PROGRAMME: A CONSERVING AND RESTORING

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1 PROGRAMME: A CONSERVING AND RESTORING Project: SDR-A3 Carbon Club Project elements: Landowner led discussion group Energy audits Project description Aim Carbon Club aims to conserve or restore the South Dorset Ridgeway s priority habitats and species and other natural heritage, creating better connected and more resilient populations of naturally occurring plants and animals. It will do this by offering bespoke training opportunities that will ensure the relevant skills are acquired, developed and sustained to manage the heritage of the South Dorset Ridgeway into the future. Specifically, Carbon Club will facilitate a network of farmers that will cooperate to implement best-practise operations that will minimise the impact of farming on the South Dorset Ridgeway s natural heritage and ensure that it is more resilient to a changing climate. The network will include workshops and energy audits that offer bespoke advice to help reduce the farms carbon footprint. Outline The project will work with the farming community of the South Dorset Ridgeway to help identify practices, technology and skills that will allow them to adapt and innovate at their farm to improve efficiency, whilst reducing their impact on the landscape in terms of carbon output. The Carbon Club will be a series of farmer-led meetings where the changes required to reduce their impact on the landscape will be identified and discussed with the help of experts, who will also talk through how to implement them. Bespoke energy audits will be undertaken to identify the savings that could be made on the farm. These will be followed with repeat visits at the end of the scheme to help quantify the saving made (both to the farmer in terms of expenditure and also in terms of landscape conservation) and feed into case studies that will demonstrate the benefit of this approach. SDR-A3 Carbon Club 1

2 A map showing that the activity of Carbon Club is not limited to any one site within the scheme area, but is taking a whole scheme area approach. SDR-A3 Carbon Club 2

3 Background The South Dorset Ridgeway scheme area includes some large scale intensive arable and dairy farm businesses and to fully engage with and influence the whole farming community the Landscape Partnership needs to ensure it is linking up with the most business-focused farmers in the project area, where the usual grants and incentives may not be enough to attract them to engage with the project. The Carbon Club is an opportunity to do this. The Carbon Club will promote sustainable farming methods which are about more than habitat and species conservation; the whole farming system will be considered and it will focus on the environmental impacts of the inputs and outputs at the farm. The Carbon Club will address this in two key ways: 1. It will facilitate the provision of up to date information on the latest technology. Topics will be chosen by the Carbon Club members and cover anything that can improve farming sustainability thus enabling farmers to maximise productivity whilst reducing their environmental impact. They could include themes such as new crop varieties more resilient to climate change, soil management to help cope with drought and high rainfall, reducing fertiliser use, water efficiency on dairy farms, renewable energy in an AONB, carbon storage, and cattle nutrition to reduce methane emissions. 2. By providing some farms with the opportunity to have a farm energy audit to measure energy use it will enable farmers to measure the business cost of their current farming system. As they implement the recommendations and discover new technology over the next few years, the repeat audit in year 5 will enable them to measure the energy use afterwards. These will provide some case studies after the landscape partnership project. There is a forward-thinking farming co-operative in the project area already making use of precision farming practices. This proves there is a demand for innovation from farmers in the SDR. The Carbon Club will provide an opportunity for these farms to demonstrate the new ideas they have adopted to other farmers in the SDR and to lead the search for new and relevant technology. SDR-A3 Carbon Club 3

4 Outline of project development From Stage 1 The project was made up of the following elements: Workshops Energy audits 7 farmer led meetings Project condensation Change in outputs Budget changes To developed proposal The project is still made up of the original elements and also includes the production of case studies, to illustrate the benefits to landowners and farmers not involved directly with the Carbon Club No project condensation took place The number of workshops has been reduced to 1 from 2; the number of Energy Audits has been reduced following farmer consultation. This means more time can be spent per audit to help ensure that changes are implemented; audits have reduced from 24 to 12. The number of Carbon Club meetings has increased from 7 to 9. 3 case studies will be produced that were not included in Stage 1 outputs. The budget has increased marginally from 18,876 to 19,245 a difference of 369. SDR-A3 Carbon Club 4

5 Wider context Integration with other projects (within and outside LPS): Code & name of project linked to Nature of relationship SDR-A1 Sharing leads and cross selling projects as Linking the Ridgeway both these projects aim to work with SDR-D22 Farming for heritage Catchment Sensitive Farming landowners. Training opportunities identified as part of the Training Needs Analysis will include the skills required to implementing carbonfriendly farming. This is a successful initiative operating throughout the River Frome catchment. Regular liaison with the project officer will ensure that landowners do not suffer duplicate visits. SDR-A3 Carbon Club 5

