28.02.05
FWAG: Farm Energy Day

Despite the threat of snow, people traveled from as far as Dorset and Devon for the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group's (FWAG) day on farm energy at the Royal Cornwall showground on Friday, 25th February 2005.

The day aimed to bring together all the different facets of energy relating to the farming world, be it growing energy crops such as Miscanthus, doing an audit on the farm to look at opportunities for optimising energy efficiency or creating links with new markets to reduce food miles.

In all, over 150 farmers attended to talk to the people on the many trade stands present to try and gain a feel of where Cornwall is now in terms of looking at energy matters and where things are headed in the future.

Andrew Kneeshaw from the Farm Energy Centre presented his top ten tips for saving energy around the farm and illustrated this with an audit carried out at Duchy College: "Looking at one's own farm and concentrating on the many small areas where savings can be made, quite substantial savings can be achieved, in terms of both energy use and cost savings. An audit should always be the first step as it is the cheapest and easiest way of reducing energy consumption."

Miscanthus was once again brought to the fore, with William Garnier launching the Miscanthus map for Cornwall. This joint initiative from the Environment Agency and Cornwall Agricultural Council has used GIS technology to map those areas in Cornwall that have the right soils and climatic conditions for the growing of this crop and colour coded them into red, amber and green for their suitability to produce a good yield.

Sir Ben Gill in his new role with the Biomass Task Force indicated that he believed government policy should be making combined heat and power as their prime focus rather than concentrating on electricity. With energy and food security being the big issues of the next 20 years Sir Ben would like to see the government promote the use of biomass into the building of new schools thereby educating future generations and raising consumer awareness. This biomass would have to be local due to problems with transporting such a bulky product, and Sir Ben would really like to see long term capital grants be made available to get use of biomass to take a prime place in our society as a top provider of heat.

Linking with the local and sustainable themes the other speakers all echoed the benefits of using local products for local use. Tim German of the Cornwall Sustainable Energy Partnership and Charmian Larke of Atlantic Energy both encourage renewable energy sources for use in the near locality.

John Waltham of Wessex Grain is linking with growers close to his bio-refinery plant in Somerset to supply high starch wheats, such as Claire at a premium price to the refinery to produce ethanol, whilst Roy Heath of the NHS Food Partnership has been focusing on getting NHS Units to purchase products from Cornwall to supply the hospitals in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

"With it taking 127 calories of energy to import 1 calorie of energy in a lettuce, it makes sense to source food locally. Through my role, the NHS Trust in Cornwall now sources fish from Newlyn (it was Grimsby before), an award–wining Cornish cheese, yoghurt from the Lizard, local eggs and ice cream, plus we now buy fruit and veg from a local wholesaler. With 35-40% of lorries on the road at any one time involved in the production and distribution, local supply has got to be the way of the future."

"All in all this was a very successful and informative day" said FWAG Projects Manager Jillie Dale. "Information days especially for farmers is an essential element of our Farm Environment Link Project which aims to reduce costs for the farmer by looking at savings and also suggesting ways of sustainable farming in a commercial setting. Energy is becoming a big issue and we are going to need our farmers more than ever to help provide alternative energy sources in the future."

For any farmer wanting further information on energy savings, or to receive a free visit, please contact the FWAG Office on 01872 224005.

Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) has received Objective One Investment to enhance the economic sustainability of Cornish agricultural holdings by advising on economic opportunities achievable through environmental measures.

Editor's notes:

Clare Morgan
Media Relations Manager
Objective One Partnership Office
Castle House
Pydar Street
Truro TR1 2UD
Mobile: 07973 813647
Telephone: 01872 223439

cmorgan@cornwall.gov.uk

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