Lower-carbon parsnips are available at select M&S Food Halls across the country from today.
The parsnips have been grown autonomously in a trial funded by the M&S Plan A Accelerator Fund, which is available for innovation projects to enable action towards net zero.
M&S worked with a long-term, family-owned root vegetable supplier, Huntapac, and used latest farming technology and scientific methods to farm with a significantly lower environmental impact.
According to the retailer, the combination of techniques and technologies used demonstrated a carbon reduction of 47% in the growing phase compared to standard methods.
The technology included two robots for bed farming, planting and weeding, two different types of drones to monitor and maintain crop health, and scientific testing on soil health and carbon impact.
The retailer said these latest technologies would offer a future of farming that will aid farmers, create more highly skilled jobs and attract new talent.
The team also farmed while taking care to minimise soil disruption, helping to keep carbon locked away, and used a green fertiliser.
The retailer said there had also been an impact to quality, as with AI monitoring, improving the crop health and autonomous technology reducing weather impact, the expectation is that the trial will have 72% of picked parsnips at grade one.
“It’s fantastic to see not only a carbon reduction of almost 50% from our trial with Huntapac, but a high proportion of the incredible quality of produce that M&S is famous for,” said Andrew Clappen, technical director at M&S Food. “The trial has also been really well received by the industry, with knowledge sharing sessions held to demonstrate the new technologies. If widely adopted, this would create more highly skilled jobs and attract new talent into the sector, which in turn would drive more innovation around finding new lower-impact farming methods to reduce carbon emissions.”
The field also included various measures from M&S’s Farming with Nature programme to improve biodiversity of both wildlife and soil. One of these was the introduction of AgriSound technology to monitor pollinator numbers, with specialist listening devices situated on farm.
Through the trial, AgriSound found there was more pollinator activity in the trial field compared to the standard field, demonstrating another environmental benefit to farming this way, the supermarket said.
The parsnips were grown in Yorkshire and are now available in selected M&S stores for approximately a week.
“The success of this project has led to us exploring the potential of purchasing our own robot so we can farm more vegetables this way next season and in the future,” said Stephen Shields, technical & sustainability director at Huntapac. “We’re working to upskill our team and sharing our learnings with the wider industry as we believe this is the future of farming.”
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