With energy prices soaring many farmers are not utilising the full resources their farm may have and are therefore not benefitting from the savings that they could be making.
Devon Renaissance is offering all farmers in the South West a day of FREE advice, to help them lower their energy costs and improve their farm’s resource efficiency.
The Resource Efficiency for Farms (R4F) programme, is offering farmers a free face to face ‘on farm’ meeting to look at the farm’s use of energy and resources. The half day spent on the farm is followed up with a full action plan explaining how the farm could save money with more efficient use of their resources.
Fiona Edwards at Devon Renaissance is a registered advisor for the R4F programme and will be the person visiting farms. Fiona comes from a farming background and specialises in environmental technology and resource efficiency.
The R4F advice is totally free and enables farmers to get help in analysing their use of energy and resources and how these could be improved. The only investment the farmer needs is a few hours of their time one morning to show Fiona around and talk through their existing energy use. The farm’s energy costs and use of resources are analysed and the farmer is then given a full action plan and a list of recommendations for cost savings and improvements they could make.
Advice can also be given to the farmer as to how to move on to stage 2 where they can apply for a grant to help implement these recommendations.
There are several grants available through the SWARM small grants scheme, which offer grants of up to £10,000 or up to £20,000 for dairy farms. These grants can help with further subsidised and tailored on-farm advice and also the purchase of equipment suggested in the action plans, such as insulation, bio-mass boilers, agricultural plastic, heat recovery devices and other projects.
This programme is free but may be time limited, so farmers are urged to contact Fiona Edwards as soon as possible to book their free on-farm appointment. Fiona can be contacted on 01837 658643 or by email fiona@ruraldevon.org.
