Agricultural information business Agriconnect has assisted in launching the Journey to Net Zero competition with the School of Sustainable Food and Farming.
A project by the School of Sustainable Food and Farming (SSFF) – backed by Bradford Estates, Harper Adams University, McDonald’s, Morrisons, National Farmers’ Union, Trinity Agtech and Trinity Global Farm Pioneers – the Journey to Net Zero competition aims to support British agriculture achieve its net zero targets.
“We want to equip farmers with the skills and knowledge to reach ‘net zero’, bringing this to life through training with trusted advisors,” comments the SSFF. “The school will be a central hub for farmers to share their understanding on sustainable farming linking with the next generation. There is the ability to ensure improved farm systems for farmers. This means a lowered emissions footprint and improved sequestration offsetting on a whole farm system approach.”
A £50,000 investment acts as a total prize fund, to be distributed in individual sums between £5,000 and £20,000 ‘to fund scalable systems or processes which will help farmers to manage their businesses in a sustainable way’.
Winners will be announced at the end of 2022 and their progress tracked and publicized by Farmers Guardian throughout next year to ‘spread their learning across the industry’.
Professor Michael Lee, vice-chancellor of Harper Adams University, announced the competition’s launch, calling it a chance to ‘help our farming community realize this vital transition’. “Harper Adams University, working through our new SSFF and supported by our industry partners, is committed to deliver training and research needed for a just transition to support all UK agriculture, be that through reducing methane emissions of ruminant livestock, improving soil health, or realizing biodiversity improvement in mixed cropping systems.
“We are working with some of the UK’s brightest and most innovative farmers and we really look forward to expanding this network through the competition. We realize that the greatest take up of technology and interventions is through seeing these implemented on real farms, hence the excitement around this competition.”
Harriet Wilson, agriculture and sustainable sourcing manager for McDonald’s, comments: “Farmers are well known for being entrepreneurial inventors, often driven by the need to adapt to situations on-farm. Net zero and the climate challenge is probably the biggest driver of necessity to change that we will face over the next ten years and the inventive farming mind is well placed to come up with some of the solutions.”
