Climate Witness: Wyn Evans, UK

Posted on 21 July 2009

My name is Wyn Evans and I am a third generation farmer on 80 acres of farmland in Caerfai Bay, Pembrokeshire, West Wales. I also rent 88 acres, and produce milk, cheese, potatoes and some corn which are sold in our farm shop. We run a popular camp-site as the farm is situated off the beautiful coastline of Pembrokeshire. Since the 1990 I have been farming organically and I have installed a range of renewable energy technologies to reduce the farm’s carbon footprint to tackle climate change.

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My family have farmed here since 1929, and I started farming in 1967 – over 40 years ago. So I’ve seen many changes in the seasons and climatic conditions in this part of Wales.

Snow blizzards used to be a real problem in this area. I can remember when my third daughter was born in February 1978 and the blizzard was that bad that there was no way of getting my wife to the hospital in Haverfordwest, so there was no choice but to have a home birth. In contrast, last February we had our four grandchildren here all with their shirts off and paddling in the padding pool and down on the beach – that was how warm it was. That’s just happened in the last 30 years.

I used to be the snow co-ordinator for the old Milk Marketing Board (MMB) and I had around six to eight dairy farms in my area. During October/November, snow co-ordinators with the MMB would make sure we got an emergency milk transport tanker available so that we could put it on a trailer and meet by a lay-by. But in January 1982 the snow was that bad that there was no way a tanker could get to any of the farms in the area. Of course I had to do the milking and needed to sell the milk so I filled my own 400-500 litre container, put it in the back of my Land Rover and followed a digger to Haverfordwest. As I was one of the few people who’d made it to the town by road the local shopkeeper asked me to bring a load of vegetables back from St David’s too! However, my wife and I haven’t experienced a snow blizzard like that in at least 15 years.

An increase in drought conditions was one of the main reasons I decided to go organic in 1991. In dry seasons, such as 1976 and 1984, there was no grass, it was absolutely bare. This was the time I was buying a lot of high nitrogen fertiliser to boost the grass growth. But when you’re using a lot of soluble nitrogen and other soluble fertilisers you’re feeding just the top 2-3 inches of soil. The grass has no need to put down deeper roots, so when you come to a drought situation they are going to wilt a lot quicker. Since then I’ve discovered that when you put a kilogram of nitrogen on your crop you’re pushing out 6kg of Co2 through its production.

For this reason, I don’t use fertiliser on my grass and as a result it’s generally resistant to climatic fluctuation as it is in old seed variety with a broad genetic makeup. This makes it less vulnerable to extreme conditions than modern varieties.

Last year’s summer rainfall caused the camp-site to be inundated with water. There was so much intense rain that the land couldn’t cope with it. It was the first time since we opened the camp-site in the 1970s that we’ve had campers asking for a shovel to dig around their tents! It’s also not just the campers that struggle with the increased rain fall; the land can’t cope with it either. I’ve had to improve the drainage on the land because parts have been getting waterlogged, hindering my work.

With the increased rain fall I decided I needed to protect the soil from being washed away in heavy rains. So I set about installing an anaerobic digester using the cow slurry. As a result I not only get useful biogas, but the slurry goes back on the land and locks onto the clay, producing less pollution in run-off. This improves the quality of the soil, making it less likely to be washed away in heavy rain. Farmers close to Caerfai have experienced much of their precious soil resource being washed away in heavy rains over the last few years. I can recall one morning seeing what seemed like a river running down the fields and then it collects on the road making it difficult for people to drive through.

In the last seven years the increase wind speeds have caused damage to my potato crops. Six or seven years ago, we had winds reaching 60mph without rain which brought a lot of salt from the seawater onto the potatoes. It’s alright putting salt on a cooked potato but not a growing one because it knocks the foliage back. And again this year the wind speed reached 72mph, I know this because I monitor the wind speed via my wind turbine, I don’t keep a record every day but on high winds I do. The slat damage makes the leaves all crinkly and wrinkly.
Over the years I’ve noticed that the growing season is longer than it used to be. Thinking back to the 1940s/50s there were more definite changes between the season. Now we can have spring in the winter and winter in the spring! It sounds daft to say that but the seasons aren’t as ’marked’ as they used to be. The other thing I’ve noticed is changes in temperature from day to day and from morning to afternoons. It can alter by as much as 10oC both ways. For me it means taking layers of clothes off and then putting them back on, but the poor old cows don’t know what’s happening do they? Shall we keep our winter hair on for a few more days or shall we trigger to moult?

I’ve become very concerned about how our lifestyles are affecting the planet. It doesn’t matter where you live on the planet, we all share the same atmosphere so even if I save a bit here it’s going to help save somebody in the Pacific Islands or Bangladesh from going under water, and the irony is that they have a far smaller footprint then me.

My concern began I guess in the 1999 when there was a lot on the news about climate change especially in the Pacific and how these islands won’t be there in 100 years time. Then, my first grandchild came along in 2001 and I starting to think about what their grandchildren would think if they thought that their great-grandfather hadn’t taken action to help stop climate change, even though the signs were clear that something needed to be done.

So to begin with I installed the digester – it was all my own design. It’s managed to stand the test of time it produces energy to provide hot water for the house, the camp-site and tops up the solar water heating to sterilise the milking machine. Since then I’ve installed a wind turbine to produce electricity for the camp-site, a ground source heat pump is buried underground to produce heat for the anaerobic digester and a home built cool room to store produce. The whey from the cheese making is fed into the anaerobic digester, and this waste product increases the efficiency of the digester within 2 hours and lasts 24 hours. 100 litres of whey is equivalent to using 3 litres of oil.

The way the farm operates relies upon renewable sources and using the by-product from one thing to provide energy for another. For example when I’m making cheese the whey goes into the digester and if there’s too much there’s enough gas coming to make the next batch of cheese and sterilise the plant. Then you’ve got good fertiliser coming from the digester and the wind plays its part and solar too. With renewables you’ve got to have a real mix of everything that is appropriate to your position. There will be farmers where they’d have a stream or something else they can use... that’s all brilliant.

There’s been a great deal of satisfaction and frustration at times in reducing our footprint. It’s probably because of these things that I’ve carried on farming. I enjoy spreading the word and testing new approaches. But I haven’t got much longer to go, and I can’t keep up the rate I’m working now, but you know what the old saying is, “live as if to die tomorrow, farmers have to live forever.”

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Dr Clive Walmsley, Countryside Council for Wales, UK

The contrasting winter weather events that Wyn describes illustrate the trend towards much milder winters with less snowfall that has been recorded in Welsh climate data over the last 30 years. All seasons have become warmer resulting in a significant extension to the growing season in Wales as Wyn has observed on his farm. Evidence suggests that this will increase agricultural productivity in Wales and more widely across northern Europe.

Wyn's experiences of both severe summer drought and intense rainfall events resulting in flash flooding illustrate the potential impacts of these events. It is projected that summer drought will become more frequent in future with consequential impacts on agricultural productivity while heavy precipitation events have become more frequent in winter in Wales, and this trend is projected to continue. Wyn's perception that daily fluctuations in temperature may be greater is not reflected in climatic data, as greater increases in minimum temperature have on average reduced the daily temperature range.

Wyn's use of a mix of renewable energy technologies provides an excellent model of how farms can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and utilise waste to improve farm productivity.

Further information on the climatic trends can be found in Jenkins, G.J., Perry, M.C. and Prior, M.J. 2007. The climate of the United Kingdom and recent trends. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK.

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

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