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Help us collate the knowledge sources, organisations and initiatives out there that are seeking to improve the farmed environment

 

 

 

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In 2015, the UK pledged to be Net Zero by 2050, with the NFU striving for the more ambitious target of 2040. Net Zero is achieved when the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted is balanced with those removed from the atmosphere. This helps to combat climate change and reduce global warming.

GWCT is a leading UK charity conducting conservation science to enhance the British countryside for public benefit.

The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs.

Regenerative farming looks to optimise the use of the ecological system and environment, in order to benefit from the natural ecosystem services that they provide.

The government’s adviser for the natural environment in England. We help to protect and restore our natural world.  

Practical sustainable farming regardless of labels.

Catchment Sensitive Farming is a free farm advice programme funded by the UK government. It works with farmers, communities, and organisations across England to improve the quality of water, air, and sustainable water management.

This book examines, discusses and shares over 30 years’ worth of research from the Allerton Proje

Tell us how you are improving your soils. Share useful resources, organisations and initiatives.

Are environmental benefits (carbon, biodiversity...) best served by sharing agricultural land with nature, or by maximising yield in some areas to spare tracts of land exclusively for nature in other areas?  

Agroecology is a holistic and integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agriculture and food systems. Definition from FAO.

The UK Government has set a Net Zero target for 2050. Land use and management has a key role to play in this, with the NFU setting an even earlier target of 2040.

Helping you protect your soil and improve its productivity.  AHDB's GREATSoils inititiative brings together practical information on soil management as well as links to soils research and knowledge exchange. Whether you need an introduction to soil biology or a detailed guide to improving field drainage, AHDB has information and guidance to support you. 

Ahead of COP27 in Egypt, Countryside COP will once again be held in October to allow the rural community to come together and showcase the opportunities available and the contribution already being made to reach Net Zero. 

The James Hutton Institute combines strengths in crops, soils and land use and environmental research, and makes a major contribution to the understanding of key global issues, such as food, energy and environmental security, and developing and promoting effective technological and management solutions to these.

Introducing Naturestimeline and Tony William Powell. Benchmarking Birds. A Freelance Contractor offering clients bespoke Avian conservation monitoring projects.  

LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) is the leading charity organisation delivering more sustainable food and farming. They work with farmers, the food industry, scientists and consumers, to inspire and enable sustainable farming that is prosperous, enriches the environment and engages local communities.

Share your ideas and experience of how to improve nutrient efficiency and reduce dependence on artificial fertilisers

The Claydon Opti-Till® System, is a holistic approach to crop establishment which delivers consistent, high yielding crops at low cost, providing maximum profitability. At the centre of Opti-Till® Seed Drilling System is the Claydon direct strip Hybrid drill, with its unique leading tine technology.

Be part of the solution.

We work to bring together unusual combinations of voices in order to devise a range of practical actions that can have significant impact on our climate, nature, health and economy. 

Although the term management implies direct manipulation, the practice of wildlife conservation and management includes efforts aimed at preserving or restoring rare species and their habitats and indirect manipulation of wildlife populations through modification of habitat or resources. From: Encyclopedia of Ecology, 2008

The Organic Research Centre (ORC) is the UK's leading independent organic research organisation. Changing the future of food and farming.

SFI offers payments to farmers to carry out farming activities in a more environmentally sustainable way so that they can produce environmental goods and services alongside food.

White Horse Energy have secured funding from Department of Energy Security and Net Zero as part of the Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme to develop a transportable pelletising technology. This will be deployed at farm level with the capability of processing agricultural residues and perennial energy crops into industrial standard biomass pellets. This produces a high-density renewable energy source, for which the demand is growing substantially because of the need to find alternatives to fossil fuels. A prototype of the mobile pelletiser is currently being developed ready to enter the market. White Horse Energy hopes to provide farmers with an opportunity to increase farm revenue, all year round, without interfering with existing operations.  Due to a lack of domestic production, current UK demand for biomass feedstocks significantly outweighs available supply. Therefore, a large proportion of biomass material is currently imported, which limits the sustainable nature of this energy source. White Horse Energy’s innovation will increase the viability of UK production and provide farmers with the opportunity to diversify into a new UK market, with lower environmental impacts and input costs. White Horse Energy are keen to engage with farmers during this development stage to understand the issues and concerns within the agricultural industry that affect growers most. This engagement assists in shaping the project to provide a diversification option that contributes positively to both the environment and farm income. Ultimately producing a solution that meets a wide variety of needs for everyone.

Nutrient neutrality is a new issue of major importance to the UK. There are 74 planning areas in the UK where residential development has been held up until a solution is found to prevent absolute levels of P (reported as phosphorus not phosphate) and N (nitrogen) increasing in order to protect valuable habitats. The ruling is is often referred to as the "Dutch N" case. The calculation is complex and depends on the efficiency and any headroom of existing waste water treatment works (WWTW). WWTW are also to be subject to reductions in permitted nutrient emission in 2030.

Report from European Environment Agency giving over of the metrics, challenges and plans for measuring soil health across Europe.  

