MMN September 2024 – Regenerative Agriculture: What does this mean for Dairy?

Regenerative agriculture or ‘regen-ag’ for short, has grown in popularity in recent years with events such as Groundswell: the regenerative festival, attracting over 8000 attendees. Milk buyers are now encouraging dairy farmers to adopt regenerative principles, with First Milk labelling themselves as the ‘regenerative dairy’ and Arla running a regenerative farming pilot program.

The main focus of regenerative agriculture is to protect and restore the soil to enhance ecosystem service provisions and biodiversity. Healthy soils will recycle more nutrients, store more water and capture more carbon. The five core principles are:

 

1. Protect the soil surface and build organic matter

Protecting the soil surface will ensure that the delicate ecosystems below ground continue to function effectively. Prolonged periods of bare soil are less of a challenge on grassland farms; however, care should be taken to minimise poaching from livestock and damage from farm machinery. Access to organic matter is less of a concern on dairy farms, but efficient manure use can maximise its potential.

What can you do?

• Develop a soil management plan to identify soil risk across the farm and explore ways to reduce the risk of run-off, soil erosion, flooding and compaction.
• Use cow tracks to prevent the soil surface from damage when moving livestock to and from pastures.
• Use low emission slurry spreading equipment and incorporate manure into bare soil within 12 hours of application.

 

2. Maximise species diversity

Having a variety of plant species on farm can improve soil structure, increase drought tolerance and benefit biodiversity. Deep-rooted plants can access water from further below ground and will continue to grow when water is scarce. A varied root structure below ground will aid drainage and water filtration.

What can you do?

• When re-seeding, establish multi-species swards with a mixture of grasses legumes and herbs.
• Consider oversowing herbs, clover and other grass species into existing swards.
• Plant hedges, trees and buffer strips strategically to provide shelter for livestock and corridors for wildlife and to reduce the risk of run-off and soil erosion.

 

3. Minimise soil disturbance

Cultivation can break up delicate ecosystems that enable plants to access nutrients. Exposing soil to air will allow aerobic bacteria to break down soil organic matter into greenhouse gases. The use of manufactured fertilisers can be harmful to soil micro-organisms which are essential for good soil health.

What can you do?

• Avoid ploughing and keep cultivations to a minimum where possible. Use direct drilling or minimum tillage when establishing new crops or grass leys. If compaction has been identified, consider subsoiling or sward lifting as an alternative.
• Develop a nutrient management plan and identify ways to optimise nutrients from organic sources. Carry out soil analysis and adjust nutrient applications accordingly.
• Increase the proportion of legumes in grass swards or crop rotations to reduce the need for manufactured nitrogen fertilisers.

 

4. Maintain living roots all year round

When plants are growing, they are constantly sequestering carbon and providing food for soil micro-organisms. Having green cover year-round will also help protect the soil surface from erosion.

What can you do?

• Use fast-growing cover crops after a crop has been harvested to provide growth over the autumn and winter months.
• Undersowing a crop will provide constant root growth after a main crop has been harvested, for example, undersowing forage maize (or other cereals) with Italian ryegrass.

 

5. Integrate livestock

Livestock provide nutrient recycling that significantly benefits soil fertility. Arable farms, absent from livestock, have depleted the soils and are now looking at ways to re-introduce livestock into the rotation. On dairy farms this is less of an issue, however, overgrazing can negatively affect soil structure and plant growth.

What can you do?

• Use a rotational grazing system that accommodates a 21-day resting period between bouts of grazing. Allowing plants to undergo a sufficient resting period will rejuvenate the plant and increase root growth and carbon storage in the form of root biomass.
• Manage stocking densities to avoid poaching, compaction and soil damage.

For more information on regenerative agriculture, please visit: https://www.fas.scot/crops-soils/soils/regenerative-agriculture/

 

Marcus Fox, marcus.fox@sac.co.uk; 01539 889990