6 Beneficiaries Who or what will benefit Landowners and land managers The natural heritage of the South Dorset Ridgeway How? The farming community will benefit through reduced expenditure on carbon-reliant farming practices. Reduced contamination of sensitive habitats, by nitrates, reduced energy and water consumption. Target audience Landowners and land managers SDR-A3 Carbon Club 6

7 Project delivery details Methods An initial event will be held and open to all farmers to launch the idea of the Carbon Club and to present examples of what the Club can offer to help them adapt and innovate at their farm to improve efficiency whilst reducing their impact on the landscape in terms of carbon output. It will be an opportunity for farmers to identify what they would like to find out more about at subsequent meetings of the carbon club. There will need to be a lot of promotion of the idea to ensure good attendance. This will be through farm visits, letters and mailings to farmers and from working with the local NFU. The first Carbon Club meeting will be held in year 1 following on from the launch. A Chairperson from the farming community will be elected to help keep the club firmly embedded in the farming community as it is intended that the club will be taken on by the farmers after the project has finished. The Carbon Club will then meet two times a year. Meetings will be a mix of indoors with guest speakers and discussion and site visits and demonstration of technology relevant to the interests of its members. There will be the opportunity for 6 farms to have energy audits prepared for them and these will assess the energy usage at the farm and identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency. A follow up visit with the finished Audit will run through these costed recommendations and signpost the farmer to the relevant organisation or equipment that can take it forward where relevant. These farmers should be those who are committed to the Carbon Club objectives and who will continually seek the latest technology to help them reduce their farm energy use and therefore their environmental impact. Research into these audits shows that there is reluctance from farmers to undertake the audits and to be meaningful more time than was originally allowed is needed to follow up the recommendations and ensure they are implemented. Therefore the number of audits has been reduced, but more time will be spent with each farm. Time will also be spent writing up detailed case studies on 3 of the farms to be used as examples to promote to other farms in the SDR and beyond after the project has finished. This project will link up with the work being done by KMC. Contracts/procurement/specifications or standards adhered to: Contracts for expert advisors will be let following the launch of the Carbon Club and priorities identified. SDR-A3 Carbon Club 7

8 Key project timescales and milestones Project element Deadline/milestone Completed by Workshop 1 launch event held December 2013 Carbon Club meeting 1 CC meeting held March 2014 Energy audits 6 energy audits undertaken March 2014 Carbon Club meeting 2 CC meetings held March 2015 Carbon Club meeting 2 CC meetings held March 2016 Carbon Club meeting 2 CC meetings held March 2017 Carbon Club meeting 2 CC meetings held March 2018 Energy audits 6 repeat energy audits March 2018 undertaken Case studies 3 case studies produced March 2018 Roles and responsibilities: Project lead: Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group SouthWest Others involved in delivery: Kingston Maurward College delivering Training Needs Analysis and other relevant training opportunities. Contractors delivering bespoke advice. Responsibility for ongoing maintenance and support: The aim is for the Carbon Club to become self sufficient following the completion of the Landscape Partnership scheme. SDR-A3 Carbon Club 8

9 What will this project deliver? Objectives: Outcomes: Promote the project through the hosting of 1 launch event / workshop by winter Undertake 6 energy audits of South Dorset Ridgeway farms that identify opportunities to reduce dependency on carbon based products by spring follow up audits will be undertaken to help quantify the savings made by spring case studies will be produced following the energy audits to highlight the benefits of reduced carbon dependency and spread the message wider than the immediate members of the Carbon Club. These will be completed by spring More people have acquired and are developing skills that will help to conserve and enhance the heritage of the South Dorset Ridgeway Landscape. The landscape is more permeable to species movement/dispersal; therefore populations are more resilient to change. Longer term legacy: The beneficial changes to farming practices that Carbon Club will have encouraged will continue on the farms and may well be copied by other neighbouring farms. The aim is that Carbon Club will continue after the landscape partnership programme finishes as the farmers will value it and by using a local farmer to Chair it, this has given the farmers ownership of the project form the start. SDR-A3 Carbon Club 9

10 Risks and mitigating actions See attached table Project monitoring Indicator Baseline Target/output Monitoring regime 0 6 plus 6 audits Reduction in inputs Number and effect of energy audits undertaken Level of interest in published findings 0 Number of newspapers/magazines/other media (farming press and others) running case studies as a story. Number of local farmers contacting FWAG as a result of reading case studies Follow up audits will show if any benefit has been gained from actions taken as a result of first audit and advice. Press cuttings Contacts made to FWAG Qualitative evaluation of project with sample of participants. SDR-A3 Carbon Club 10