Agriculture plays a key part in the solutions for nature loss and climate breakdown. Farmland accounts for around 70% of the total land use in the UK, so there is a huge opportunity for positive change in UK agriculture to secure nature and climate recovery – but it requires a system change towards a model of regenerative agriculture.
Discover how regenerative farming is already working across the UK in our inspiring examples below. If you are already making progress towards this action, jump here if you want to do something bigger.
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Regenerative farming
System change
A growing number of farmers in the UK have begun to consider longer-term changes to their farm systems. Over the last five years, higher input costs of the three Fs (fertiliser, feed, and fuel) have added significant financial pressures; and record heatwaves, droughts and wet winters have made farm resilience a much greater priority. On top of all this, traditional area-based subsidies will be phased out by 2028, making way for new schemes that prioritise sustainable and nature-friendly land use. In England, the government is expanding a new payment scheme (the Sustainable Farming Incentive) which will pay farmers for actions that not just protect but improve the environment. Against this background, ‘regenerative farming’ is increasingly seen as the big solution: delivering a net-positive impact on nature, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building farm resilience while cutting the use of expensive inputs.
Soil regeneration
Regenerative farming works with natural systems to improve the environment, taking a more holistic, ground-up approach to farming practices where natural soil function plays a key role. Healthy soil is the foundation, for growing healthy crops, our nutrition and food security. Regenerative agriculture seeks to protect the soil – by minimising soil disturbance, keeping living roots in the soil and the soil covered, maximising crop diversity and integrating livestock. Through a combination of these factors, poor soil can be transformed in just five years with improvements in a single growing season. Better soil fertility, water retention and soil biodiversity not only boost crop yields and promise more resilient harvests in the long term, but also provide quick environmental benefits – which is crucial given the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises.
Beyond sustainability
Regenerative agriculture promotes tried-and-tested conservation farming practices, such as low- or no-till, crop rotation, cover cropping and composting. Other farming practices – agroecology and organic – also fit within the regenerative farming spectrum and when combined with regenerative practices, they go ‘beyond sustainability’ (sustaining the status quo) to positively repairing our eroded soils and polluted rivers.
If we want to see a big uptake of regenerative and other nature-friendly farming practices, farmers need room and support to figure out what works best for their specific conditions. There are no hard-and-fast rules to regenerative farming, which is both its strength and weakness. For peer and expert advice, try the Nature Friendly Farming Network for farmers from a range of backgrounds to join the growing movement for farming with nature. Or there’s Regenerative Farmers of UK for regenerative farmers and consumers to connect, share learning and scale up the change.
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Do Something Bigger
What would inspire you to do something bigger for climate and nature? In this, the first episode of the Carbon Copy Podcast series, Do Something Bigger, we introduce our year-long campaign: 25…
Do something bigger
Farmers are highly skilled in adaptation and we can make a world of difference by working collaboratively with regenerative farmers to tackle some of the other big local actions for climate and nature.
Reduce river pollution
The two leading causes of our river pollution are the excessive use of fertiliser and pesticides in agriculture (farming pollution is responsible for 40% of our total water pollution) and untreated sewage released by water companies (responsible for 35%). Cleaning up the UK’s rivers will require big changes to land use and management, in ways taken by regenerative farmers and other nature-friendly farming practices. Reservoir water levels are impacted too. Heavy rain can fill rivers, but the extra water cannot be abstracted to top up our reservoirs due to higher volumes of agricultural run-offs. Conversely, as we prepare for heatwaves, our rivers may not be abstracted into dwindling reservoirs due to the higher concentration of pollutants as river water levels drop.
Protect and plant more trees
In our collective effort to plant more trees, regenerative farmers can help through eco farming practices such as agroforestry – planting trees, shrubs and hedges on farms (e.g. Whitehall farm) to create healthier soil and higher yields, as well as better habitats for wildlife. Agroforestry was widely used in the UK before farming was industrialised in the last century; today, only 3% of the UK’s farmland practises agroforestry. The potential upside of agroforestry is good news for farmers as well as for climate and nature: it’s one of the most promising systems for the ‘sustainable intensification’ of farming – of producing more food while also reducing negative impacts on the environment.
Reduce flood risk
Flooding is the UK’s most serious natural hazard (with one in six homes in the UK at risk) and together we need to take flood action and do something bigger to protect lives and livelihoods. Regenerative agriculture improves soil biodiversity, and healthy soils with good porosity play an essential role in limiting the wider impacts of extreme weather conditions. By absorbing and storing water that would otherwise run off, healthy soil limits the impact of surface water flooding elsewhere. The same macropores allow roots to grow deeper into the soil and recover water during heatwaves and drought.
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