There are uncertainties in carbon footprinting agricultural products in particular nitrous oxide emissions from soils and enteric methane emissions from livestock. So footprinting should be used to indicate the scale of carbon use and the contributionmade by each stage in the life cycle rather than in precise figures. The footprint of UK agricultural products may benefit to a much lesser degree from low food miles than is generally believed but there are opportunities to improve it. In the future, the carbon footprint of products may be reduced by utilising carbon sinks some of which would produce opportunities for agriculture. This briefing is based on a paper 'Carbon footprinting - the science, challenges and benefits' by Simon Aumonier of Environmental Resources Management Limited, Oxford. The full paper was delivered at the 2008 Oxford Farming conference and is collated with other papers from the conference at http://www.ofc.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=168dtemid=30
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