Carbon footprint in agriculture
Climatic changes are also being felt in Switzerland. The topics of climate change and yield security are becoming increasingly important for farmers as well. As bio.inspecta, it is important for us to provide farms with the right tools for assessing their carbon footprint.
After our first two pilot years in 2022 and 2023, carbon footprint assessment has become practical in agriculture as well. Together with our market partners Bio Suisse, Silvestri, Mutterkuh Schweiz, and Vianco, we are allowed to continue the projects also this year.
Why calculate a footprint?
In many places, farmers are working with their customers to carry out initial assessments of their carbon footprint. With our pilot projects, we want to create the technical and scientific basis to enable an efficient carbon footprint assessment in agriculture.
How do I calculate my carbon footprint?
Experts from bio.inspecta prepare the basic data for each farm. Typically, about half of the farm data is already available in the system. Farmers then supplement the remaining missing data online. Based on experience, the time required per farm for complete data capture should not exceed 1 to 2 hours.
Our experts review the provided information and calculate the footprint. Each participating farm receives its own climate certificate, which is directly accessible in the World-Climate Farm Tool.
What do I do with the results?
It is important that we discuss the results with the farms and analyze them together. The farm managers should be able to draw the right conclusions based on this. The results can also be compared online with other farms in the World-Climate Farm Tool. The farm data remains confidential, and comparisons can be made by farm group, zone, or label.
Once the results are correctly understood, potential measures for improvement can be discussed and developed together.
What are my advantages as a farm?
The biggest advantage is certainly that the farm gets a clear overview and knows where it stands. Because the entire farm structure is taken into account in the survey, the entire farm can also be assessed. Before the end of this year, it will also be possible to assess products such as milk or meat.
It is our expectation that this will strengthen your farm's position in the long term, particularly in terms of commercialisation.