PDA

View Full Version : Climate Friendly Food



Mzee
Oct 17th, 2009, 11:42 PM
On Monday, October 12th, I attended the launch of Climate Friendly
Food at Schumacher College in Devon.
One of the directors of CCF is Jenny Hall, co-author of the Vegan Organic 'bible' "Growing Green -Organic Techniques for a Sustainable Future".

After the meeting we had a tour of Martin Crawford's forest garden.


So, what is it all about? Basically, CCF is a new organisation which will
have an on-line carbon calculator for farmers. By entering details
into the calculator, the grower can see how much carbon is used to
produce the crop -

“Carbon footprints are a good indicator of a farm's ecological health,
as lower carbon footprints tend to accompany a move away from the use
of fossil fuels, encourage biological sources of fertility and improve
biodiversity.. This new carbon calculator will allow farmers and
growers to easily work out their carbon footprint, helping them
identify areas where they could reduce emissions and increase
resilience in the face of peak oil.”



On the face of it, that sounds all very worthy.. but exciting?


YES! - because the right agricultural techniques can get not only to
Zero Carbon, but actually go well below zero, absorbing
CO2 from the atmosphere and storing ("sequestering") it in the soil.
This has global implications!



"The IPCC estimates that, globally, correctly-managed agriculture
could sequester 20-30% of total current annual global CO2 emissions,
and this estimation is based on an average sequestration level of 1.3
tonnes per hectare per year. Martin’s forest garden is sequestering 30
times this amount." (40 tonnes per hectare per year, every year!)

"You can see what the implications of this are in terms of potential
to bring down atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which is the ultimate
objective of Climate Friendly Food." (It could also further emphasise
the importance of not destroying forests..)

(Compare it to the mythical "Carbon Capture and Storage" for coal-
fired power stations. Billions of pounds are going to be spent trying
to do something which has never been done before which may never work
just so that we can keep burning coal...Also, it may appear to work
and then later the stored CO2 could burst out again, suffocating
anybody who was near the leak...) :eek:



Agriculture has the potential to sequester carbon right now and
produce food at the same time! :smile:



By using the calculator, we can put numbers on various agricultural techniques and make our choices. The CFF website www.climatefriendlyfood.org.uk (http://www.climatefriendlyfood.org.uk/) was launched on October 12th and the carbon calculator is due to go on the website on October
28th.
I expect Vegan Organic ("Stock Free") methods will score very highly, but each grower should find out our own figures, in case there are further improvements we could make.