CropWorld 2010: DEFRA annouces £12.6m emissions project
DEFRA has commissioned a £12.6m research project to investigate how agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking at the CropWorld conference, farm minister Jim Paice said the project would develop a better understanding of emissions from farming activities and help fully capture the reductions from the good practices farmers are already adopting.
“In other words it will help us develop a far better baseline against which further changes can be measured.”
Agriculture is thought to contribute around 8% of all UK greenhouse gas emissions, but that measurement uses a simplified approach relying on generic emission values and national statistics.
The four and half year project will aim to strengthen that understanding, with the initial projects focusing on discriminating between methane emissions from different livestock species and breeds under different farming systems, and creating a better understanding of nitrous oxide emissions from nitrogen inputs through time, and the influence from climate, crop and soil type.
In understanding which actions would make the most difference, it was hoped the research could further improve the positive steps farmers were making to drive down greenhouse gas emissions, Mr Paice said.