Hannah Ritchie - University of Oxford | LinkedIn (original) (raw)

• TBAT Innovation Ltd 5K followers 🌱Are you a business working in farming, agriculture or agri-tech and looking for funding? A number of Innovate UK and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) grant funding calls are currently open, supporting everything from early-stage trials to large-scale manufacturing. 🌾ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant: Round 8 The Department for Environment, Food or Rural Affairs has been allocated up to £100,000 to provide support from the ADOPT facilitator Support Grants. Funding will be in the form of a grant of £2,500 per successful applicant. The aim of this competition is to help farmers, growers or foresters based in England to test and trial new ideas or solutions on-farm and provide support to develop a Full ADOPT Grant application. Opens: 15th Apr 2026 | Closes: 27th May 2026 Full details: https://lnkd.in/ezx7wmKe 🌾AgriScale – Accelerating Agri-tech manufacturing: Industrial Research UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £5 million for projects to close product technology gaps that are preventing movement towards commercial acceptance, scale up and manufacture. The aim of this competition is to enable Agri-tech innovators to advance product performance and reliability of their manufacturing and supply chain capability. Opens: 30th Mar 2026 | Closes: 3rd Jun 2026 Full details: https://lnkd.in/e5eR6fvR 🌾Accelerating Agri-tech manufacturing: Experimental Development UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £8 million for projects to accelerate Agri-tech manufacturing. The aim of this competition is to enable Agri-tech innovators to advance product performance and reliability of their manufacturing and supply chain capability to achieve production at scale. Opens: 30th Mar 2026 | Closes: 3rd Jun 2026 Full details: https://lnkd.in/e9vQ8Hj6 🌾Full ADOPT Grant: Round 7 Farming, growing or forestry businesses based in England can apply for a share of up to £5 million for on-farm trial and demonstration projects, to improve adoption of new ideas or solutions in the agricultural sector. Projects must have the potential to significantly improve productivity, resilience and/or sustainability and progression towards net zero farming. Opens: 9th Apr 2026 | Closes: 3rd Jun 2026 Full details: https://lnkd.in/enDxi7ZR Whether you have a clear project idea or need help exploring your funding options, now’s the time to begin preparing as deadlines are fast approaching. Book an appointment with our funding expert: https://lnkd.in/eE8GByXv Send us a message: https://lnkd.in/dtvjNtqv #InnovateUK #DEFRA #GrantFunding #Agriculture #Farming #Innovation Esther Lawrence | Alice Law | Paula Smith | Clare Fairfield
• Georgina Milne NFU (National Farmers'​ Union) • 607 followers Day 2 at the Future Farmer Conference. We kicked off with Prof. John Gilliland OBE DSc, who delivered one of the clearest, most inspiring explanations I’ve heard on what net zero really means for farming. His key message? Net zero isn’t about “zero emissions”, it’s about telling the true story of what the land is doing. And right now, we’re not reporting that story accurately enough. It’s not as simple as “activities × emissions factors”. We need Tier 3 emissions factors based on real, local data so we can measure what’s actually happening on farm - not generic averages. Gilliland highlighted the AHDB’s carbon baselining work using LiDAR and 1-metre soil sampling every five years. This gives farmers robust data for Scope 3 reporting and crucially shows genuine change over time. One standout finding from their work in Ireland: 97% of carbon sequestration happens in the soil, not the trees. Key insights that stuck with me: • Legume mixes reduce nitrous oxide and do the “heavy lifting” for soil fertility. • Multi-species swards boost biodiversity, water quality, and water retention. • Willow buffer strips over grass cut phosphate entering rivers by 35% in trials. • Soil carbon behaves differently depending on clay/silt/sand profiles, and we need to measure the whole soil depth. • Grazing livestock are vital for soil biology; permanent grassland with livestock has far higher earthworm populations. • In contrast, soils in ungrazed woodland can turn anaerobic and lose microbial life. It’s a powerful reminder: Diversity above ground means resilience below ground. Delivering Public Goods, And Proving It. Gilliland also shared updates from the GB Environmental Baselining Pilot, stressing that England needs to follow Ireland’s lead by recognising the cost of measurement, reporting, and verification as a public good. Because farmers aren’t just producing food, they’re delivering: • Water availability • Soil health • Biodiversity • Carbon sequestration • Flood mitigation • Landscape & heritage preservation • Air quality • Recreation & access • Renewable energy • Wildlife & conservation • Rural vitality … and more. But unless we can measure and prove these benefits regionally, they’re invisible in policy, markets, and supply chains. Who Are We Telling This Story To? Everyone. Buyers, consumers, regulators, local communities, researchers, banks, supply chains, DEFRA/RPA, and, critically, other farmers. Gilliland emphasised the importance of the human story behind net zero. Data matters, but people connect with passion, purpose and progress. A closing line: Never lose your passion, and don’t let numbers get in the way of a good story. Alex Hardie Melissa Sambrook Tesco School of Sustainable Food and Farming @ Harper Adams University
