Landcorp’s shrinking carbon footprint

It is replanting and reforesting: steep, hilly land is being put back into trees.

“There’s too much erosion; we can’t make enough money by putting a couple of sheep or a couple of beef cows there, and we face potentially a huge environmental bill coming in for methane gas,” he told the recent Environmental Defence Society ‘Tipping Points’ conference in Auckland.

“We need to get our carbon footprint looking much more responsible than it has been, which means putting back a lot more trees on more of our land.

“We are taking palm kernel out of our system because people don’t like that in farming; we actually don’t think it is a great way to farm. The numbers of farmers I’ve had approach me saying ‘thank goodness you’ve decided to do that’ has staggered me.

“We have just stopped dairy conversion, pulled back on a whole lot of plans to convert to more dairy.”

Carden says Landcorp is trying to think of alternatives to give a good economic return with a much lower environmental cost.

“We have started to walk the talk about farming more sustainably. But I think we have recognised as well that we will have to do more than that.

“Technologies are coming that will allow us to farm much more precisely than we have in the past. Big data and the technologies that come with big data are our friends,” he added.

“We can be much more specific now about the amount of nutrients and water we apply to the plants we plant to produce just the right growth we need to optimise productivity onfarm.”

Using home grown technologies like Farm IQ software allows Landcorp to farm by animal rather than by mob or herd.

“We can be much more productive with those animals by applying just the right amount of feed that they need at the right times to optimise their growth,” Carden says.

“It means a whole lot less wastage in the system, which reduces our environmental footprint.”