Reverse Coal was in London this week at the World Agri-Tech Summit, where The Lapwing Estate attended as an Innovation Partner and the Pollybell Innovation Centre was launched.
We started the week at World Agri-Tech, attending as part of The Lapwing Estate, an Innovation Partner of the summit.
Conversations across the event covered water and energy security, carbon markets, farm economics and the realities of adopting new technology on farm. Many of those themes sit at the heart of Reverse Coal: turning degraded lowland peat into a working system that removes carbon from the atmosphere, produces renewable energy and keeps land in food production. It was great to see the challenges we are tackling at farm level being discussed on a global stage.
A particular highlight was meeting Stephen Morgan MP, Minister for Food, Farms and Fisheries, and showcasing the work taking place across the Estate: Reverse Coal alongside Earth Rover, Farmed Landscape Optimised Water and UPP.
For Reverse Coal, it was a chance to explain how rewetting peat, growing short rotation coppice willow and converting it through pyrolysis into biochar, syngas, heat and CO₂ can deliver durable carbon removal without taking land out of food production.
The summit was also the setting for the launch of the Pollybell Innovation Centre, a new agri-tech hub on the Estate designed to bring promising technologies out of the development environment and onto a real working farm.
Reverse Coal is exactly the kind of project the centre exists to support: an idea taken from feasibility study to a working demonstrator on the farm. The aim is simple: to develop, test and prove technologies that make agriculture more productive, resilient and sustainable in the real world.
Innovation isn’t only about robotics. From carbon removal and renewable energy to water security, genetics and crop resilience, there is no single solution to the challenges facing agriculture. Progress will come from bringing the best ideas together and proving what actually works on farm.
A busy few days, plenty of conversations and lots to bring back to the Estate.
