The UK’s carbon market is many things: Some say it offers huge potential to create multifunctional landscapes that sequester carbon, still produce food, and offer vital income streams to farmers and land managers. Others say it’s the ‘Wild West’, with unscrupulous companies, dodgy measuring tools, and the potential for land grabs and reduced food production. Which is it, if any, of these? And what really is the potential to use the UK’s farmland to sequester carbon? As a farmer, what are the challenges and opportunities of selling carbon? What’s the experience of those who’ve done it?

All of this will be discussed by out two speakers – Emily Norton and Jake Freestone.

Emily covers:

• Scene setting: Market maturity and development – is it still the ‘Wild West’?
• Risks/ opportunities for genuine sequestration/ having an impact
• Business opportunities & risks for farmers/ land managers & how this fits into ELMS
• Data – the need for accurate & universal measurement & collection
• Leaving it to the market – is the government’s approach right?
• Food v sequestration – do we have ‘carbon tunnel vision’?
• Risks of land grabs/ change in land use
• Are carbon markets a ‘right to pollute’?
• Should we even be commodifying nature?
• What needs to happen (policy, tools, regs, standards) to improve carbon market/
• sequestration?

Jake covers:

• What the GFC is, who is behind it, and why it was formed
• How the GFC works with farmers and investors
• Practicalities – farming practices, key indicators, business implications (fertiliser and cultivations)
• How and what data is collected and recorded
• Tools – thoughts on accessibility/cost for farmers, and accuracy for investors
• Challenges the GFC has faced entering the carbon market
• Thoughts on the scale opportunity for farmers
• Lessons learnt from setting up GFC
• Farm business perspective on carbon market regulation and standardisation v leaving it to the free market – what are the risks and rewards of each?
• Current barriers faced by farmers to entering the carbon market
• What needs to happen to develop a robust carbon market that works for farmers, communities, and investors?

About Emily:

Emily Norton is a speaker, commentator and advisor on agriculture, sustainability and natural capital issues. Originally qualifying as a lawyer, she has worked as a policy advisor in the UK and EU parliament and as head of rural research for one of the UK’s biggest rural surveyors. Her past appointments include Oxford Farming Conference Director (‘21-23); Advisory Board at Rock Review – Tenancy Working Group (2022); RNAA Nuffield Scholar 2018 – global best practice in agricultural policy design. . She is now farming 60ha with her partner in Norfolk. She is co-director of Future Countryside; Member of the National Policy Committee at the CLA; and Trustee at the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association.

Follow Emily on Twitter/X and LinkedIn.

About Jake:

Jake Freestone is a co-founder of the Green Farm Collective, and is the farm manager a Overbury Enterpises, consisting of a 1,600 hectare arable and sheep farm in the Cotswold’s where he has been leading a move from conventional to regenerative practices since 2013. Jake is deeply committed to enhancing wildlife and biological life on the farm and is well-known in farming circles for his focus on improving soils. In 2020 he won Soil Farmer of the Year, followed by the Farmers Weekly Environmental Champion and the British Farming Awards Arable Innovator of the Year, both in 2021. He has spoken at the Oxford Farming Conference, The Real Oxford Farming Conference, and the NFU and CLA Annual Conferences on a wide range of topics from precision farming, to regenerative agricultural techniques and carbon. Jake loves telling the story of why farmers do what they do, is a keen YouTuber and Tweeter, and can regularly be heard on BBC Radio 1, 2 and 4.

Follow Jake and the Green Farm Collective on Twitter/X.

About the webinar series:

This webinar is part of a monthly series run by AFN Network+ which explores net zero in the UK agri-food system with leading movers and shakers. Expect deep and varied insight from across the sector, including farmers, scientists, policy analysts, community leaders, retailers, politicians, businesses and health professionals. The series is put together by Jez Fredenburgh, our Knowledge Exchange Fellow, and Prof Neil Ward, AFN Co-lead and professor of rural geography at the University of East Anglia.