Carbon Footprint

 

Farmers have a profound relationship with the land and often many generations of their families have worked the very same soil they now toil. Increasing carbon stocks depends on better management of carbon flows.

 

This relies on three strategies:

  • 1. Focusing on the point in time when the bulk of carbon arrives.

• 2. Increasing the pathways by which carbon is able to enter the landscape.

• 3. Improving landscape resilience.

 

How successfully plants introduce carbon into the landscape is determined by animal management. Plants and animals have evolved together and rely on each other. However, if animals dominate plants, then carbon flows and carbon stocks are reduced. In the absence of animals, plants become moribund and therefore have a lower capacity to photosynthesis.

 

One excellent way to reduce your carbon impact is to build up carbon in the soil which aims create a thick layer of hummus that binds the soil together and ensures that the soil can hold significant amounts of nutrients and water. This can be achieved by changing the grazing plan of the herd by ensuring that animals are herded from one area to another in a rotational fashion and thereby avoiding the issue of specific areas becoming denuded as a result of overgrazing

 

Sheep tend to cut the grass very low down and if left in one place will have a very heavy impact on the land. By employing rotational grazing techniques you ensure that their manure and hoof imprints help to create the right environment for seeds to germinate and thus preserve the seed bank in that area. The other added bonus to soil carbon sequestration is that the health of the land ensures that the livestock will feed 100% on the groundcover and thereby reducing the need for farmers to buy in costly feeds which have a significant carbon emission. T

 

hrough large scale soil carbon sequestration practices you can in fact sequester so much carbon dioxide that if scientifically measured can lead to a low carbon/carbon neutral enterprise. If you want to measure your operational carbon footprint then this would look at the operations of your farm. If however you want to measure the carbon footprint of your product (1 ton of wool) then you would look at the lifecycle carbon emissions in the production of that 1 ton of wool.

 

You can only label your product as carbon neutral if you have done the later carbon footprint (Product Carbon Footprint) and fully offset the carbon dioxide emissions relating to that specific product. If you have done an Operational Carbon Footprint and have offset your operation footprint entirely then you can label everything carbon neutral except your product itself.