Agrecalc is a carbon footprint tool developed by combining the on-farm practical expertise of SAC Consulting with world-class agricultural science and research of SRUC. 

What started as a small tool to help calculate the carbon footprint of imported lamb in 2007, grew into a fully-fledged Software as a Service. Agrecalc is a precise instrument that offers both breadth and depth of on-farm and through-the-supply-chain calculations of carbon footprint.

Agrecalc went online for farmers to use in 2014, and it has since been collating farm benchmark data from thousands of farms. The platform has been used as the designated tool to deliver carbon audits under the Scottish Farm Advisory Service (FAS) (2016), the Beef Efficiency Scheme (BES) (2016), the Scottish Farm Business Survey (2018) in Scotland, as well as several government programmes in Northern Ireland and Wales since 2020.

In addition to continuous support of these schemes, Agrecalc is recognised as the preferred carbon calculator in emerging government programmes such as Preparing for Sustainable Farming (PSF) in Scotland, DEFRA’s Future Farm Resilience (FFR) programme in England and with AHDB’s Farm Excellence Platform (FEP) across the UK.

The advantages of Agrecalc farm carbon calculator are:

• The ability to calculate carbon footprint for the whole farm, per enterprise and per kilo of product.
• The ability to benchmark against thousands of customer datasets.
• It helps understand mitigation options and areas for improvement.

The scientists, consultants and developers who work on Agrecalc strive to constantly upgrade the calculator according to the most up-to-date available research results and recommendations.

The newest version of the software was launched in July 2023, and it represents the move of the platform onto the cloud service bringing numerous benefits to our users:

• Modern design, streamlined and intuitive user interface allows for quicker data input. The data integration and many pre-populated fields save time on data entry and contribute to frictionless user experience.
• Precise and easy-to-read data visualisation enables effortless consumption of the results, facilitating comparison and allowing for scenario-testing without going through costly experiments.
• Measuring your results against thousands of verified datasets and visualising new mitigation options makes it easier to identify areas of improvement for your business.
• Inclusion of multiple herds and flocks (separately or together), a wider list of feeds, crops, and fertilisers, as well as inhibitors, help achieve better carbon footprint results.

 

 

Figure 1: Reporting Example in Agrecalc software

Agrecalc is on a mission to support the transition to sustainable agriculture, whilst helping maintain and increase efficiency and business viability of food production.

Website:  Agrecalc

Article supplied by Agrecalc.  The British Cattle Breeders Club would like to thank Agrecalc for their support of the 2024 BCBC Conference 'Green Genes - Revolutionising cattle breeding for a sustainable future'