This book examines, discusses and shares over 30 years’ worth of research from the Allerton Project, a research and demonstration farm in the UK which has been carrying out applied interdisciplinary research to explore and explain the need to adapt the management of farmland for environmental protection and to provide public benefits.

Report published by The Green Alliance by James Elliott, Lydia Collas and Dustin Benton in r

Paper by Andrew Balmford (Cambridge University) in Journal of Zoology on the relative value of la

Scientific paper by Andrew Balmford & colleagues published in Nature Sustainability 2018:

Scientific paper by Andrew Balmford & colleagues in 2012 published in Proceedings of the

Climate change threatens our ability to ensure global food security, eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development. In 2016, 31 percent of global emissions originating from human activity came from agrifood systems.

Payments for environmental goods and services

Farming is intricately connected to the environment in various ways. The relationship between agriculture and the environment is a critical aspect of modern farming practices. Please share information, resources, tools and experiences on the multifaceted dimensions of how farming intersects with the environment.

Biodiversity encompasses all the variety of life on Earth from genes to species, populations, communities and ecosystems. In ecological and environmental sectors, we mostly refer to the biodiversity of plant and animal communities within particular habitats.

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Interesting discussions on policy, farming and environment with Defra's Future Farming & Countryside Programme Director Janet Hughes

This innovative project will protect The Fens from the impacts of climate change, like flooding and drought, and show how collaboration can change the way we think about managing water in our communities.

As custodians of the landscape all farmers have responsibility to the wildlife and nature on their farms.  There are many networks, organisations, advisors and initiatives seeking to help farmers enhance wildlife and biodiversity. Increasingly this is being supported by Defra through ELMS and Local Nature Recovery schemes 

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Land use refers to the way that land is used and managed for various purposes, such as agriculture, housing, industry, and recreation.

WWF funded report by Stockholm Environment Institute at University of York and UK-CEH looking at issues around nitrogen use in the UK 

A partnership of agricultural, environmental and governmental bodies, promoting good environmental management through productive farming practices.

Natural England provides an exciting opportunity for the farming community to decide the future for sustainable food production and thriving nature. In Birmingham on 28 November.

The Big Tent is the annual meeting of the Network and an opportunity for participants to hear from, and engage with, researchers, business leaders, policy-makers and voluntary organisations working for change in the agri-food system to meet the UK’s net zero 2050 goal. 

Pathways to Sustainability - Scaling the Transition of Global Agriculture

How can we improve resilience? Whose job is it to do what – from supporting farmers, to meeting consumer demand?

The project aimed to utilise mob grazing methods to manage grasslands better, increase sward species diversity, and create biodiverse pastures.

Interested in learning more about home grown protein crops but don’t know where to look?

The Mitigation Options for Phosphorus and Sediment projects (MOPS) aims to determine the effectiveness of different treatments for controlling diffuse pollution from agriculure.

You are invited to join us for this winter meeting at David Fuller-Shapcotts Sweethope Farm.

During this online workshop we aim to review existing knowledge gaps and identify key areas where future research efforts should be focused.

Carbon footprints are presented within the contemporary media, commercial entities and frequently by government agencies as a proximate measure for sustainability.

Join LEAF and the University of Reading to explore how farmers and landowners can be supported to develop on-farm biodiversity monitoring.

ADAS and the Met Office will explore what mechanisms there are to support an agriculture and food sector that is resilient to climate change.

Guidance on bringing Britain’s hedges back into the farm business.

ADAS, the Met Office, and farming guests explore the barriers and challenges that farmers face from a changing climate.

Balancing food production and ecosystem function.

The Policy Brief, written by Colin Tosh, is based on evidence presented in, and feedback to the online workshop held 20/10/2021.

Pathways to Sustainability - Scaling the Transition of Global Agriculture

Written for farmers and advisors this book will help you assess the potential business benefits of agroforestry for your farm or client and to understand the possible benefits to the wider environment.

To help growers calculate the carbon footprint of their crops and identify mitigation measures, the Yield Enhancement Network created a new farmer network called YEN Zero.

Exploring how cover crops can be incorporated into rotations 

Transition Live will build upon the initiative from Farmers Weekly aimed at securing a sustainable future for your farm business.

Produced as part of the BEESPOKE Project, aimed at increasing levels of pollinators at local and landscape scales.

Discover how, why, and when field drainage is important, as well as best practice for installation, maintenance and repairs.

Our climate is changing and on-farm action is urgently needed. As a farmer-led UK-wide network, we (NFFN) know business as usual is not an option.

The Guidebook to farmland biodiversity indicators which results of the EU FP7 research project “BioBio - Biodiversity indicators for organic and low-input farming systems”

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Configure the meta tags below.

Use tokens to avoid redundant meta data and search engine penalization. For example, a 'keyword' value of "example" will be shown on all content using this configuration, whereas using the [node:field_keywords] automatically inserts the "keywords" values from the current entity (node, term, etc).

Browse available tokens.

Simple meta tags.

