Grosvenor Farms was voted the overall winner of the Cream Awards 2023 held in London 7th September. It was a night of particular celebration being the 10th annual Cream Awards to be held and the second time The John Beckett Memorial Cup – sponsored by Lely Atlantic – has been won by the Cheshire-based company.
“Grosvenor Farms won the award in 2016 and has demonstrated that they have not sat back and have continued to strive to move the business forward,” stressed British Dairying Publisher Alan Whibley. “The judges viewed this as an significant achievement in itself and one of the many reasons they decided that the business deserved to win the Cream Award for a second time.”
Grosvenor was category winner in this year’s Climate Positive Agriculture Award for 2023 – sponsored by Mole Valley Farmers – which recognises dairy farm businesses that are measuring and monitoring their carbon footprint and taking positive action to cut and enhance their environmental impact. It also considers measures taken by the business to positively increase biodiversity on their farm and improvements made in carbon sequestration.
“The Grosvenor Farms entry demonstrated clearly the very close link between improving the farm environment and increasing business profitability and sustainability,” said judges.
“Grosvenor Farms as a business has been looking at all aspects of their Farm and looking to make the enterprises more energy efficient,” explains David Craven, Dairy and Infrastructure Manager at Grosvenor Farms. “And this is particularly important for the dairy enterprise because environmental emissions are very high.
“Our whole farm approach has been the focus and has driven our strategy for the last 10 years. It is now producing 32,000,000 litres of milk as well as grains, in a proven financial and sustainable way,” he says. “It is no coincidence that having a profitable farming system also corresponds with us reducing our carbon footprint.
Grosvenor Farms was established in 1974 and extends to 2,340 hectares on the Eaton estate near Chester. The dairy enterprise has 2,600 cows, and 1,500 dairy heifers. Cows are permanently housed on sand-bedded cubicles and fed a total mixed ration (TMR). Yields average 12,500 per cow at 4.1% butterfat and 3.55% protein.
Cropping includes 800 hectares of arable, 450 hectares of three-year grass leys, on a multi-cut system and 350 hectares of maize. A further 12% of the area is accounted for by environmental features and the remainder by permanent pasture.
The new dairy unit at Lea Manor Farm opened in November 2014. This brought together four dairy herds from across the estate. Amalgamating into one large unit allowed the business to streamline production and become more efficient. “All the units had different challenges and would have needed a lot of investment to make improvements,” explains David. “We decided we could reduce fixed costs, and improve yields and productivity, by combining them in one efficient unit.
“We adopted the latest research that demonstrated enhanced housing needs, for fully housed and modern dairy cow. We designed in energy saving systems, including a 250kw solar system, heat recovery and sand recycling.”
Land use issues
Arable farming is balanced with increasing biodiversity. Field margins, headlands, crop rotations and cultivation are managed to minimise the impact on the environment.
“The expanding number of cows meant that we would require more forage and, as a consequence, we altered our cropping. Technology, found on most of our equipment, feeds back accurate data on inputs, yields and work rates.”
Using this information they have refocused their strategy to concentrate on growing arable and forage crops on the most productive areas of the farm. This has allowed the business to revert land that was resource hungry and financially unsustainable back to areas of biodiversity.
“Cropped areas are optimised for food production and less productive areas are optimised for habitat protection and enhancement,” he explains.
“The synergy between the dairy and arable operations allows regular inputs of organic manure before and during the growing season — promoting healthy soil and providing a valuable source of plant nutrients. The farm average soil organic matter on cultivated land is just over 5.25%, a good indicator of a resilient farming system.”
Conservation and Environmental Stewardship
The first major environmental and conservation plan was drawn up in 1983 and over the years many shelter belts, woods and specimen trees have been planted. Particular attention is paid to “green corridors” to encourage wildlife. The farm now runs one higher tier stewardship scheme focused on wetland and one Mid tier focused on arable and rotational grassland areas.
A key feature of the farm is the water meadows alongside the River Dee SSSI and its tributaries which form some of the best low lying wetlands in the north-west of England. These areas are managed with late-cut haylage to promote nesting sites and feeding areas to promote threatened species.
Wetland habitat creation and restoration has also taken place to maintain the species-rich wet meadows along the River Dee floodplain. Over 30 water control features have been installed, including dams, swales and scrapes, to benefit water holding and flood mitigation. These are particularly good for both breeding and wintering birds such as lapwing, snipe, reed bunting, redshank and numerous duck.
