Could a single platform provide environmental information for all agri-food products? It's a good idea in theory, but could have some unintended consequences.
Jen Butcher, AB Agri Communications and Commercial Responsibility Director
In a simple world, the greenhouse gas emissions produced by all food products, from a litre of milk to a kilo of potatoes or sprouts, would all be captured in a single dataset: one clean, validated version of the truth. Not only does this have the appeal of an elegant solution, it also provides a neat way to cut through the divergence in emission tool numbers – where the various tools on the market may all (usually for sensible reasons) provide different CO2e values for the exact same product. This approach also avoids the supposed headache of measuring emissions on each individual farm, which is sometimes declared an ‘impossible’ task.
It is a neat idea, but it has some drawbacks.
Farm businesses should be rewarded for reducing emissions
If the single version of the truth is based on averages, there’s no incentive for an individual farm or processor to outperform the market. Why invest in excellent on-farm practices if your numbers aren’t measured? Or if they are, you’re just one number of many, all mashed together into an average. Lower performers will benefit; high performers will lose out. And nobody is incentivised to make progress. Worse, it could lead to a race to the bottom, where the less responsible materials, such as uncertificated soya or high emission fertiliser, become more appealing. If we’re not careful, we could push the numbers up, resulting in an increase for UK PLC’s overall agricultural emissions. That said, average data could prove extremely useful if used primarily as a benchmark to measure good performance against. It is certainly better than nothing.
We are measuring on-farm emissions very effectively today – to great effect
While some agricultural supply chains do not yet have the data at farm level, in dairy supply chains, the majority of farms measure their emissions today, and it’s not a new thing: AB Sustain launched the world’s first on farm emissions tool back in 2007. Back then, emissions measurement was very hard to do because so much of the data simply didn’t exist. The industry has come an impressively long way since. Animal feed and fertiliser manufacturers know their numbers, manure and methane can be calculated, and soil carbon can be measured by satellite. Today, AB Sustain’s Farm Footprints tool, based on the IPCC PAS2050 AR6 methodology, and aligned to the ‘International Dairy Federation’ global standard life cycle assessment methodology for carbon foot printing draws on a wealth of data, such as the Global Feed LCA Institute’s (GFLI) world-leading feed material dataset.
The fact we can do all this is important because the level of accuracy will be required for food business’ Scope 3 reporting. Investors need to be able to distinguish progressive food businesses from those that are standing still.
So whilst the immediate appeal of a simple solution must make way for complexity, we need to continue our efforts to help all farm businesses know their numbers. Most importantly, we need to keep focus on why the numbers matter, which is not just so that we can fill in boxes on annual reports (and TCFD, CSRD, CDP…). The point is to improve food production: to lower our emissions and produce food in more responsible ways. Only accurate, farm-level data will help us to make evidence-based choices that have a meaningful impact on farm. Many farm businesses are today working with consultants such as Kite Consulting (specialists in dairy) and seeing improvements as a result. Armed with farm level data, farm businesses can assess the benefits of investing in technologies such as anaerobic digestion or precision feed mixing. If we can make measurement and improvement business as usual for our whole industry, the aggregated improvements should dwarf the benefits of simplicity, which could only ever lead to inertia and powerlessness. But with farm level data comes farm level power for all, and the ability to be rewarded for good work.
Talk to one of our teams for more information: ABN, Premier Nutrition (pig and poultry nutrition); Kite Consulting (dairy) or AB Sustain (emissions measurement for livestock and arable systems).