The text to display in the title bar of a visitor's web browser when they view this page. This meta tag may also be used as the title of the page when a visitor bookmarks or favorites this page, or as the page title in a search engine result. It is common to append '[site:name]' to the end of this, so the site's name is automatically added. It is recommended that the title is no greater than 55 - 65 characters long, including spaces.
A brief and concise summary of the page's content, preferably 150 characters or less. Where as the description meta tag may be used by search engines to display a snippet about the page in search results, the abstract tag may be used to archive a summary about the page. This meta tag is no longer supported by major search engines.

Meta tags that might not be needed by many sites.

Geo-spatial information in 'latitude; longitude' format, e.g. '50.167958; -97.133185'; see Wikipedia for details.
Geo-spatial information in 'latitude, longitude' format, e.g. '50.167958, -97.133185'; see Wikipedia for details.
Robots
A comma-separated list of keywords about the page. This meta tag is used as an indicator in Google News.
Highlight standout journalism on the web, especially for breaking news; used as an indicator in Google News. Warning: Don't abuse it, to be used a maximum of 7 times per calendar week!
This meta tag communicates with Google. There are currently two directives supported: 'nositelinkssearchbox' to not to show the sitelinks search box, and 'notranslate' to ask Google not to offer a translation of the page. Both options may be added, just separate them with a comma. See meta tags that Google understands for further details.
Used to rate content for audience appropriateness. This tag has little known influence on search engine rankings, but can be used by browsers, browser extensions, and apps. The most common options are general, mature, restricted, 14 years, safe for kids. If you follow the RTA Documentation you should enter RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA
Indicate to search engines and other page scrapers whether or not links should be followed. See the W3C specifications for further details.
Tell search engines when to index the page again. Very few search engines support this tag, it is more useful to use an XML Sitemap file.
Control when the browser's internal cache of the current page should expire. The date must to be an RFC-1123-compliant date string that is represented in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), e.g. 'Thu, 01 Sep 2016 00:12:56 GMT'. Set to '0' to stop the page being cached entirely.

The Open Graph meta tags are used to control how Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other social networking sites interpret the site's content.

The Facebook Sharing Debugger lets you preview how your content will look when it's shared to Facebook and debug any issues with your Open Graph tags.

The URL of an image which should represent the content. The image must be at least 200 x 200 pixels in size; 600 x 316 pixels is a recommended minimum size, and for best results use an image least 1200 x 630 pixels in size. Supports PNG, JPEG and GIF formats. Should not be used if og:image:url is used. Note: if multiple images are added many services (e.g. Facebook) will default to the largest image, not specifically the first one. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly.
The URL of an video which should represent the content. For best results use a source that is at least 1200 x 630 pixels in size, but at least 600 x 316 pixels is a recommended minimum. Object types supported include video.episode, video.movie, video.other, and video.tv_show. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically.
A alternative version of og:image and has exactly the same requirements; only one needs to be used. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly.
The secure URL (HTTPS) of an image which should represent the content. The image must be at least 200 x 200 pixels in size; 600 x 316 pixels is a recommended minimum size, and for best results use an image least 1200 x 630 pixels in size. Supports PNG, JPEG and GIF formats. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly. Any URLs which start with "http://" will be converted to "https://".
The type of image referenced above. Should be either 'image/gif' for a GIF image, 'image/jpeg' for a JPG/JPEG image, or 'image/png' for a PNG image. Note: there should be one value for each image, and having more than there are images may cause problems.
The date this content was last modified, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format. Can be the same as the 'Article modification date' tag.
The date this content was last modified, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format.
The date this content will expire, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format.

A set of meta tags specially for controlling the summaries displayed when content is shared on Twitter.

Notes:
  • no other fields are required for a Summary card
  • Photo card requires the 'image' field
  • Media player card requires the 'title', 'description', 'media player URL', 'media player width', 'media player height' and 'image' fields,
  • Summary Card with Large Image card requires the 'Summary' field and the 'image' field,
  • Gallery Card requires all the 'Gallery Image' fields,
  • App Card requires the 'iPhone app ID' field, the 'iPad app ID' field and the 'Google Play app ID' field,
  • Product Card requires the 'description' field, the 'image' field, the 'Label 1' field, the 'Data 1' field, the 'Label 2' field and the 'Data 2' field.
A description that concisely summarizes the content of the page, as appropriate for presentation within a Tweet. Do not re-use the title text as the description, or use this field to describe the general services provided by the website. The string will be truncated, by Twitter, at the word to 200 characters.
By default Twitter tracks visitors when a tweet is embedded on a page using the official APIs. Setting this to 'on' will stop Twitter from tracking visitors.
The URL to a unique image representing the content of the page. Do not use a generic image such as your website logo, author photo, or other image that spans multiple pages. Images larger than 120x120px will be resized and cropped square based on longest dimension. Images smaller than 60x60px will not be shown. If the 'type' is set to Photo then the image must be at least 280x150px. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly.
The MIME type for the media contained in the stream URL, as defined by RFC 4337.