Zainab Oyetunde-Usman, Year 3 Champion – Carbon Financing

Mapping the existing research and policy landscape revealed key gaps, compiled into a think piece on carbon and carbon mechanisms in the UK. These included behavioural and socioeconomic factors affecting uptake of soil carbon improving practices; barriers for farmers and land managers due to perceived risks; overlap and conflict between carbon markets and other environmental schemes; lack of structured legal and institutional frameworks for carbon markets; and monitoring, reporting and verification weaknesses.

“Engagement with farmers and non-academic stakeholders improved the knowledge of soil carbon perspectives in the UK, as well as the critical factors that need to be considered for a carbon mechanism that works for all.”

A significant output during her year as champion was hosting a webinar for the AFN Network+ community, attended by 150 participants, on ‘derisking the farming transition’. Within this, Zainab explained how a new form of collective insurance can help farmers de-risk transition, for example how pooled premiums can help bring costs down for farmers. Her key points demonstrated how pricing the risk of regenerative transitions is challenging and financial mechanisms, including carbon finance, need to reflect that complexity.

Another major piece of work during the year was Zainab’s role as project lead on an AFN funded scoping study, which identified a gap in collective mechanisms and the need for innovative products such as collective insurance to drive substantial uptake of net zero farm innovations.

Zainab’s sustained focus on innovative carbon finance mechanisms helped shape supporting work for the AFN Network+ Roadmap and Report, adding a vital perspective around reducing risk for farmers who want to experiment with regenerative and climate-friendly farming practices.

Identifying key gaps in discussions around land use. Georgie’s research found that there is a separation between land use policy aimed at farmers or land owners, and policy that is aimed at county councils, which despite not always owning land, make major land use decisions around tree planting, flood infrastructure or renewable energy. This lack of joined up thinking makes it difficult to make coherent land use policy. She also found that, while there is sufficient funding available, there is a notable lack of clarity around private green finance for farmers and how they can access it in an equitable way.

“Land use covers everything, so it was helpful to be able to discuss/sense check objections based on other themes to really focus on what governance of land use change can look like. People often talk about land use as a sector – particularly in the climate space, where it comes under the ‘agriculture, forestry and other land use’ emissions sector. But when we are talking about solutions, we need to think about how to make decisions about land in place: where people live and work and play. This means engaging beyond tree planting targets and farming subsidies for herbal leys, to a wider understanding of how people live to encourage this transition.”

A significant achievement during the year was the creation of a short-lived but focused ‘community of practice’ of stakeholders involved in diverse land use decisions. She brought together land use practitioners from around 12 counties to compare methodologies and share expert insights from specific contexts, for example housing, data or green finance. Most meetings were virtual, with one major in-person roundtable held before the announcement of the land use consultation in December 2024. This event brought together high level stakeholders from different sectors, including the NFU and the CLA alongside ENGOs and planning specialists, to share insights into what was needed from land use policy. The outcomes from this roundtable and earlier virtual meetings helped shape the workshops run by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission around the Land Use Framework consultation, which was commissioned by Defra. Common barriers to effective land use decisions shared by participants in Georgie’s workshops included identifying and using the appropriate datasets for where habitats could be restored; community buy-in for major projects (eg, energy, new woodland); and developing climate adaptation plans at a regional scale.

Georgie’s role as an ambassador for AFN Network+ saw her work with groups such as rewilding organisations, farming clusters or local governments, and she succeeded in bringing groups who do not typically associate themselves with agri-food, such as local authorities or planners, into the conversation.

“Researching with the AFN Network+ was a real opportunity to explore the sprawling links across food systems. The Big Tent events, in particular, brought together stakeholders that don’t typically sit in the same room. Being able to chat and workshop ideas with people who work in completely different corners of the food system was so helpful to understand the practicalities of implementing change, and therefore what policy needs to do.”

Across one in-person workshop and one national webinar, participants were purposely recruited based on active engagement in agri-food and land transitions and their ability to speak to justice dimensions from lived, professional, or advocacy experience. Deliberate efforts were made to include historically underrepresented perspectives and ensure epistemic diversity. Engagement activities were explicitly designed to support inclusive co-creation, including concept mapping, scenario-based reflection, and justice matrix exercises that enabled participants to generate and shape insights rather than respond to predefined categories. Critical areas of reflection that emerged included questioning who is excluded from transition processes and why, how marginalised voices can be meaningfully embedded, the redistribution of power and resources, challenges posed by concentrated corporate influence, and the limitations of top-down policy approaches.

Key outputs included the development of a Justice Reflection Matrix and a Justice-Embedded Transitions Management framework, which together make visible the marginalisation of groups such as tenant farmers, land workers, women, migrants, and Global Majority communities, and provide practical tools applicable to future research, policy, and advocacy settings.

“The infographic and related outputs made visible the exclusion of tenant farmers, seasonal workers, women, migrants, and global majority communities, as well as the undervaluing of indigenous and agro-ecological knowledge systems. By embedding decolonisation as a principle, the framework went beyond diversity rhetoric to challenge structural exclusions and colonial legacies in land governance.”

Findings from this work informed recommendations for embedding justice considerations within Defra’s Land Use Consultation process. In parallel, Rounaq also co-led an evaluation of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) practices within the AFN Network+. Building on this work, follow-up participatory workshops are being developed with AFN colleagues to further explore how justice and EDI can be operationalised in agri-food transition governance.