Bid to capture industry’s action on climate crisis

A new project aims to help the Scottish farming industry accurately record and measure the positive steps it is taking to tackle climate change by sequestering carbon.

The CarbonPositive initiative is being spearheaded by agricultural co-operative organisation Saos with financial support from the Scottish Government.

It aims to gather data on a range of topics, including soils, woodland, livestock and renewable energy, to quantify the contribution of Scottish farms and crofts in mitigating climate change. It is working with the James Hutton Institute and the government’s forestry agency, Scottish Forestry.

Speaking at the Saos annual conference in Dunblane, Saos project manager Emma Patterson Taylor said: “We are working to get a national picture, and a picture of individual farms, about the carbon they are banking.

“We are also looking at renewable energy and at natural capital, such as biodiversity and clean air.”

She said north-east farmers’ co-operative ANM Group was involved in the livestock element of the project through its Farm Profit Programme.

Saos and ANM Group are working on a project which aims to give livestock producers access to a tailored range of data from their herd or flock, such as calving interval and age at slaughter, to help them identify areas of improvement.