Putting farmers at the heart of research trials is helping reveal a clearer path towards sustainable agriculture – by testing greener techniques in a way that makes more economic sense.
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‘Living labs’ refer to an experiment allowing farmers to set the terms of a research trial on their own land while also working with supply chain partners to ensure a new farming practice is economically viable.
“Farmers can see how a new approach compares with what they normally do and that’s a small, but very important step in becoming greener,” said Jerry Alford, an organic farmer and advisor from the Soil Association, a UK charity promoting sustainable agriculture.
Alford is running 22 living labs across the UK where farmers test out how to grow a mix of legumes and cereal on the same plot of land in a real-world setting. The farmer chooses the techniques and crops most relevant to their area, from the seed mix they plant to the techniques used to harvest and process grains. The subsequent results are then analysed by researchers to determine the potential benefits, such as higher yields, better soil health, and less agrochemical use.
“The results mean something more to the farmer,” said Alford, explaining that food producers can sometimes feel detached from conventional agriculture research that produces lengthy and complicated reports, but now they have ownership of the research.
“They also experiment on a small scale, which helps them decide whether it’s something they think works and that makes it easier to scale,” Alford explained.
The living labs are part of an European Union (EU) project called LEGUMINOSE, which is organising 180 similar trials across seven European countries, Egypt, and Pakistan. One of the UK’s living labs has already provided an insight into intercropping’s promise for growing wheat and beans together, reporting a 27% yield increase in the intercropped plot compared to the monoculture strips on the same farm.
“We also have anecdotal evidence that there are less weeds in the intercrop strip compared with the monocultural one next to it,” said Alford, adding that this would mean less need for agrochemicals, along with a decrease in their associated costs.
The environmental and economic benefits mean many farmers are eager to test out intercropping, but others are still put off by changing practices and the time needed to learn how to intercrop. Currently, only 2% of European farmers use a legume-cereal intercrop.
More on the topic: Intercropping: An EU Sustainable Solution through Traditional Agriculture
Dougal Hosford, a second-generation UK tenant farmer on the Bryanston Estate in Dorset managing the LEGUMINOSE living lab that recorded the 27% yield increase in an intercropped plot, acknowledged they still face “a steep learning curve” in figuring out how to mainstream intercropping on their land.
“We definitely still need good solid information to help us decide whether we’re going down the right way or not and to prove to ourselves that there is an advantage of growing more than one crop together,” he said.
Building Up the Business Case
A key aspect of living labs is determining whether a new practice is economically viable, which requires building up experience on the farm level, such as how to best grow, harvest, and process commercial crops planted together.
“Cleaning the bi-crop [intercropped] wheat for sale is a steady, pretty slow job,” said Hosford, adding that they still did “a pretty good job” doing it despite it being their first time. In general, his team is learning as they go, but each chance to develop knowledge puts the farm closer to where it wants to be.
“We are keen to take part in any opportunity to get some trial work done on growing two or more crops together,” said Hosford, explaining that the living lab helps his farm along in their “journey towards regenerative agriculture” – and away from a costly system dependent on agrochemical inputs.
In the UK, the network of living labs also links up with supply chain partners, such as millers and buyers, who analyse harvests for quality, which helps determine the value of new, existing or growing markets. Other business partners include farm advisors and machinery producers that help tailor practices to ensure a harvest is as efficient as possible, such as making harvesters better at collecting, separating, and cleaning grains or legumes from the field.
These learnings help farmers further plan for change at a pace that is more financially manageable than shifting their entire system over to one practice at once. It also provides promising insights that can feed into the living lab approach and develop even more effective solutions, for instance, on how to make the most out of each harvest.
In its first living lab, Hosford’s farm on the Bryanston Estate recorded a modest increase in wheat protein, suggesting that the intercropped plot could deliver more gains in the future, perhaps by growing more legumes in the same strip for the next harvest. This not only provides two crops for sale but also means a pathway may exist to a more premium product for wheat.
“One trial is never enough,” said Hosford. “We’ve planted a winter bicrop of winter beans and wheat in Autumn 2023 and will be sowing another similar spring bicrop in 2024. We will also be trialling beans and oats as well as spring barley and peas.”
Moving Forward
LEGUMINOSE will take the findings from all living labs across its target countries and consolidate them into different outputs to increase the adoption of intercropping: from policy recommendations to web-based tools that farmers can use to select the optimal intercrop combinations for their local environment. The ultimate goal is to help farmers improve their environmental performance alongside their economic one – which is critical to forging ahead with more sustainable agriculture.
“We need to find a way of farming where we can continue to provide everyone who works on the farm with a decent living, feed people and make the planet a better place,” Hosford concluded.
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