Reducing on-farm emissions by making simple changes is helping to increase profits on one of the UK’s biggest dairy units.
That was the message delivered by Grosvenor Farms dairy manager David Craven to 1300 visitors at last month’s Down to Earth event in Cheshire. The 2,600-cow herd is housed all year round and produces more than 12,000 litres per cow.
Higher margins
Feeding more efficiently, introducing co-products into cow diets, improving herd genetics and focusing on waste management can all increase dairy margins while being better for the environment, said Mr Craven.
Grosvenor Farms aims to reach net zero within six years, listeners were told. Arable manager Charlie Steer said all sides of the business were taking a joined-up approach to create a circular farming system.
The integrated farming strategy, such as recycling manure into organic fertilisers to replenish soils, means more than 80% of the animal feed at Lea Manor Farm is grown without the use of artificial fertilisers.
It has one of the lowest carbon emissions within the Tesco Sustainable Dairy Group milk pool at 939kg of CO2e/litre, reducing emissions by over 40% over the last 10 years while improving profits. The Tesco group average is 1,158 kg of CO2e/litre of milk.
Mr Steer said it was vital that farmers knew their carbon footprint.
“You need to understand your position and where you can get to, and then you can set out a plan to do so. If you haven’t got a starting point, you don’t know where you will go.”
AHDB environment advisor John Gilliland said on-farm emission data was vital for farmers to tell their climate change story with transparency and integrity. “Know your numbers, go for the win-wins and engage the win-wins. Grosvenor has done exceptionally well; they’ve leveraged the win-wins to show their profit has gone up as they bring their footprint down.”
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