Iain Field, the other half of Leap Farm, chats to Kate about their positive carbon story. In this episode, we find out how they calculated their net green house gas emissions, as well as their carbon sequestration. We also find out why increasing carbon in your soil helps to build a strong, resilient farm (and what a resilient farm is). There are some tips and tricks and plenty of hope for the future in farming, whether you're big, tiny, or somewhere in between.
Iain has a background in ecology, being award his PhD in 2005. He successfully completed 2 post-docs, and was most recently a lecturer ay Macquarie University, where he gave a birds eye view and whole of systems approach to landscape function, including agriculture to the students. He has taken this view and applied it to Leap Farm.
After talking to A/Prof Matt Harrison in the last episode, he was inspired to complete a carbon audit of our farm, discovering that we sequester at least as much as 3 times more carbon than we emit. He did this through utilising the University of Melbourne GHG calculator. He developed a spreadsheet to be able to determine our Carbon Sequestration rate (direct link not yet available, head to our Website where we will post it). While none of the data you receive is robust enough to earn you ACCUs, it will certainly give you enough information about your farm or enterprise to determine where you sit in relation to carbon footprint, and will give you some guidance as to what levers you can pull to improve your carbon sequestration or decrease your emissions. And you certainly don't need a PhD to be able to complete it!
For more assistance with the calculator, you can contact Iain at farmers@gmail.com or A/Prof Matt Harrision at matthew.harrison@utas.edu.au. Kate can be contacted at thecuriousfarmer@gmail.com or on FB and IG @LeapFarm.