Our goal is for all Cranswick owned farms to be carbon-neutral by 2030. We aim to achieve this by adopting regenerative agricultural methods that improve soil health and organic matter levels, conserve water, sequester carbon, encourage biodiversity and recycle farm waste.
Over the past two years, we have increased soil organic matter by an average of 10 per cent to support higher levels of CO2 cycling as well as future crop yields and irrigation efficiency. We are investigating how we can reprocess manure from our finishing sheds, removing and cleaning the water to leave a more valuable organic fertiliser, ultimately helping our partner farms to reduce their reliance on artificial products.
We are scaling up work to measure the carbon footprint of our farms and livestock as well as shifting towards certified sources of soya for our animal feed. We are also exploring alternative protein sources such as UK grown peas, beans and soya to further improve our land use and carbon impacts.
We have planted wildflower grass margins around our outdoor pig units to encourage biodiversity. These margins also act as a buffer strip to slow water run-off, prevent soil erosion and leaching of field nutrients. Some of our breeding units are now on grass and we plan in the future to support our energy crop growers to make use of their grass leys after harvest.
We continue to be inspired by nature, not only on our farms but in how we apply a circular economy framework for our waste strategies and gear up our Changemakers to volunteer to protect our local green spaces.
(Photos by our talented colleague, Colin Stone, Breeding Farms Manager)