Frequently Asked Questions - FAQs

Q. G1. What emissions are included in Agrecalc?

A. G1. When calculating a carbon footprint, the system boundary is a dividing line that determines what is and isn’t included in the “system” being footprinted. An Agrecalc carbon footprint assesses a farm system that extends beyond the physical boundaries of the farm. It includes the

processes involved in sourcing and manufacturing resources used on the farm. This is generally referred to as a cradle-to-farm gate carbon footprint. In the language of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, this includes the scope 1 and 2 emissions of a farm, as well as (most of) the upstream scope 3 emissions. Transport, processing, and packaging after products are sold off  the farm (downstream emissions) are not included in our emission model at present.

Q. G2. What modelling methods does Agrecalc use?

A. G2. Agrecalc is committed to maintaining a consistent, defensible model of farm emissions based on the latest reporting standards and research. Agrecalc is based primarily on the International Panel on Climate Change’s Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. We use mostly Tier 2 modelling methods to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from all major on-farm sources and carbon sequestration. We also incorporate more specific national figures from the UK National Greenhouse Gas Inventory. We complement these standard modelling methods with data from scientific databases and other published research. More information on our model, please see our modelling methodology.

The detailed breakdown of how we use these methods is as follows:

• IPCC 
  Agrecalc currently base most of its models on IPCC guidelines and use IPCC emission factors in conjunction with emission factors from other databases. 

Some of its models go beyond what is outlined in the IPCC guidance. Our livestock models are largely IPCC Tier 2 or beyond whilst our arable models are slightly simpler. As a rule of thumb, we aim to be at higher IPCC tiers for the most significant emission sources on farms. 

2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/2019-refinement-to-the-2006-ipcc-guidelines-for-national-greenhouse-gas-inventories 

Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories IPCC Guide l National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl  

• PAS2050: 

Agrecalc is PAS2050:11 compliant. 

PAS 2050 Assessment of life cycle greenhouse gas emissions fact sheet.

Q. G3. What period of the year should the audit take place?

A. G3. To set up a report in Agrecalc, you will need to specify what month the audit starts and concludes on the farm report data entry page. This must be a 12-month period. Essentially, this can be done over any 12-month period in the year as long as it is consistent from year to year, so that subsequent years can be compared to the baseline. For example, some farms will align with the calendar year, or some might align with the financial year.

In future releases, we plan to allow audits for periods shorter than 12 months. This will be particularly useful for pig and poultry farms that operate on a shorter cycle. Farms with grassland or crops will align more easily with an annual cycle.

Q. G4. How do I interpret the results?

A. G4. There are several ways to view your results in Agrecalc. We currently include options to view results through a resource use and emissions table, comparisons, year-on-year results, charts and Agrecalc pdf reports.

The resource use and emissions table shows a line item and breakdown for every source of emissions across the whole farm and also for each individual enterprise and product. It includes all the relevant output figures from the entire report for reference. It can also be copied into excel for further modelling or data manipulation. The charts functionality displays data from this table in a more visual and digestible way. These two functions together can help you identify the major contributors to your greenhouse gas emissions.

The Agrecalc reports include KPIs and benchmarks, which are especially useful for interpreting results. The benchmarks allow you to compare your farm with similar farms in the Agrecalc database, demonstrating areas in which you excel and areas for improvement. The comparisons tool allows for placing two Agrecalc reports side by side and comparing each line item to examine any differences. This functionality is useful in a variety of modelling contexts. The year-on-year option allows a similar way side-by-side comparison of line-by-line changes over time.

Q. G5. How do you model a ‘What if’ scenario using Agrecalc?

A. G5. If you are a paid user, you can use this feature. Let’s take an example – say you want to model a 25% reduction in fertiliser use. On the farm home page, first create a copy of the baseline report. Then, enter the report input screens and reduce fertiliser quantity by 25%. Remember to hit ‘Save’. Next, use the ‘Comparisons’ page in the results section to compare the results of both reports side-by-side. It is advisable to initially model one variable at a time so that you can see the effects of each change in isolation.

Q. G6. What emissions factors are you using for your IPCC Tier 1 Forestry assessments, and is there a reason you haven’t chosen instead to use a Woodland Carbon Code model? Because this Tier 1 model is static, I suspect many of our places with mature “sink saturated” woodland will receive a very high sequestration value where something like the WCC would disagree.

A. G6. Our current version of our woodland assessment uses IPCC Tier I methodology which considers potential above-below-ground carbon sequestration potential according to woodland age, and category (conifer or broadleaf dominated). However, we do plan to utilise the UK Woodland Carbon Code model in 2025 which will better reflect the granularity of tree species, age and management practices.

Q. G7. Why do you use ‘tonne per fresh weight’ measurement for Crops, when you use kilogram (kg) as a measurement everywhere else?

A. G7. We aim to use units that are closest to those commonly used on farm – crops are usually measured / traded in tonnes. Farmers are usually asked: ‘How many tonnes to the ha did the crop yield? How many tonnes did you sell?’. And the answer will be, e.g., ‘8 t / ha (eight tonnes per hectare). The farmer is never going to say, e.g.  ‘8,000 kg’. And when livestock are bought and sold, they are and measured in kg.

