Funded Scoping Studies

In 2023 the Network funded sixteen innovative projects to help address the challenge of reaching net zero through agri-food. The projects included a web app to help farmers forecast greenhouse gas emissions from their manure, a scheme to replace soya with faba beans in chicken feed and a plan to improve consumer understanding of alternative proteins.

Each project was awarded either £10k over 12 months or £50k over two years and brought together multidisciplinary teams, with academics working alongside food system stakeholders.

On this page you will find details of all sixteen projects.

​Scope of regenerative agriculture practices in the UK – who is doing what and where?

This project aims to assess farmers’ perceptions, knowledge, and practice of regenerative agriculture in the UK via a nationwide survey.

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Circular fertiliser: assessing the potential of digestate for indoor farms

This project will examine the effectiveness of plant based and animal slurry based digestate on an indoor basil farming system.

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What happens on the farm, does not stay on the farm

This project will explore the design of a new model of collective insurance for farmers trying new climate-smart practices as a cohort, across a catchment.

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Changing chicken for net zero: practices and beliefs from the poultry industry

Through a workshop this project brings poultry industry employees and consumer-citizens together to understand existing beliefs and practices in the industry.

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GROW

This project aims to equip farmers with the necessary skills and knowledge to practice regenerative agriculture and other low-carbon farming practices.

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Moving towards net-zero through improving animal health

This project aims to review literature on emissions and disease for ruminant and monogastric systems and identify existing data sources for health and emissions.

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A community-based venture to reframe household food waste and transform it to fertiliser

This project aims to examine the impact of community composting schemes to aid in reaching net-zero targets.

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Kingston community food growing: towards net zero through inclusion

This project aims to study the effects of urban-community food growing on achieving net-zero targets, improving local food systems, and benefitting communities.

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Developing a sustainability data map for the UK dairy food chain

This project will develop a map of data collected along the milk food chain enabling environmental and nutrition data to be analysed

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Quantifying the net zero potential for regenerative agriculture

This project will conduct a synthesis of UK net zero agricultural interventions, determining barriers, opportunities and impacts.

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On-farm optimisation of faba beans for use in poultry diets

This project aims to make UK faba beans into a poultry feed material that can be used in place of soya.

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Mapping incentives for change in the transition to net zero

This project will identify and analyse the motivation and incentives of UK livestock farmers and food processors.

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Farmers as empowered intermediaries in natural capital markets?

This project explores a cooperative governance model where farmers are organized to represent their members to buyers of natural capital products.

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Harvesting insights to increase UK consumers’ awareness and acceptance of alternative proteins

This project aims to provide the foundation for a better understanding of consumer preferences, attitudes, and behaviours regarding alternative protein.

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Developing an interactive web app for personalised forecasting of slurry emissions

This project aims to develop a free web-app that provides farmers with personalised forecasts of emissions from manure using farm weather data.

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Regenerative agriculture and net-zero: mapping the evidence

This project aims to use systematic mapping methodology to collate and summarise existing evidence for the impact of five representative RA practices on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural yield.

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