Winemaker deploys miniature sheep to cut fuel costs and keep grass short
Duncan Graham-Rowe
A New Zealand winemaker believes he has struck upon the solution to reducing the carbon footprint of wine – and the answer, which may come as no great surprise, lies in sheep. Miniature sheep, that is.
There are only 300 of them in the world and they were originally bred as cute miniature pets, but Peter Yealands believes that babydoll sheep could help him to reduce the environmental footprint of his wine.
By allowing the rare breed to graze on the grass between his vines, Yealands says he can dramatically reduce the energy his wine takes to make and ultimately enable the process to be more sustainable.
Wine producers often use sheep to keep grass short, such as in these Californian vineyards, left, but flocks must be removed when the vines bud because the animals will eat them too. So, to prevent the grass using up precious nutrients and water, and to prevent the spread of disease and fungus, growers normally use tractors to do the job.
With 1,000 hectares in his vineyard that means driving 3,500km for each of the 12 times a year the grass has to be mowed. As a result, for Yealands, diesel makes up about 60% of his energy costs.
To avoid using a tractor, last year Yealands experimented by letting loose giant guinea pigs. That worked initially, he said. “But once the hawks had a taste for them they were sitting prey. We were losing them by the hour. Besides, we would have needed 11 million of them to make it work.”
Now Yealands has turned his attention to babydolls, a rare breed of sheep which only reach about 60cm tall when fully grown. Because the grapes tend only to start growing from about 110cm off the ground the sheep can’t reach them. Yealands has tested 10 of the sheep on a 125-hectare patch of vines.
By selectively breeding them with another more common sheep, the Merino Saxon, which is favoured for its meat, Yealands now hopes to get his stock up to the 10,000 he needs within the next five years. If successful, the flock should save him NZ$1.5m (£600,000) a year in diesel alone, and he hopes to sell the sheep for meat too.
Marleen Stumpel, co-director of AdVintage Wines, a London-based supplier of carbon-neutral wines, said the babydolls are an unusual approach.
She said most wine makers reduce their carbon footprint by paying to offset their emissions. “There is a growing market for it, but the wine does tend to be a little bit more expensive,” she said.
Great ideas aren’t enough
Clean technology entrepreneurs need help to make their low-carbon brainwaves succeed commercially
The UK has a great track record in innovation. A quick look through the history books reveals an illustrious history of invention, from the telephone and the jet engine through to genetic fingerprinting and the internet.
When it comes to tackling climate change, the diversity of the ideas in this week’s Manchester Report shows there is certainly no lack of British ambition or creative thinking. With suggestions such as cheap biomass cooking stoves to harvesting the oceans for energy, many readers might have been wondering why these ideas aren’t already widely deployed. Particularly given their potential to deliver such great rewards for the planet, entrepreneurs, investors and the economy as a whole.
Sadly, the truth is that great ideas alone are not enough to transform the way we generate energy or the carbon-intensive industries that underpin modern living. Serious blood, sweat and tears are needed to ensure that ideas become commercial reality. Investors speak of the journey from “lab to listing”, and finding the right path on this journey is essential if low-carbon entrepreneurs want to see their ideas succeed.
The bottom line, of course, is that the technology needs to work. And this means both in the lab and in the world outside. Having tested the initial concept, the much bigger challenge is then to prove that the technology can be scaled up and replicated on a much larger, commercial scale.
Solar energy from photovoltaic cells is a case in point. The technical potential of generating electricity from the sun’s rays is well-recognised. Making the technology cost-effective when deployed at scale, however, is an issue that must be overcome. To make this a reality, it is vital that we develop advanced photovoltaic technology that can be manufactured at large scale and low cost. That is why the Carbon Trust is currently running a major R & D project to make this vision a commercial reality.
And this gets to the crux of the matter, because development of the technology is only half the battle when it comes to its success. The clean tech sector, like any other, is governed by the basic market principles of supply and demand. There needs to be an appetite for the product and it must be possible to deliver it on the scale required, at the quality required and at an acceptable price.
For this reason, the innovators behind any great low-carbon idea must build a thorough understanding of the market from the outset. Understanding who the key players are and establishing relationships with them is essential – both to build credibility and to understand the needs and wants of the organisations that may well be the customers of the future. Innovators also have to show they understand their final customers, and what they want. This requires a focus on moving them from a state of indifference (we know you exist, but… ) through curiosity, and on to where they have a genuine desire to purchase your product.
We have seen this sort of transition with fuel cells. Over the past five years, UK fuel cell companies have moved from small research-focused organisations to companies with listings on the Alternative Investment Market, partnering with household-name utilities and maintaining order books worth tens of millions of pounds.
Finally, the ability to build a capable and financially stable company as the organisation grows is a key factor in determining whether a technology lives or dies in the real world. The reality is that the best inventors aren’t always the best business leaders, so pulling in the right skills from a commercial and production perspective and attracting significant, private, external funds to fuel growth, is key.
Not all clean tech brainwaves will see the light of day but, with the UK on the cusp of a clean tech revolution which could generate fantastic economic opportunity, it is imperative that we speed up the process of commercialising new ideas. As the Manchester Report demonstrates, there is a wealth of innovative thinking ripe for the picking. The key will be to provide flexible but targeted support for these companies, to help them navigate the innovation journey. They can then emerge from the lab and grow into successful commercial businesses that will sit at the heart of the low-carbon economy.
• Garry Staunton is Technology Director at The Carbon Trust