On 31st March BBC News at Six featured the National Centre for Food Manufacturing’s (NCFM) Holbeach site which hosts April ‘the Robot Chef’ developed by OAL followed by an hour long feature on ‘What they really mean for you – ready meals’ hosted by Justin Rowlatt and featuring both April the robot and 4th generation Lincolnshire farmer Martha Hayes, who also sits on the Greater Lincolnshire Forum for Agriculture and Horticulture.

Martha, who works for the family business TW Hayes Ltd, was delighted to see the BBC feature a commercial Lincolnshire farm which specialises in cereals and sustainable beef production. 

In addition to the innovative sustainable practices highlighted in the programme, the farm has also planted 10.5km of hedges in just one generation and the farm hedges alone now sequester 202t/Co2e per year.  They have also used arable reversion to herbal ley grassland and invested in 15 years of environmental stewardship, which has had the benefit of increased hare, lapwing and grey partridge populations. The farm includes 150ha of winter wild birdseed planted on farm and the increase in biodiversity is visible.

Martha explains that the reduced finishing ages of their pedigree Lincoln Red Cattle means cattle mature at a younger age, with less emissions per lifetime. All cattle feed is home grown protein using a barley and pea companion crop which also creates a natural nitrogen source, reducing scope 3 emissions associated with cattle production and removing the need to feed imported soya.

And the farm’s arable crops are direct drilled to reduce fuel consumption and it is working hard to monitor and increase soil organic matter levels which are key to sequestering more carbon.

Martha reflected that “Beef consumption is a way of converting grass, a natural product which can't be consumed by humans, into a natural product which can. UK beef has a GHG footprint 2½ times lower than the global average”, so eating British Beef is a way to have nutritious tasty meat whilst impacting less on the environment.  Agriculture is also the only industry able to sequester its own emissions, and that of other industries too, by capturing and storing CO2 in the soil and its products.

Martha concluded “We're not doing anything extraordinary but are one of 10,000's of farmers doing similar things day in day out which can collectively make a big difference’.

The full programme is available at What They Really Mean for You - Ready Meals - BBC iPlayer and features April the robot chef (beginning at 16.30) and the visit to Martha’s farm (at 29.30).