The NUE-Leg project aims to help com­bat the depen­dence of grass­land farm­ing on applied nitro­gen fertilisers.

NCS is a four-year, ground-break­ing indus­try-led research project to sup­port farm­ers in reduc­ing agri­cul­tur­al emis­sions by increas­ing pulse crop­ping in arable rota­tions and sub­sti­tut­ing 50% of import­ed soya meal used in feed with more cli­mate-friend­ly home-grown puls­es and legumes.

The Jor­dans Farm Part­ner­ship is an inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ship between LEAF, The Wildlife Trusts, Jor­dans and The Prince’s Coun­try­side Fund to pro­mote sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tice and address rur­al devel­op­ment issues.

Vitacress Farm Excel­lence with LEAF Mar­que cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is an out­­­comes-based approach to mea­sur­ing envi­ron­men­tal improve­ments through eco­log­i­cal appraisals and sur­veys, indi­vid­u­al­ly tai­lored con­ser­va­tion man­age­ment plans and bespoke LEAF Sus­tain­able Farm­ing Review Report­ing with KPIs and action plans for con­tin­u­ous improvement.

Hamp­shire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust (HIWWT) is proud to part­ner with Vitacress on the Farm Excel­lence pro­gramme in line with their Wilder strat­e­gy to pro­mote sus­tain­able farm­ing and nature’s recov­ery. Arca­di­an Ecol­o­gy and Con­sult­ing is a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of HIWWT who have worked with Vitacress Farm Excel­lence to pro­vide pro­fes­sion­al eco­log­i­cal and farm advice.

This project is focused on SHOW­CAS­ing syn­er­gies between agri­cul­ture, bio­di­ver­si­ty and Ecosys­tem ser­vices to help farm­ers cap­i­tal­is­ing on native bio­di­ver­si­ty (SHOW­CASE) and is ded­i­cat­ed to the inte­gra­tion of bio­di­ver­si­ty into farm­ing prac­tices. The project aims to deliv­er new insight and inno­v­a­tive tools facil­i­tat­ing the agri­cul­tur­al sector’s tran­si­tion towards more sus­tain­able farm­ing, and thus help meet wider soci­etal needs.

LEAF works on the project along­side the Uni­ver­si­ty of Read­ing and has recruit­ed a range of farm­ers across the UK as part of a Euro­pean wide net­work of Exper­i­men­tal Bio­di­ver­si­ty Areas (EBAs). The farms have tak­en part in a tri­al look­ing at how dif­fer­ent species of cov­er crops dif­fer in their frost tol­er­ance, help­ing to illus­trate the inter­ac­tions between bio­di­ver­si­ty and agri­cul­ture. The project is also explor­ing the incen­tives that effec­tive­ly moti­vate farm­ers to inte­grate bio­di­ver­si­ty prac­tices into pro­duc­tion and strate­gies to encour­age the imple­men­ta­tion of bio­di­ver­si­ty man­age­ment on farms.

IPM­WORKS is a 4‑year hori­zon 2020 project that aims to pro­mote the adop­tion of Inte­grat­ed Pest Man­age­ment (IPM) strate­gies through an EU-wide net­work of farm­ers. The IPM Net­works con­sist of 5 exist­ing nation­al farm demo net­works and 24 new hubs of demo farms. These net­works will facil­i­tate peer-to-peer knowl­edge shar­ing at a nation­al and EU-lev­el and demon­strate to farm­ers the tan­gi­ble eco­nom­ic and eco­log­i­cal ben­e­fits of adopt­ing IPM strategies.

LEAF play a key role in the mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion of demon­stra­tion activ­i­ties to sup­port farm­ers in learn­ing about the tech­ni­cal and eco­nom­ic effec­tive­ness of the demon­strat­ed strate­gies and to help to moti­vate farm­ers to apply these strate­gies on their own farms. We also sup­port the devel­op­ment and build­ing of IPM Net­works, dis­sem­i­na­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and train­ing and net­work sus­tain­abil­i­ty. To learn more about the project, vis­it the web­site and pub­li­ca­tions webpage.

SEAMS (Sus­tain­abil­i­ty in Edu­ca­tion and Agri­cul­ture using Mix­tures) is a four-year project fund­ed by the Esmée Fair­bairn Foun­da­tion, and coor­di­nat­ed by the James Hut­ton Insti­tute. The project aims to devel­op, pro­mote and imple­ment crop species mix­tures as a sus­tain­able crop pro­duc­tion sys­tem for Scot­land and a resource for knowl­edge exchange on food pro­duc­tion, agri­cul­tur­al ecol­o­gy and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty to a wider audi­ence includ­ing school groups.