23 August
The Department for Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs (Defra) have released further information on its expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer for 2024, detailing the duration, payment rates, aims and eligibility for all actions, including seven actions for soil health. Defra invite land managers to express their interest in the scheme, and upon completion of a short survey, will be invited to apply.
The Defra funded Future Farm Resilience Programme will provide farmers looking to adopt more nature friendly farming methods with free expert advice from next month. Run by the Soil Association, the online training sessions will include advice on Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs) and is open to any farmer.
Researchers in Northern Ireland have published the first study under the Soil Nutrient Health Scheme, which identifies high-risk areas for nutrient runoff using advanced mapping techniques. The work aims to help farmers reduce nutrient losses into watercourses, improving water quality, and offers tools for targeted land management, with farmers now able to access detailed runoff risk maps online.
Food processing and commodities trading firm ADM has partnered with the Farmer Business Network to support farmers to adopt regenerative practices. The organisations have come together to expand a platform which provides farmers with the ability to predict the impact of adopting practices such as low or no-till and cover cropping, generating data which helps them prove their environmental credentials to buyers.
A blog by the World Bank has discussed the need for economic incentives which encourage farmers’ adoption of climate friendly agricultural practices to reduce emissions from soils without risking productivity. The blog discusses different approaches to payment, including through voluntary carbon markets and coherent policy mechanisms, the need for improved education and technology, and concludes that ‘paying farmers to nurture their soils makes solid economic sense’.
Harper Adams university is seeking the opinion of UK farmers on regenerative agriculture and what the term means to them. As regenerative agriculture doesn’t yet have a widely accepted definition, this survey seeks to capture the different definitions and practices which farmers associate with the term, and will highlight knowledge gaps and where targeted policy interventions may be required.
Researchers in Australia have conducted an analysis to understand what soil sounds like, concluding that healthy soil has a unique sound thanks to moving ants and worms underground. Using microphones planted in the ground, they found that soil rich in biodiversity carried diverse sounds, whereas on cleared land, the sound was of bland, white noise. This research could help make soil health assessment cheaper and could even improve soil health by playing certain sound frequencies to encourage the growth of fungi and bacteria.
New research has shown the impact of agriculture on soil bacteria and fungal communities on coffee farms. Soil samples were collected from farms with different management regimes, and found that when farmed as a monoculture, the soil microbiome was altered in both composition and diversity. The research also found differences in the biodiversity between farms with native shade trees and non-native.