Dr John Gilliland, Director of Global Agriculture and Sustainability at Devenish and Chair of ARCZero will present some of the interim findings of this European Innovation Partnership Project at the DAERA / UFU Agriculture and Climate Change Conference on Wednesday 27th October.
ARCZero is a farmer led, European Innovation Partnership (EIP) Project made up of seven farms from across Northern Ireland. The farms are seeking to understand where they each are on their journey to Net Zero Carbon emissions, by measuring and managing carbon flows at the farm level in a manner which empowers them to make better quality decisions leading to an accelerated positive change in their journey towards carbon zero farming. These farmers are joined by industry and science partners AgriSearch, Devenish, Queens University Belfast and Birnie Consultancy.
With support from AFBI, NRM, RPS and SRUC and by employing the latest scientific methods this project has been determining how much carbon is held in their soils through soil sampling and analysis. Aerial LIDAR surveying and analysis has been undertaken to fully understand the amount of carbon held in hedgerows and trees and how excess rain water carries soil and nutrients into our streams and rivers. Farmers have also completed a detailed carbon emission calculation using SRUC’s AgReCalc tool to see how they can reduce their emissions.
John Gilliland owns Brook Hall, his family farm which is also one of the seven ARC Zero farms. John Gilliland is highly respected and recognised as an excellent leader and communicator across the breadth of the Agri Food and Sustainable Land Management Sectors. He has been an award-winning farmer in Ireland, President of the Ulster Farmers Union; a Non-Executive Director of SRUC, and an Energy Regulator in N. Ireland; while at the same time, he has been a policy adviser for Devolved, National and European Governments on Biotechnology, Climate Change and Sustainability.
For more information and to register for this conference visit: https://www.ufuni.org/events/agriculture-and-climate-change-a-countryside-cop-event