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.

Mon­i­tor­ing of Envi­ron­men­tal Prac­tices for Sus­tain­able Agri­cul­ture Sup­port­ed by Earth Obser­va­tion will be con­duct­ing research on the mon­i­tor­ing of envi­ron­men­tal prac­tis­es. The three year project aims to car­ry out con­tin­u­ous and sys­tem­at­ic mon­i­tor­ing of sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices on a ter­ri­to­ry wide and all year-round basis. A tool­box of ser­vices will be devel­oped, enabling mon­i­tor­ing organ­i­sa­tions to adapt to require­ments stem­ming from EU pol­i­cy reform.

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.

SolACE (SOLu­tions for improv­ing Agroe­cosys­tem and Crop Effi­cien­cy for water and nutri­ent use) looks at ways to improve agroe­cosys­tem and crop effi­cien­cy for water and nutri­ent use. A num­ber of LEAF pota­to grow­ers have been shar­ing their exper­tise with project part­ners, oth­er farm­ers and sci­en­tists. We will also be lead­ing on the dis­sem­i­na­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion aspects of the project, includ­ing devel­op­ing fact­sheets, short videos and pol­i­cy briefs. SolACE runs for five years.

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. 

This H2020 fund­ed 3‑year project looks at the poten­tial of soil as a car­bon sink whilst pro­mot­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices. AgriCaptureCO2 is devel­op­ing an inno­v­a­tive, robust, and scal­able solu­tion to mea­sure car­bon cap­ture in soil. The project aims to make soil car­bon mea­sure­ments more accu­rate and cost-effec­tive by com­bin­ing satel­lite images with farm­ers’ data and soil sam­ples. A com­mer­cial plat­form will be launched to facil­i­tate large-scale zero emis­sion aspi­ra­tions, through mon­i­tor­ing and report­ing on regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices, as well as mea­sur­ing and mon­i­tor­ing soil car­bon seques­tra­tion. The project will also sup­port and accom­pa­ny farm­ers on the jour­ney to regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture by build­ing a com­mu­ni­ty of prac­tice. The ulti­mate goal: to pro­mote regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture as a solu­tion in the fight against cli­mate change while pro­vid­ing agro­nom­ic and eco­nom­ic benefit.

Through webi­na­rs, on-farm debates, farm demon­stra­tion days and more, LEAF will con­tribute to devel­op­ing a Euro­pean Regen Agri Net­work that engages and con­nects farm­ers, sci­en­tists, busi­ness­es, and oth­er rel­e­vant actors. LEAF’s exist­ing net­work of LEAF Demon­stra­tion Farms will also play a piv­otal role in pro­mot­ing knowl­edge exchange and pro­mot­ing Regen­er­a­tive Agri­cul­ture and the Agr­i­Cap­ture plat­form to farm­ers. The LEAF Mar­que team are also involved in report­ing on the use of Earth Obser­va­tion in Regen­er­a­tive Agri­cul­ture. To learn more about the project, vis­it the infor­ma­tion por­tal and the pilot farms web­page, and find out how to get involved here.

The over­all goal of Diver­IM­PACTS (Diver­si­fi­ca­tion through Rota­tion, Inter­crop­ping, Mul­ti­ple Crop­ping, Pro­mot­ed with Actors and val­ue-Chains towards Sus­tain­abil­i­ty) was to achieve the full poten­tial of diver­si­fi­ca­tion of crop­ping sys­tems for improved pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, deliv­ery of ecosys­tem ser­vices and resource-effi­­cient and sus­tain­able val­ue chains. Diver­IM­PACTS was made up of 34 part­ners and the project was fund­ed under Hori­zon 2020, the Euro­pean Union’s frame­work pro­gramme for research and inno­va­tion. The project was com­plet­ed in 2022, with key out­puts of the project being avail­able here.