One farm’s journey to reach net zero

With increasing focus on achieving net zero and accounting for carbon, dairy farmers have been encouraged to reduce their carbon footprint by milk buyers, consumers, and others within the industry.

Whitewool Farm, based in Hampshire, and owned by Will and Jamie Butler, is experimenting to find ways to optimise inputs and achieve greater profits that go hand in hand with environmental gain, including reducing carbon emissions across their entire farming enterprise.

Their farm is made up of a 400-cow Holstein Friesian dairy unit on an autumn block-calving system and 240 ha of combinable crops (mainly wheat). The farm also has several diversified activities such as glamping, fly fishing, corporate days, clay shooting and self-storage.

Jamie and Will leaned more towards a sustainable approach when their non-farming businesses demanded it. They then realised that, if done right, there were huge savings to be made by focusing on this area, and they are now adopting this approach across the whole farm.

With a focus on increasing productivity from natural resources, Whitewool Farm are working hard to be more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprint. They are well on their way, making a good inroad for other farmers to learn from.

Their vision is ‘to be the most productive farm in the UK – naturally.’  They are working towards this by enhancing assets, optimising inputs, and delivering fulfilling experiences to their customers, team and cows.

Will said:

“Our aim is to have a well-rounded business that supports the environment throughout every activity we do.”

Jamie said:

“One of the best assets we have on the farm is slurry and manure. We do everything we can to enhance the value of this from adding ‘effective microbes’ to ferment the slurry and enable it to retain its nutrients for longer and release them more slowly to ensuring applications of slurry are at the right rate and at the right time.

“With the help of Portsmouth Water, Natural England and ADAS we have investigated water pathway management and slurry infrastructure and invested heavily in extra storage capacity and better umbilical spreading equipment.”

Jamie and Will are also looking for opportunities to build biology on the farm and one of the ways they are doing that is experimenting with a new method of intensively building fungi and microbes, called a Johnson-Su bioreactor.

This is a very simple system that over 12 months builds a microbial-rich substrate that can be applied as a soil stimulant, either as a seed dressing or through a sprayer. Early experimentation has seen a noticeable difference in tillering and plant vigour in wheat.

The bioreactors are created by filling IBC containers with woodchip, muck, silage, and worms to provide a rich base on which beneficial microorganisms can grow. Regular monitoring is required and then there is a bit of a process to extract the substrate in a form that can go through a sprayer or be applied as a seed dressing.

Jamie said:

“Not many UK farms have adopted this approach yet, but with the biological gain in the soil and the subsequent benefits that come from building soil health, I think more farms will start their own Johnson-Su bioreactor within the next few years.”

Whitewool Farm keep their employees involved in the bigger picture, through project planning and allowing staff to have as much autonomy over day-to-day decisions as possible. Will said:

“Through helping our employees understand the reason why the farm is aiming to be more productive and work sustainably, they can also consider the overall goals in their daily decision-making.

“We also like to offer training and external support, to help learning and to keep our workers engaged in our farming practices.”

When asked about the dairy industry achieving net zero goals, Jamie said:

“A significant problem as far as I can see, is that in the current set of measuring tools, the enormous amount of carbon being drawn down through photosynthesis is not accounted for and this is where cows get most of their carbon from.

“In other words, most of the carbon emitted by enteric fermentation was in the atmosphere just a few short months before. If this photosynthetic drawdown was accounted for, I believe that the calculations would show that many dairy systems would be close to net zero now.

“Going forward, building circular dairy systems to reduce the reliance on geologically extracted carbon, such as fuel and fertiliser would make milk production even more carbon efficient.

“This can be done with all the usual recommendations such as better use of slurry, building soil health, and increasing biodiversity within crops, which will drive a dairy farm’s resilience and, in turn, drive profits as well. And should there be further developments such as cow diet manipulations that reduce emissions, then dairy farming may even be seen as an environmental necessity.”

Whitewool Farm has joined our three-year Strategic Dairy Farm Programme to help develop their farm further with the feedback from a steering group and local farmers that they will be hosting at their on-farm meetings.

Will and Jamie will also continue to conduct their own trials to improve the productivity and sustainability of Whitewool Farm. For example, over the next year, supported by SFI, they are going add herbal leys and clover to their entire grazing platform to maximise the soil health benefits and optimise the feed value for the cows.

If you would like to find out more about Whitewool Farm, they are hosting their Strategic Dairy Farm launch meeting on 20 March.