Across 320 acres of our arable fields we have started the latest application of digestate – an organic fertiliser that we’ve used for the past three years as part of our commitment to improving soil health and reducing Birling Estate’s carbon footprint.
Digestate is organic matter treated by anaerobic digestion which recycles nutrients from organic waste streams, and contains all nutrients and micronutrients necessary for modern farming, including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
As a result, we can reduce the use of artificial nitrogen fertiliser by 50% and artificial Phosphate, potassium and sulphur by 100%, drastically reducing the estate’s carbon footprint. 1 tonne of artificial fertiliser replaced with digestate saves 1 tonne of oil, 108 tonnes of water and 7 tonnes of CO2 emissions!
This product does have a financial premium over artificial fertiliser, but the organic matter in digestate can also help to build up the humus content in our soil.
UK soils currently store about 10 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly equal to 80 years’ of annual UK greenhouse gas emissions. But intensive agriculture has lead to soil degradation which has caused arable soils to lose about 40 to 60% of their organic carbon to the atmosphere. With these sobering statistics, we must continue to do more to improve the health of our soils.
Decline in soil health is leading to a decrease in food production. To ensure future generations have healthy soils to farm from, we need to commit to increasing soil organic matter levels in UK arable and horticultural soils – by at least 20% on existing levels in the next 20 years.
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