• Soil Association Certification Forestry 3K followers 🌱February's good news in organic🌱 🌿 Following last month's amazing news of a Scottish Organic Action Plan, this month saw the opening of Scotland's Agri-Environmental Climate Scheme (AECS) funding windows, both organic maintenance and conversion payments available. As David McKay, Soil Association Scotland Co-Director and Head of Policy Scotland, said, “In the past few years we have seen a rise in farmers seeking organic certification. Recent statistics reveal that in Scotland, while the market share is still small, organic food and drink has grown by 20.6 per cent in five years. We believe right now is the best time in decades for farmers in Scotland to grab onto a market that is only growing.” Momentum in Scotland's organic movement continues! 🛒"Greater awareness of healthy diets and concerns over ‘trusted’ food mean sales are growing at fastest pace in two decades", says Zoe Wood at The Guardian. Excellent coverage from The Guardian this month highlighting how organic continues to deliver for consumers looking for solutions on health, quality and trust. Clare Hadway-Ball, Senior Commercial Manager at Soil Association Certification was quoted as saying, “people are still concerned about the cost of living but health is also really important, and for the last two years organic has been outperforming non-organic.” 🫖This strong consumer appetite for products that meet their needs on health and natural ingredients has contributed to Ecotone reporting a milestone £700m turnover. Congratulations to Ecotone! 🥬Pesticides continue to be a hot topic of conversation in consumer press - we agree that all 10 pesticides in discussion should be banned in the UK. In the meantime, organic continues to offer the best shortcut to avoiding pesticides in your diet.
• Sven Batke Edge Hill University • 2K followers 🚜 The Farming Profitability Review...some thoughts... 🧠 The report recognises something many of us have been saying for years: farming needs long-term certainty, infrastructure reform, fairer supply chains and a stronger national plan. The emphasis on horticulture growth, planning reform for food infrastructure, market monitoring and sector missions is genuinely welcome. It is good to see protected cropping and food production being discussed in the context of national resilience and economic strategy. That is progress. However, it is also clear that one critical piece of the puzzle is still missing. The review calls for a horticulture revolution, yet it does not address the structural reality of the UK’s ageing protected horticulture estate. Over 70% of our glasshouses are more than 40 years old. Energy intensity remains high. Capital replacement is constrained. And we continue to operate with a significant infrastructure gap compared to competitors such as the Netherlands. Over the past few years, the Greenhouse Innovation Consortium (GIC) has published evidence on: – The scale of the infrastructure modernisation gap – The economic case for integrated greenhouse systems – Energy system integration and circular heat reuse – Planning and capital barriers to protected horticulture rebuild These are not theoretical concepts, they are practical, modelled and industry-backed proposals developed with growers, engineers, technology providers and policy stakeholders. The Farming Profitability Review opens the door to reform. It rightly identifies planning, energy, productivity and resilience as core pillars. But if we are serious about increasing domestic fruit and vegetable production, modernising protected horticulture infrastructure must be part of the national plan. You cannot have a horticulture revolution without modern glasshouses. The good news is that the framework is now being discussed at national level. The opportunity is there. What we need next is implementation detail, and a clear, funded pathway to rebuild and upgrade the UK’s controlled environment food production systems. We stand ready to contribute. If we are serious about food security being national security, infrastructure is not optional. It is foundational. #FoodSecurity #Horticulture #ProtectedCropping #UKFarming #Infrastructure #NetZero #GIC #FoodPolicy