All 134 ponds on the farm have been surveyed. Of these, 51 with high biological value have been restored or maintained to improve freshwater wildlife habitats and promote desirable flora and fauna.
Carbon Footprinting
Grosvenor Farms calculated its first carbon footprint in 2016 as part of its contractual obligations with Muller/Tesco to provide data to allow a carbon audit to be conducted. The first results estimated a carbon footprint of 1.1kg CO2-equivalent per kg of fat and protein corrected milk (FPCM). Although below average of the TSDG group, the generic values attributed in the calculation gave it limited information on how to improve.
To address this, detailed and more accurate carbon footprint calculations were introduced through SAC Consulting’s AgRE Calc assessments and allowed historical data to be analysed.
Herd improvements
This allowed them to assess improvements made by the amalgamation of the herds to Lea Manor compared with the aggregate of the four separate herds operating previously. “The results of the carbon emissions demonstrated a fall of 15% per litre of milk produced in 2018 compared with pre-Lea Manor in 2014,” explains David.
“The higher milk yield certainly helped dilute the carbon emissions. But improvements in rearing of youngstock, cow maintenance, manure application and renewable energy have also made substantial impacts.”
“The main drivers were a reduction in enteric methane emissions – achieved due to better feed digestion from more efficient use of feed.”
“Our principal areas of focus were improving forage quality by adopting a multi-cut system from three-year leys and substituting high carbon footprint purchased feeds, such as soya.
“This also improved feed digestion and lowered enteric emissions. We are using a range of elite bulls from various companies, including Cogent where we are looking at EcoFeed bulls. Feed efficiency is something that there will be more emphasis on in the future, particularly as it will affect the amount of enteric emissions released,” points out David.
Initiatives to improve nutrient management has also led to a cut in nitrous oxide emissions from manures. These include reducing crude protein levels in cow rations and a cut in artificial fertiliser used to grow crops and forage.
Manures are separated after sand extraction, with sand then being reused in the beds after a period of drying and rest. The separated liquid and solid manure fraction is stored to be used strategically to fertilise crops. Over 85 to 90% of crops and forages grown on the farm receive only organic manures for their nutrient requirements.
Future plans
Currently in the final stages of planning and design is an AD system using waste feed stock, mainly from farm slurries, and providing gas to the National Grid. Grosvenor intends to move towards gas powered equipment and is in discussions with a local business which is looking for a provider to supply compressed gas for its trucks.
“Although the current result of 0.82 kg Co2e/kg of milk was industry leading (see table), this new initiative will further reduce our impact, aligning us with our goal to become carbon neutral by 2030,” he predicts.
“Sequestration is still not recognised as a way of offsetting our emissions, but this is expected to change in future. The two areas of focus for the business would be soil and biomass. Soil sampling since 2015 has included the content of organic matter and adding the soil sequestration into the equation reduces it further to 0.62 CO2e/kg of milk.”
Grosvenor Farms are also investigating a scientific method of calculating biomass on the farm. LiDAR technology measures woodland and hedgerow biomass density which can be included in sequestration calculations.
“Moving forward we also accept that science and technology, as well as genetic gain, will provide further advancements in the goal to be carbon zero by 2030,” says David. “We must also make sure that we continue with our scienced-based approach. Reducing emissions from manure and enteric methane production from cows, is now a priority and accounts for 55% of our emissions.”
David concludes: “Our primary objective is to profitably produce safe and nutritious food while taking full account of the needs of our environmental, social and regulatory responsibilities. We are committed to commercial farming that cares about people, animals and nature in the long term, and combines best practice ethical and scientific knowhow with industry leadership.”
| KG CO2-e/ KG FPCM | 2014 | 2018 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
| Enteric fermentation | 0.47 | 0.42 | 0.38 | 0.37 | 0.4 |
| Manure management | 0.39 | 0.29 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.16 |
| Fertiliser | 0.1 | 0.03 | 0.06 | 0.05 | 0.04 |
| Purchased feed | 0.15 | 0.18 | 0.11 | 0.16 | 0.16 |
| Purchased bedding | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.1 | 0 |
| Fuel | 0.04 | 0.04 | 0.04 | 0.03 | 0.03 |
| Electricity | 0.06 | 0.04 | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Other | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.02 | 0.02 |
| Total emissions | 1.12 | 1.03 | 0.77 | 0.8 | 0.82 |
| Total emissions with soil sequestration | 0.58 | 0.6 | 0.62 |