27 November 2025
Briefing
DIGEST: Learning from the Champions, Part 2
Champions are at the heart of the AFN Network+ and have played a key role in supporting our mission of identifying key research gaps that may be holding the UK food system back from transitioning towards a net zero UK by 2050.
In a series of digests, we will be sharing a little more about their work and what we have learned from them.
Champions have supported our mission by
- Drawing on their expertise and specialist knowledge of the agri-food sector
- Running engagement activities centred around their respective themes, building on existing AFN research and outputs and the work of previous AFN Champions
- Helping synthesise ideas and thinking from across the AFN and the wider stakeholder community to ensure inclusive input in defining plausible pathways to net zero, through agri-food
- Identifying the research priorities and policy innovation required to deliver a food system that is sustainable, economically viable, socially just, and secure.
If you missed it, you can read Part 1. In this digest, we cover the work of three Champions – Amy Jackson, Caeli Richardson and Jude Irons.
Amy Jackson, Year 2 Champion for Behaviour Change
Amy Jackson is a communications specialist and behavioural change researcher who specialises in food and farming issues. Her former roles include head of communications at the (pre-AHDB) dairy levy board, and she’s been involved in managing a wide range of crises spanning the horsemeat controversy, antibiotic use in the UK livestock sectors, and the rise of ‘mega-farms’. Amy also has a PhD in public perceptions of farming from the University of Nottingham’s Vet School.
Amy’s research applied social science and behaviour change practice to the net zero challenge, with the aim of giving farmers a stronger voice in the debate. To start with, she mapped existing research on interventions to reduce on-farm emissions against knowledge on behaviour change opportunities in farming, to identify areas where the two overlapped. Several opportunities for emissions reduction and behaviour change were identified then ranked. Precision fertiliser use was found to have high potential for both emissions reduction and behavioural change, while peatland restoration had high potential for emissions but was ranked as challenging for behavioural change. Other interventions ranked as high or moderate on both scales included feed additives and breeding (increasingly rejected by some farmers and consumers, forming an ideological barrier), legumes and diverse rotations, manure management, agroforestry, and renewable energy. Gaps were also identified around hard-to-reach farmer groups such as tenant farmers, and behavioural change in high impact areas, such as livestock.
“I believe that through my activities, I have raised awareness of the importance of farmer engagement and farmer voices in creating positive change. Too many activities remain top-down, designed and developed by economists, researchers and those who do not have to deal with the practicalities and challenges of running a small business every day as well as dealing with impacts of climate change and economic trade winds. Allowing farmers a seat at the table offers so many opportunities to design better and more effective policy.”
Amy then undertook a survey of over 400 diverse farmers to determine their perceptions of the effectiveness of various greenhouse-gas-reducing activities. In this, various activities to reduce excess nitrogen use were seen as most effective, with minimum tillage (despite not impacting greenhouse gas emissions to any great extent) and legume sward mixes were seen as most effective, and increasing milking efficiency or use of feed additives in ruminants as the least. The data on this survey are still being analysed but Amy hopes to publish further results in the new year.
Through the survey, Amy recruited a ‘farmer jury’ of 16 diverse farmers from around the UK for an event based on the principles of a citizen jury process. Key findings included agreement that net zero is the wrong target for farmers, as it was perceived to be unachievable, demotivating and forced undesirable trade-offs. Another finding was that farmers are best positioned to deliver integrated land management solutions that balance food security, nature, health, and climate, but they need a ‘seat at the table’ to do so. Among recommendations, she found that a four-nation ‘cluster group’ network of demo farms could facilitate better government–farmer dialogue, and that more research is needed on how to combine behavioural science with technical innovation for maximum and durable emissions reduction. (Listen to a podcast about the findings).
During her time as Champion, Amy also worked with the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) to develop a briefing for Government on how UK agriculture could develop a more sustainable farming model for the future. This report used the AFN Network+’s plausible futures to Net Zero by 2050 to construct its case for a commitment to increase UK production alongside aligned measurement of environmental impact.
Caeli Richardson, Year 2 Champion for Land Productivity
Caeli is a plant and animal geneticist at biotech firm AbacusBio. She also has a PhD in computational biology, where she researched genetic strategies to reduce methane emissions in dairy cattle. Caeli analysed the progress and barriers on the integration of genetic selection strategies for reduced emissions in livestock and arable crops.
“Being part of the AFN Network+ gave me the chance to focus on a topic I genuinely care about—reducing agricultural emissions through genetics. I had the freedom and support to explore this area in depth, and the backing of a thoughtful and responsive operations team made a real difference.”
