Renewable Energy, Climate Change and Agri Careers

Useful again, twice over

You met slurry earlier in this course as a hazard, and the idea behind that topic was that everything dangerous on a farm is something useful which has escaped its proper place. This module starts where that one stopped, on the same material. Anaerobic digestion takes slurry and other organic waste, seals it in a tank without oxygen, and lets bacteria break it down. That produces biogas, which can be burned to generate heat and electricity, and it leaves behind a digestate that can go back onto the land as a fertiliser. So the same process appears twice in your specification: once as a way of dealing with a pollution problem, and once as a renewable energy source. That is not a coincidence or a repetition. It is the clearest case of the idea itself, because the escaped material is made useful again twice over. Hold that, because the rest of this module is the same question asked in wider terms: what does a farm do with the energy it needs, with weather it did not choose, and with the skills it depends on.

Words for farm energy

Five terms this topic names. The second and third are easily confused, and the difference matters.

Which biomass do we mean

You will meet the word biomass in biology and geography as well as here. What does it mean in this agriculture topic?

• Organic material grown or collected to be burned as fuel, such as an energy crop or wood
• The total mass of living material at one level of a food chain
• Any waste material produced by a farm
• The organic content of soil

Match the source to what suits it

Judging a source, not ranking it

Your specification asks you to consider the suitability of a source using four things. Notice that none of them is "which is best": a source that suits one farm may be useless on the next.

Which two reduce the footprint

Your specification names ways a farm can reduce its carbon footprint. Select the TWO that it lists.

• Planting woodland on the farm
• Conserving energy by using less for the same job
• Increasing the stocking density of livestock
• Applying more fertiliser to grow crops faster

What the weather does to a harvest

You have studied how the climate is changing in geography and in science, so this topic does not ask you to explain the mechanism again. It asks a narrower and more practical question: what does it do to farming? Start with weather patterns, because that is where a farm feels it. Rainfall that arrives at a different time of year, or in heavier bursts, changes when land can be worked and whether a crop can be sown or harvested at the right moment. Warmer conditions lengthen the growing season in some places, which can help, and at the same time allow pests and diseases to survive winters they would previously not have survived, and to appear further north than before. So the effect on UK crops is genuinely mixed rather than simply bad, and an answer that says so, and gives an example of each, will read better than one that treats it as uniformly negative. Then there is water. Heavier rainfall means more runoff, and a farm is part of a catchment whether it wants to be or not, which is why your specification names the farmer’s role in flood-risk management. Land managed to hold water back, ground kept covered, and woodland planted in the right places all slow the movement of water off a hillside. Notice that these are the same measures that reduce a carbon footprint and the same ones that reduce pollution, which is why they keep appearing.

The changes in words

Climate change affects farming first through changes in _____ patterns, which alter when land can be worked and when a crop can be sown or harvested. Warmer conditions can lengthen the growing _____ in some places, but they also allow _____ and diseases to survive milder winters and appear further north. Heavier rainfall increases _____, which is why your specification names the farmer’s role in flood-risk management. Because the effects run in more than one direction, an answer should describe them as _____ rather than as simply harmful.

The claim that overstates it

Four sentences about climate change and UK farming. Select the ONE that claims more than the evidence supports.

• Changes in rainfall patterns affect when land can be worked and when crops can be harvested.
• Milder winters can allow some pests and diseases to survive and spread further north.
• Every UK crop will fail as a result of climate change.
• A longer growing season may benefit some crops in some parts of the UK.

A judgement about a farm

A question describes a farm and asks you to evaluate whether a renewable source would suit it. Here is the shape of an answer that scores well. Begin with the farm rather than the technology. This farm keeps livestock housed for part of the year, so it produces a steady supply of slurry, and it has a large shed roof but a sheltered valley site. Now judge each source against the specification’s four criteria. Wind is poorly suited here on location grounds: a sheltered site will not give the consistent exposure a turbine needs, whatever its other merits. Solar suits the roof space, and its cost has the advantage of being a one-off installation with little to maintain, though its output is highest in summer and the farm may need most energy in winter. Anaerobic digestion suits the farm particularly well, because the material it needs is already being produced and already has to be dealt with; it generates energy, it produces a digestate that returns nutrients to the land, and it reduces the pollution risk from storing slurry, so it does three jobs at once. Before any of that, energy conservation is worth considering, since energy the farm does not use costs nothing to generate. On balance a digester suits this farm best, though the installation cost is the obstacle. Notice what that answer does: it starts from the farm, judges each source against named criteria, admits a drawback, and still reaches a decision.

Jobs on and around the farm

Five quick questions on the careers your specification names and what they involve. Three lives.

Say why it suits the farm

Assemble a sentence that judges a source against the farm rather than in the abstract.

Advising on an energy choice

A farm on a sheltered site, housing livestock for part of the year, asks how it should approach its energy use. Take the decisions in order.

• What is worth considering before generating any energy at all?
• The site is sheltered. What does that settle?
• The farm produces slurry that has to be dealt with anyway. What follows?
• How should your recommendation be phrased to score well?

Explain the choices a farm faces

Explain how a farm can produce and save energy, how a changing climate affects its work, and why the agri-food industry matters to the Northern Ireland economy.

• Explain what anaerobic digestion is and name both useful things it produces
• Name two other renewable sources and say what each one needs in order to suit a farm
• Explain the four things your specification says to consider when judging suitability
• Name the three ways a farm can reduce its carbon footprint
• Explain two effects of a changing climate on UK crops, making clear that the effects are mixed
• Explain the farmer’s role in flood-risk management
• Name four careers in the agri-food and land-use sectors and say what each involves
• Explain why the agri-food industry matters to the Northern Ireland economy, keeping to the industry itself