Q. G8. If one of our tenants in already part of the process, can we just get their permission to view their figures or do we need to enter the data again? 

A. G8. You can access existing farm / Agrecalc user data with the permission of the farmer / data owner (this may be a Consultant, farm manager or processor). It is the responsibility of the project owner (you) to agree the process to gain written permission from the farmer / data owner.  If the farm is part of another Organisation, we will add the farm to your Project. 

We have processes in place for Project owners to ‘invite’ users into its Projects on Agrecalc Cloud. 

Q. G9. Where tenants have already completed an Agrecalc independently or through FFRF, are we able to see / use this data? Presumably we would need to seek tenant’s permission to do this? 

A. G9. As above.

Q. G10. When the LUFAs are collecting info for Agrecalc, do they look at just our owned land or do they include the farmers owned / rented land that supports the grazing?  

A. G10. Agrecalc works at a whole farm level, so take into consideration all land used and inputs for the farm’s enterprises regardless of ownership. Where land is rented seasonally, it should be entered as seasonal land, and the annual occupancy alongside it. For example, if a 5 ha parcel of land is rented 6 months of the year, this would be entered as 5 ha seasonal land with a 50% occupancy. 

Q. G11. What is definition of Biodiversity in context of forage details? 

A. G11. The Biodiversity category in Agrecalc includes field margins, buffer strips including riparian buffers and Ecological Focus Areas (EFA) such as wild bird mixes that meet Greening requirements under biodiversity areas. However, areas of EFA nitrogen-fixing crops, catch crops and cover crops should be recorded under the most relevant crop types.

Q. G12. Is it better to do offline data collection and then input or to attempt direct input to the online tool? 

A. G12. In many cases, the bandwith of a farms internet connection can slow down the inputting of data when done straight into the tool. It may be best to collect data offline for this reason. Additionally, if you ever need to revisit the data that has been input, you will have this as a hard copy.

Q. G13. If our tenants would rather enter the data directly at their own convenience, can they be given access to the system to do this?

A. G13. We are looking at a simple legal document that a farmer could fill in that would give us access to available data. 

If the farm and report are created in the Organisation / Group / Project by a Consultant / Advisor, the farmer can be given access to the account by replacing any contact information (e.g. email address) in the farm licence account. 

If the farm licence account already has the farmer’s email address, the farmer can access the account (resetting the password using their email address) at any time. If the farm licence is in the Organisation / Group / Project, all Consultants / Advisors can continue to access the information through their login. 

If the farmer chooses to enter their own data, and initially create their account outside of the Organisation / Group / Project, you can send an email to [email protected] to ask the farmer for permission to add their farm. See Q. G8. for further details.  

Q. C1. How does a farm allocate land that is rented out seasonally?

A. C1. Agrecalc is an LCA tool that seeks to assign the emissions associated with agricultural production effectively. Where land is rented out by the landowner, the guiding principle is that the carbon emissions are allocated to the farmer that generates the output. If the landowner or farmer rents land out to someone else, the emissions are passed to the third party and do not reside with the landowner (if they are not your sheep, they are not your emissions). The same applies to crops such as land let for potatoes – the landowner is not responsible for fuel and fertiliser that the potato grower applies to the crops.

Q. C2. How do I answer the ‘Number of years crop is in the ground’ field?

A. C2. This is the average length of time the crop is in the ground before it is ploughed and should be recorded in years. For annual crops, this value should be one, for other crops such as grassland the average time between complete sward renewals.

Q. C3. Does Agrecalc include the carbon stored in grass and crops grown on the farm?

A. C3. Carbon sequestration is the removal and long term storage of CO2 from the atmosphere. Although grass and other crops remove carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, most of that carbon returns to the atmosphere pretty quickly. That carbon is digested, either by humans and livestock consuming it, or microbes in the soil breaking it down. This is part of the natural carbon cycle, and does not generate additional long term carbon storage. However, cropland and grassland management practices can contribute to increases in soil carbon stocks, which is considered a long term carbon store. This sequestration is included in Agrecalc.

Q. C5. Is it possible for the tool to take peatland into account?

A. C5. Not at present – though we are working on a collaboration to take this into account. For now, some of our soil specialists have been doing survey work, following guidelines in the Peatland Code to calculate potential emissions savings from peat restoration. The next step for Agrecalc is to account for emissions from drained, cultivated peat soil. After that, we aim to add peatland restoration to the Agrecalc sequestration model.

Q. C6. How do I answer ‘Fraction of perennials / fallow in the rotation’ in the soil carbon inputs?

A. C6. This field asks what fraction of the rotation the field is under perennials / left fallow. Consider a longer time scale than the year in question for the purposes of the soil carbon calculations. For example, if every 2 years in 8, a field is sown with perennials grasses, the value entered would be 25%.

