Quantifying the net zero potential for regenerative agriculture

We must continue to produce food to meet the demands of our population, but our current agriculture practices degrade the environment and release greenhouse gases (GHG), with intensive agriculture responsible for 10% of UK GHG. To address this, many farmers, researchers, businesses and policymakers are interested in agricultural practices that have the potential to reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon to reach net-zero targets. However, there is currently a lack of understanding of (a) which agricultural practices are currently being used (b) the potential impact of these practices on GHG emissions and carbon sequestration; (c) how changing agricultural practices will affect UK food production.

Using published literature and expert opinions we will conduct a synthesis of UK net-zero agricultural interventions, determining their barriers, opportunities and potential impacts, and estimating the level of certainty we currently have about these effects.

Project lead: David Williams, University of Leeds

Project members: Matt Crapper, G. H. Crapper and Son Ltd; Jonathan Hodgson, I.M. Hodgson & Son; Joseph Martlew and Isobel Eames, AHDB; Lauren Kavanagh, DEFRA; Mark Taylor, Natural England; Ruth Wade, University of Leeds; Jennifer Hodbod, University of Leeds

Findings

• Fundamentally there is not enough UK-specific evidence on the impacts of regenerative agricultural practices on greenhouse gas emissions or agricultural yields across different farming systems, climates and soil types to provide a robust evidence base for policy.
• The majority of the evidence we do have is focused on a single practice [e.g. reducing synthetic fertiliser use] on below-ground carbon stocks (rather than N2O or CH4 emissions), comes from a relatively small number of locations (limiting the range of climatic and soil conditions for which we have evidence), and does not take a whole season approach, instead focusing on specific times in the season.
• Few of these studies also include a measurement of yield / food production, limiting their relevance to farmers and their use for strategic policy decisions.
• Importantly we are not arguing that RA should not be promoted or pursued, but that there needs to be a concerted, coordinated effort to gather all relevant evidence (including from industry, farmers, and grey literature) and rapidly generate considerable new data when existing evidence is inadequate to support policy and practice.
• There is therefore an urgent need to compile the evidence that we do have, including grey literature, unpublished and farm-trial data, and to rapidly implement a series of coordinated research projects to generate the data required to support policy and practice.

Suggestions for further research

• See above. In addition, RA practices also clearly have implications for farm economics and farmer well-being: they can save time and money, and improve farmers’ quality of life, but there are concerns about impacts on yields, income (e.g. there is a concern that they would not be economically viable without subsidy support from ELMs etc.), and their potential vulnerability to external factors. These need to be understood in more detail and in specific contexts—not just the UK.