Policy makers

Supporting evolving policy programmes and decision making

As policy makers, you are constantly facing challenges of ever-evolving policy when it comes to environmental measures and targets. To be able to do this, you need to rely on:

  • Data quality & verification
  • Ability to collate and analyse data anonymously and safely
  • Ability for users to self-serve with minimal support from policy
  • Ability for tool to support schemes, including interaction with application databases
  • Cross-referencing of compliance and validation of identity
  • Trust and transparency in methodology, and ability to justify and analyse that if / when questioned
  • Compliance with research and supply chain standards
  • To help inform realistic government climate targets for farming, e.g. through conducting  scenario testing to test net zero and other government policies, to inform government thinking based on verified baseline scenarios, to understand nuances across farming systems and back up with reliable and real (but anonymised) data
  • Integrate with other datasets that are already required / submitted to government by farms

How Agrecalc can help

Agrecalc has been used since 2016 to deliver carbon audits under the Scottish Farm Advisory Service (FAS) and Beef Efficiency Scheme (BES) in Scotland, as well as various government schemes in Northern Ireland 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.  

Agrecalc also has a long history for providing key tools for research studies to government on climate mitigation options and net-zero roadmaps. In conjunction with on-farm expertise and experience of SAC Consultants and peer-reviewed research at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), the tool allows baselining using research models, scenario testing, and detailed benchmarking, drawing from the thousands of real and verified datapoints in the system. 

Key features of the tool

Agrecalc adheres to IPCC (2019) and PAS 2050:11 supply chain standards throughout, with imminent plans for the tool to have appropriate ISO accreditation.

IPCC (2019) Tier I and II emission calculations are valid for all livestock and farm enterprise types, with calculations being updated to match the National GHG Inventory. 

The platform can securely extract large datasets of aggregated and anonymous data, with users’ permissions and GDPR compliant, enabling regional and country level analysis and insights.

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What else Agrecalc does

Agrecalc has the ability to capture all farm enterprises, with the results expressed as whole farm, or allocated by enterprise and product. It also has operational modules on carbon sequestration from woodlands, hedges and soils. 

SAC Consulting experts validate all the data entered, to ensure data quality. The consultants have access to a large database of validated carbon datasets with the numbers in thousands and growing. 

Currently in development is the API-led connectivity to multiple databases including, for example, livestock movement records, and GLFI for feed inputs. Future plans involve even greater connectivity to other data platforms.

Need expert guidance in decision making?

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