Q. C7. How do I input liquid fertiliser in Agrecalc?

A. C7. You can enter the N% in the usual fertiliser tab and convert from litres (L) to tonnes (t) by multiplying the quantity applied in L by 0.00128.

Q. C8. Are there standard figures for ‘% crop removed’ values for different crops?

A. C8. Yes, these can be found in the User Guidance Notes. (For User Guidance for Agrecalc Cloud, click here). If straw from cereals is chopped or incorporated, this should be factored in, as less of the crop is removed from the field. Adjust the proportion removed based on the yield of straw remaining but yield of grain being removed. See further instructions in the User Guidance. If standard figures aren’t included in the User Guidance, contact us and we can provide an estimate.

Q. C9. Why does lime have a large impact on my carbon footprint and how should I enter it?

A. C9. Lime application leads to direct soil emissions: lime releases carbon dioxide when it dissolves in the presence of water. Lime is also quite carbon intensive to extract and deliver as a product to the farm gate.

It is often the case that lime is only applied one in every four or five years. We recommend spreading the amount of lime applied across the number of years in which subsequent crops will benefit from the application.

Q. C10. On an organic farm that doesn’t use fertiliser, why do emissions against fertiliser appear in the emissions tables?

A. C10. This category includes Fertiliser and Lime – lack of space in table prevents full title being detailed there.

Q. C11. What is the meaning of the ‘Biodiversity’ land use category?

A. C11. Biodiversity area includes shelter belts, wetlands, wildflower meadows, and other natural areas which are not part of the farm production system but are kept in a natural state to support the natural landscape. Areas of bracken can also be recorded under biodiversity.

Q. C12. Fertiliser emissions in your output reports seem to be exclusively listed in the CO2 section of the report. I’m assuming this stems from a fertiliser LCA around production. Are there no assumptions in the existing model concerning N2O production as a result of fertiliser use, via nitrification / denitrification? I would have expected at the minimum an N2O allowance against IPCC Tier 1 methods – but very possible I missed something in the report?

A. C12. CO2 emissions in the report from inorganic fertiliser are from the embedded emissions associated with manufacture and transport. We use IPCC Tier II methodology to account for N2O production associated with the wider N cycling processes, including nitrification/denitrification/indirect N2O and leaching and are aligned with the UK GHG inventory emission factors. 

It is possible that you missed this in the report as it is shown under a sub-section as follows (in the N2O part of the report – first two points):

Q. C13. It doesn’t seem like its possible to enter peatland (degrading or otherwise) into the land cover bit of the assessment. For many NT farms, it is likely that peatland will form a large part of the emissions profile of a farm. Have I missed something, or is that still the case?

A. C13. Not yet, but soon. We will be releasing a peatland update to the tool in the coming months; this is based on the Peatland code inputs so will allow an input field for peatland condition status also. For now, there is the option to input area in hectares of peaty soil, before we release this further peatland module update to Agrecalc. We are also looking into adding saltmarsh as a land use category / option.

Q. C14. How do we account for annual variation in cropping?

A. C14. For grass silage where baled, users are commonly asked for number of bales a year and see if there is variation from one year to the next. For arable, tonnages per ha of product harvested are needed so this would cover the variation. The majority of time, it is worth asking if enough crop is produced on farm for feed as if not and feed is bought in then we would need this information for the bought in feeds as well. 

Q. C15. Is there a good understanding of the ability of bracken to sequester carbon? Apparently its very good.

A. C15. Agrecalc doesn’t look at this level of detail including rough grazing to this extent at the moment. We would suggest record as a permanent habitat rather than commenting directly on the sequestration abilities of bracken.

Q. C16. With the potatoes and root vegetable enterprise, is this just for feeding purposes i.e., feeding sugar beet purchased from elsewhere, or only actually growing sugar beet on the holding? 

A. C16. This can be done for growing and selling of products too. Adding the tons sold in Agrecalc will show this as an enterprise and the emissions for the products sold. Same with hay and silage. 

Q. C17. How important is the differentiation between rough grazing and pasture grazing – what is the impact of this on the calculations?

A. C17. This needs to be as accurate as possible. Include fell land as rough grazing and then others, such as inbye, is included as pasture grazing. It can make a difference if the soil sequestration calculations are being used as the calculator will ask about the grazing of the land too which impacts on the end result. 

Q. C18. Need to look at the details of how to record straw and muck in mixed farms. Also other imported organic materials e.g., biosolids and liming materials – do they make much difference?  

A. C18. Yes, they do make a difference. For the manures applied, if the soil sequestration calculations are being used, then they need to be inputted in order for the calculations to work. Including these accurately, will show how much fertiliser a crop is taking on and if there are too many emissions from fertiliser use. Overall, as Nitrous oxide is a major component of the greenhouse gas emissions, we need to have this as accurate as possible as it could lead to results being out by a large margin. 

Q. C19. Forage crop classification – what’s best option for species rich meadows for example(I would imagine permanent pasture)? Will future versions have more suitable options for the various habitats? 

A. C19. If it is being grazed, then yes, use the permanent grazing option here. It may be in the future versions of Agrecalc we can look at this more specifically.