Reducing Inputs, Improving Outputs

Reducing inputs while improving outputs is becoming a key focus for farms looking to build long-term resilience. From improving soil health and making better use of organic materials, to exploring low-carbon technologies and more efficient systems, farmers are finding practical ways to do more with less.

We need help with the route map of how we are going to transition, and the investment required to get us there.

Helen Browning

Wiltshire farmer and Chief Executive of the Soil Association

We’re pretty good at adapting to change, but we need to be driving it rather than it being done to us.

Stephen Briggs

Farmer and agroforestry expert

The way we help farmers to decarbonise, when it comes to breeding, is just recording data. It's so simple but it's important.

James Wright

Farmer and UK representative for the Breedr app

Feed soils like you feed yourself – with a balanced diet. This builds soil biology.

Tom Tolputt

Founder and Technical Director at Terrafarmer

The more soil samples you take, the better the information you will have to identify land requiring carbon investment.

Becky Willson

BD & Technical Director at Farm Carbon Toolkit

We will be able to show farmers the benefits they bring not just for the planet, but for their businesses too.

Alex Bebbington

Project Officer at Farm Net Zero

Having the soil as your primary focus is key to performance. We have seen this in a very short time.

Mike Roberts

Blable Farm

With the environmental land management schemes also in the picture, soon too there will be a mixture of private and public funds for this work over the next 10 to 20 years. Some aspects of the private market are very much in their infancy at the moment. I expect it will be much more regulated in the future, but we are not there yet.”

Gary Rumbold

Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) SW Chief Executive

Vehicles fuelled by biomethane do still produce some nitrous oxides and particulate matter, but New Holland suggests negligible CO2 emissions are possible when using this new fuel.

Alternatively-fuelled tractors

We’re the first generation to be really impacted by climate change, and the last that can do something about it.

Mark Brooking

Sustainability Director at First Milk

Chemicals give a flush of growth and then nothing, but with bokashi, the grass grows persistently for three months. It could not come at a better time with fertiliser prices as they are.

Bill Harper

Cornish beef & sheep farmer

The debate is no longer about whether we should be farming more sustainably, but how we are going to make these transformations happen and how fast.

Caroline Drummond MBE

Chief Executive at LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming)

It's not too early to start thinking about how to manage your land in an environmentally sustainable way - new schemes and grants will help to enhance the environment, improve animal welfare and increase farm efficiency and production.

Stuart Batchelor

Agronomist at Pearce Seeds

We make changes on the farm because we feel they are the right thing to do and want the very best for our cows and our land. If every farm makes small changes to improve their environmental credentials, collectively that makes a big difference.

Matthew Mitchem

Oak Park Dairy

As we started to look at ways of improving our carbon footprint, removing soya and palm oil from the cows’ diet seemed like a good place to start.

Colin Dymond

West Penquite Farm

How to turn your farm’s natural capital into opportunity

What is natural capital and what does it mean for farm businesses navigating a changing policy and market landscape? AHDB’s Dr Laura Underdown and North Cornwall farmer Jonathan Chapman unpack both the theory and the practical on-farm realities.

Making the most from muck

Having grown up on a dairy farm and worked in several other farming businesses, it wasn’t until Andrew Sincock moved into the commercial world, he began to appreciate the manure he’d been surrounded by in his former life. He shares what he’s learnt on Farming Focus™.

Farm resilience starts with soil health

“The resilience of soil is the basis upon which a very successful business can be built,” says Tom Tolputt, founder of Terrafarmer.

Finding the way to net zero farming

Helen Browning, Wiltshire farmer and Chief Executive of the Soil Association, believes this is the decade when farmers need to understand how to reach net zero, but finding the ‘road map’ to that end goal is complex.

Why good soil health is a win win for business and the environment

Terrafarmer founder and technical director, Tom Tolputt, tells us how South West farmers can capitalise on the already fertile soils found across our region.

Working towards net zero

Alex Bebbington from Farm Net Zero describes how a large-scale collaboration between 40 farm businesses is building understanding of what can be done on farms to increase carbon sequestration.

Less is more for Blable Farm

No-one was more surprised than Cornish Mutual Member Mike Roberts when a review of his beef suckler operation led the family farm in the opposite direction to the one he had intended.

Bokashi success on Cornish farm

Bill and Suzanne Harper from North Tamerton have had great success introducing the Bokashi composting concept on their farm. We speak to Bill to find out more about it.

Methane tractor trial for large-scale horticulture business

A Cornish vegetable grower has put a methane-powered tractor to the test, as part of farm-wide efforts to cut their carbon footprint. We spoke to Farm Operations Manager Daniel Collins for the full story.

A new era for farming and the environment: the challenges, opportunities and triumphs

With British farming entering a new era, we spoke to the late LEAF CEO Caroline Drummond in 2021 for her thoughts on why this is farming’s ‘time’.

Removing soya from the diet to kickstart a carbon footprint improvement

Cutting a farm's carbon footprint isn't easy, but Cornish farmer Colin Dymond has used soya-free feed, stewardship schemes and more to boost his farm's sustainability.

Land Use and lessons from Northern Ireland

Professor John Gilliland strongly believes in the need to ‘measure to manage’ and says if you have “good knowledge you make good decisions”. In this episode of Farming Focus™, he shared his views on using data to inform decision-making, using examples from his extensive and varied background.

A farmer's guide to soil carbon

The Soil Carbon Project set out to find the best way to quantify soil carbon, and there was no shortage of interest from the region’s farmers, says researcher Alex Bebbington.

Reconstructing soil from waste

The €2.5million ReCon Soil project at the University of Plymouth is creating safe and productive soil from waste materials. Professor Mark Fitzsimons tells us more.

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