Yara’s mission to decarbonise food production continues with the announcement of a new partnership with Branston, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of potatoes. As part of the joint initiative, Yara will supply Branston, the potato growers for Tesco Finest white potatoes, with a Lower Carbon Crop Nutrition Program to reduce the carbon footprint of the end product.
The initiative amounts to a proof-of-concept project for Yara, aimed at gathering data to demonstrate to Branston and Tesco just how much of a carbon reduction is possible with its lower carbon fertilisers. Included in this data will be verification statements which will show the carbon footprint reduction of the products supplied.
“Introducing this holistic crop nutrition program approach will positively impact the potato crop at Branston’s by lowering carbon footprints whilst maintaining or increasing yields”, says Gareth Flockhart, Key Account Manager for Yara UK. “Our hope is that through this initiative, we can demonstrate that by making the switch to lower carbon fertilisers is the way to a more sustainable food system for the future.”
The initiative will be trialed on the Branston Farm in Lincolnshire, a hub of regenerative agriculture, and it’s hoped that it will be rolled out to the company’s external growers in the near future.
“Yara have done some great work in developing a number of genuinely low carbon fertiliser products that should offer potato growers the same storability, handleability and nutrient uptake that they are used to from conventional products. We hope that over time, innovative products such as these will be incorporated into our recipe for low carbon (or even Net Zero) potato production,” says Mark Willcox, Agronomy Director, Branston Ltd.
