Land use

N8 AgriFood has substantial expertise in land management and agri-environment schemes, developing projects and collecting evidence surrounding best practice for conservation and sustainable land use.

Academics from across the programme are leading a number of projects that investigate and support the adoption of Payment for Ecosystem Services schemes and Environmental Land Management Schemes.

Peatland Protection

A team of academics from Newcastle University and the University of Leeds worked on the Peatlands Tipping Point project, which provided evidence to support the creation of the UK’s first Peatland Code scheme, and has led to the promotion of similar initiatives by United Nations conventions and agencies. The research has been instrumental in shaping and monitoring implementation of an International Union for the Conservation of Nature Motion, leading to the creation of new peatland policies in at least ten countries, and the integration of private-public partnerships in the United Nations’ Global Peatland Initiative.

Landscape Enterprise Networks

The Landscape Enterprise Network approach was developed by 3Keel and Business in the Community with Nestle, who collectively established a programme which harnesses commercial interest in how landscapes function to drive investment and innovation around strategic assets like soils, aquifers, access infrastructure, habitats and tree cover. N8 AgriFood leads a collaboration under the LENs initiative called Resilient Dairy Landscapes involving Newcastle University, the University of Leeds and the University of Liverpool, funded by the Global Food Security Programme.

Key outputs of this policy topics are shown below:

Policy Brief - What is the evidence that public money leads to public goods delivery from agri-environment schemes?

A Policy Brief produced by N8 AgriFood academics under the Dairy Resilient Landscapes project.

Policy Brief - What role for public private partnerships to deliver public goods

A Policy Brief produced by N8 AgriFood academics under the Dairy Resilient Landscapes project.

Video - Resilient Diary Landscapes Impact Ambitions

Overview of the Resilient Dairy Landscapes research project funded by the Global Food Security’s ‘Resilience of the UK Food System Programme’ with support from BBSRC, ESRC, NERC and Scottish Government.

UK Peatland Strategy

The UK Peatland Strategy was launched in April 2018 by the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, which features N8 AgriFood chair Professor Mark Reed as its Research Manager

The Peatland Code

The Peatland Code was launched by the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, with support from N8 AgriFood’s Peatland Tipping Points project.

POSTnote - Sustaining the soil microbiome

This POSTnote gives an overview of the benefits provided by the soil microbiome, ways of assessing the soil microbiome, and measures to improve its condition.

POSTnote - Climate Change & Agriculture

This POSTnote examines measures to reduce the impacts of food production and
agricultural land use on climate change and to adapt agricultural land use to that change.