Tag: Past Projects

The Optimum Shelterbelts project has delivered a suite of production and landscape protocols which will create knowledge of agroforestry systems in UK. These data are designed to be collected in the same timeframe, offering insights into how shelterbelts impact farming and nature over time.

The Joining the Dots project will lay the groundwork to develop a collaborative distribution network to catalyse growth of an agroecological food system in Cornwall.

ORC pilot study assessing the results and outcomes of a mini-grant scheme supporting tree planting activities as part of Defra’s Trees Outside Woodlands programme.

This Rapid Evidence Assessment will map the actors working within the Regenerative Agriculture community in the UK. The final discussion paper will be presented at a plant and soil science conference in March 2024 that will set the scene for future research activities in regenerative agriculture.

This project explores how the government’s targets of creating or restoring 30,000 miles of hedgerow by 2037 and 45,000 by 2050 can become a reality, looking at the opportunities and also potential barriers to achieving this goal.

The Organic Hop Varieties Field Lab is a participatory approach to variety testing and evaluation including the whole supply chain. The aim is to secure and improve availability and choice of UK grown organic hops to tackle the rapid decline in UK hop production since the 1960’s.

The goal is to ensure that produce traded through the Food Data Collaboration enables the vision of agroecology, food system fairness and nutrition for all.

FOODLEVERS is a three-years research project (2020-2023) that aims to identify key leverage points to further develop and scale up existing innovative organic and sustainable food systems.

A six-month development project to scope a joined-up approach that would allow farmers and land-owners/managers to easily and simultaneously access relevant carbon markets for woodland, peatland, agroforestry and hedgerows.

The project explored the potential for the carbon captured and stored by trees in agroforestry systems to be quantified and potentially used to support the net zero strategies of farmers, land managers and their partners and funders.

This project explores the potential of direct drilling cash crops into established stands of clover, also known as a living mulch and expanding our understanding and benefits of a living mulch.

The Organic at the Heart project aims to build communities around environmentally friendly farming through the development and demonstration of local hubs that embody the Organic Principles of Health, Ecology, Fairness and Care.

Sharing knowledge and evidence of the value of agroforestry through a network of farms and initiatives across the UK working to balance the objectives of simultaneously and sustainably growing food, transition to the new ELM Scheme and contribute to ‘public goods.’

The project investigates the opportunities given by mixed farming and agroforestry systems for carbon balance and climate change mitigation and adaptation

The study is looking at improving organic trade data statistics in the UK

WOOFS is a new EU-funded EIP Operational Group of researchers, farmers and foresters from the UK. The group is led byORC and formed to investigate the role of woodchip in soil health.

This EIP operational group compares alternative soil assessment methods specifically for organic dairy systems (Albrecht method, Soil Respiration, etc.), working with the farmers David Wilson, Lyndon Edwards and Wil Armitage in 3-year field trials.

DIVERSIFOOD will evaluate and enrich the diversity of cultivated plants within diverse agroecosystems so as to increase the performance and resilience of those systems while simultaneously increasing the range and quality of the produce for consumers.

Livewheat will establish a network of farmers and researchers, with broad stakeholders’ support, able to undertake on-farm experimentation and data collection to enable informed decision making for sustainable organic and low-input wheat production

the table of projects on the relevant team page.] The project aims to assess the public goods that are being delivered through agricultural practices, across two landscape areas using the Public Goods (PG) tool.

Minimising the use of contentious inputs in certified organic agriculture in Europe by providing research based decision support for actors in the organic sector, including policy makers, and thus reach the next level of the organic success story

This project uses participatory approaches to work with the established network of example farms in the UK, Germany and Austria to jointly develop a set of criteria (a) for farm health measurement and (b) for practical knowledge multiplication.