabling regional and country level analysis and insights of a wide variety of agricultural systems, with the numbers in thousands and growing
  • Ability to capture all farm enterprise types, with the results expressed as whole farm, or allocated by enterprise and product, as well as operational modules on carbon sequestration from woodlands, hedges and soils
female sheep ewe and lamb in a green field
a farmer holding a ripe cauliflower in their hands in the sunshine

What else Agrecalc does

Our platform has an unrivalled database of benchmark data on all kinds of agricultural systems and their product emissions. All data entered is validated by consultants to ensure data quality, and comparison against validated carbon data sets of product and farm emissions.

Finally Agrecalc adheres to IPCC (2019) methodologies and is PAS 2050:11 accredited, matching UK national inventory requirements. Each individual report is currently validated in person by a consultant after submission.

Agrecalc also adheres to IPCC (2019) Tier I and II emission calculations for all livestock and farm enterprise types, with calculations being updated to match the National GHG Inventory.

There are imminent plans for the tool to have appropriate ISO accreditation as well.

Find out how we collaborate with our clients

For the last fifteen years, we’ve helped thousands of farmers understand where they stand when it comes to carbon audits, reports and resource use calculation. Agrecalc was the calculator chosen to support Farm Advisory Service in the Beef Efficiency Scheme in Scotland, a program launched and financed by the Scottish Government with a goal to improve efficiency of the national herd. 

Agrecalc has been identified by the Scottish government as the only calculator that comes with mitigation recommendations. This is especially important in the light of currently ongoing Phase 1 on the National Test Programme (Preparing for Sustainable Farming – PSF), where carbon audits are a major first step to be undertaken by farm businesses.

Agrecalc drives efficiency and cost savings in many areas like feed, fuel and labour. Read how a Highlands farmer used Agrecalc to achieve a 57% reduction in N2O emissions in Agrecalc blog.

Need expert guidance in decision making?

Contact us today to learn more how we can support your work.
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