There is a strong consensus within the livestock industry that genetics can play a central role in emissions reduction, although confidence and barriers vary across sectors. Those were some of the findings of Caeli’s report, based on a survey of livestock and horticulture stakeholders. Assessing industry perceptions on emissions trends, Caeli found the dairy sector stands out for its optimism, with participants reporting a clear perception of declining emissions per unit of output since 2020 and expressing confidence in the potential for further reductions through breeding. This contrasts with the beef and small ruminant sectors, where perspectives were more divided and confidence lower, reflecting both the biological complexity of these systems and more limited infrastructure for data collection. Measuring emissions data was a key barrier to many farmers generally, which has implications for research and on-farm practice, as reliable measurement underpins genetic evaluations.
“Representing the AFN in various forums was rewarding. It was inspiring to see how far the network’s influence reached and to contribute to that visibility. I also appreciated the space to speak honestly about what I observed, even when my views didn’t align with the mainstream. That openness was empowering and made the role feel meaningful.”
Farmers did express a strong willingness to adopt genetic technologies if certain conditions are met, including improved industry and consultant support, robust evidence of cost-effectiveness, and better communication of trade-offs. Public and consumer acceptance of genetics was a key talking point, and respondents suggested sustainability claims linked to genetics should be transparent, verifiable, and clearly communicated. Alternative strategies such as feed management were also rated highly, showing that farmers view emissions mitigation as multifaceted. This perspective suggests that positioning genetics as part of an integrated package, rather than as a stand-alone tool, may drive broader adoption. With broad cross-sector collaboration from geneticists and breeders to farmers and academics, Caeli raised awareness of genetic selection as a credible mitigation strategy and laid important groundwork for genetics to be used within emissions policy.
Jude Irons, Year 2 Champion for Food Security and Trade
Jude is Food Systems and Sustainability Director at 2 Sisters Food Group and Boparan. She previously worked as Product Director at restaurant chain Nando’s, where she led menu development, purchasing including Scope 3, logistics and technical. She has also worked for M&S and Tesco and chairs the Red Tractor Poultry TAC; sits on Defra’s food and data transparency partnership; and was a founder member of the Soil Association Exchange advisory board.
Jude’s research focused on demystifying decarbonisation for commercial food businesses, with a practical focus on how to embed emissions processes into business planning and performance management.
“I found the AFN Network+ to be hugely welcoming and supportive. There was lots of positivity and access to a wide range of experts around the industry, and I learned more about academia and processes for funded work and innovation. I was able to access my network easily through the AFN and found lots of equity in the sector for the work I was doing.”
Food businesses are expected to engage with and meet net zero targets, supporting UK legislation to reach net zero by 2050. And yet the process of managing reductions remains challenging for many businesses. Judith’s research set out to connect specifically with industry leaders, as well as service providers and consultants, to demystify the decarbonisation process and produce a roadmap that can be applied effectively in a commercial setting. To do this, she interviewed a wide range of senior industry leaders, including former supermarket CEOs and current executives. Her findings led to recommended ways of working within organisations, such as allocating specific areas of emissions to project ‘owners’, who are then accountable for carbon reduction activities.
“The task of implementing robust plans which move GHG emissions down over time in the food industry is at its simplest a change management and business planning job. The quicker decarbonisation becomes business as usual, the more likely it is to happen.”
Importantly, this role should be taken alongside their day job where they are accountable for producing emissions in the first place, for example a procurement manager, recipe designer or animal feed nutritionist. She found that it is critical that emissions data is held centrally linked directly to activity data and validated against accepted methodology, and this data must be live and updated regularly. This way growth in underlying activity data is taken into account and decarbonisation can be measured as decoupled from growth. In summary, Jude noted that the task of emission reduction is a business planning and performance management job.
This is an important distinction and positions the journey to net zero firmly within a ‘business as usual’ setting, rather than purely in the realms of a sustainability team. In addition, each member of an organisation must have an emissions target in their objectives, alongside their financial objectives. Additionally at Executive Board level it is key that the board have a joint accountability for 100% of the emissions reduction required, as a collective. It is not enough for one function to just hit their target. All functions within a business are connected and the entire leadership is accountable for hitting the total target. Businesses can go as far as linking long-term incentive plans (LTIP) to achieving the overall target, much like EBITDA. She recommended several well-accepted tools that can hold ingredient and product level life cycle analyses (LCA) accurately, such as the Mondra BRC Coalition. She also created her own proposal for a modelling tool to decarbonise scope 3 through product design, as well as highlighting free resources, such as the IGD Food Industry Roadmap.
