A project to turn cow muck into carbon capture fertiliser could provide Welsh farmers with a new income source.

Consultant John Owen, from Anglesey business consultancy Lafan, is leading the initiative alongside experts at Coleg Sir Gâr in Carmarthenshire, with testing taking place in Powys.

They are developing a process to create a carbon storage substance from livestock waste, with tests ready to get under way at green energy firm Onnu’s new biotechnology site in Guilsfield.

Biochar can be made by heating any biomass which is usually plant-based without oxygen – with cattle slurry being used in the early tests in Powys with a view to the end product storing carbon and boosting Welsh agriculture.

Mr Owen, originally from Penrhos in Gwynedd, retired from the staff at Coleg Sir Gâr this year to join Lafan as a lead consultant and is now working with former college colleagues to develop the system.

Lafan recently received a £50,000 research award for innovations in the net zero industry from government agency Innovate UK.

Gelli Aur Farm are John Owen, Lafan Lead Consultant, second left, with, from left, the team from Coleg Sir Gar, John Griffiths, Head of Research and Development, Neil Nicholas, Research Coordinator, and Huw Davies, Farm Manager.  (Image: Gruffydd Thomas.)

Mr Owen and his team are being backed by Welsh food wholesaler Castell Howell Foods.

He said: "As yet biochar has never been produced from livestock slurry which is 95 per cent water but separating the solids and the dewatering processes we have developed at Gelli Aur have made that possible.

"The residue could be heated at high temperatures, over 400C, to turn it into biochar, pure carbon which can be stored below ground in a carbon capture scheme.

"In this form biochar stores carbon for thousands of years but it can also provide a host of agricultural and environmental benefits, as a soil enhancer and growing medium, an animal feed supplement or as a slurry additive to reduce methane emissions."

They are currently waiting in line to use a processing plant in Welshpool, where the first biochar from cattle slurry will be produced.

However, Mr Owen and his team remain optimistic, confident that their innovative material holds significant potential to benefit rural Wales.

He said: "Slurry is stored on farms for use on fields but from this month new regulations have come into force prohibiting the spreading of slurry during the designated closed period but if instead it is used to produce biochar there are many more lucrative options.

"Microsoft and other big multi-nationals are investing billions in carbon capture and this could provide a new income stream for farmers – there won’t just be tankers calling to collect milk but also to take slurry to be processed which will provide a new income stream."