November 2024 saw the AgriFood Charities Partnership Annual General Meeting held in London.

Ahead of the formal AGM, attendees heard from Lord Curry of Kirkharle, AFCP Patron. The talk on the Agricultural Transition (see report in AFCP News), was well received and lead to lively discussion and questions in a broad range of areas.

We are delighted that Prof. Stuart Reid, President & Principal of the Royal Veterinary College, was elected as AFCP Chairperson from 1^st January 2025.

Prof. Graham Jellis will stand down as Chairperson, and from the AFCP Board, at the end of the year. Graham was thanked for his significant contribution to AFCP over more than a decade.

Subscription rates for the year to 31^st March 2026, payable by all member organisations, were maintained at current levels.

The Board of Trustees is very grateful to Graham Jellis for his engaged and committed service to AFCP as a Board Member, Vice-Chair and Chairperson over the past 14 years.

Graham joined the AFCP Board in 2011, becoming Vice-Chair in 2014 and Chair in 2016. He formally retires from his role at the end of 2024.

Graham brought a wide range of experience from his career in the Plant Breeding Institute Cambridge, Home-Grown Cereals Authority and then Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board. He has been an Honorary Professor at Nottingham University since 1995.

Building relationships within AFCP, its members and wider industry, Graham has actively built collaborations supporting a wide range of individuals and organisations. He has been instrumental in developing a range of activities within AFCP including the biennial AFCP Student Forum and the joint funded AHDB-AFCP Studentships.

We would like to thank Graham for this generous commitment to his role and wish him well in his retirement. Graham continues in his role as Chair of the Grants Committee for the Perry Foundation, an AFCP Member.

Last month, the AFCP AGM was addressed by AFCP Patron, Lord Curry of Kirkharle who highlighted  some of the challenges and opportunities for UK agriculture.

As the Agricultural Transition continues, uncertainty remains high given that we don’t know the    destination of policy. Historically, since the Second World War, policy has swung like a pendulum  between food production and environment. It is clear there is a need to balance these two potential extremes.

The new Government has indicated that food security is important for national security, but there is no answer yet for what that will mean in practice. There are significant competing land pressures, including for food production, environment, housing, and infrastructure projects. Currently there is nothing which indicates the relative priorities for these. The Government commitment to produce a Land Use Framework could help with this if the Government is held to account on it.

Alongside future policy, the engagement with education should continue to be a priority. Through schools, a wider understanding of the importance of food and food production can be supported, alongside supporting the economy, health and careers over the longer term.

An interesting consideration was the potential effect of UK science research which could be incentivised by the application of work rather than/in addition to publication of papers.

Moving forwards, the agricultural industry needs a clear vision, alongside a focus on skills, science and investment, coupled with consideration of existing and future trade deals.

Dr Natasha Yelina explains developments in novel breeding technologies in crops.

Elena Bidash shares the first part of her PhD project looking at Virus-Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) and editing in legumes.

Thursday 26th September 2024

10.30am to 12.00 noon

Free

Bookings: [email protected]

Find the full programme here and biography here.

Elena’s research is jointly funded by the University of Cambridge and AFCP Member Charities: Chadacre Agricultural Trust; Felix Thornley Cobbold Agricultural Trust; Perry Foundation; and The Morley Agricultural Foundation.

Fern Baker shares the results from her recent PhD project modelling net carbon emissions from dairy production systems.

Fern’s research, conducted at the University of Nottingham, was jointly funded by AHDB and AFCP Member Charities: Dartington Cattle Breeding Trust; Seale-Hayne Educational Trust; Perry Foundation; and West Country Dairy Awards.

Join us for a free webinar on the 4th July 2024 10.30am to 12.00 noon.  To register your interest please e-mail [email protected].

AFCP hosted a webinar on the 15th April. Claire Price shared the results from her recent PhD project investigating the potential of biopesticides to control the cabbage stem flea beetle (psylliodes chrysocephala).

Claire's research was jointly funded by AHDB, Certis Belchim and AFCP member charities: Chadacre Agricultural Trust, Clan Trust, Felix Thornley Cobbold Agricultural Trust, The Morley Agricultural Foundation and Perry Foundation.

Blog from the webinar can be found here.

Programme of the webinar can be found here. 

Claire Prices Powerpoint can be found here.

Siobhan Hilman's Powerpoint can be found here.

AFCP is delighted to welcome Prof. Stuart Reid, who joined the AFCP Board at the AFCP AGM on 1^st November.

Professor Stuart Reid is President & Principal of the Royal Veterinary College, the oldest and largest veterinary school in the English-speaking world. He is recognised by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons as a specialist in veterinary epidemiology and in veterinary public health by the European Board of Veterinary Specialists.

Stuart is a Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  His research interests are focused on zoonotic disease and antimicrobial resistance in a One Health context. He has over 160 scientific publications, including in PNAS and Science, and he has secured over £16M in competitive funding during his career.

In his public service, in addition to other and current roles, he served on the UK Food Standards Agency Board 2017-2020.  He was made a Commander of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2018 for services to the veterinary profession and higher education and in 2019 he was elected as an international member of the National Academy of Medicine in the USA.

Prof. Graham Jellis, AFCP Chairman said “We are pleased to welcome Prof. Stuart Reid as a director. He brings a wealth of experience within the veterinary sciences alongside previous roles with in the charity sector. We look forward to working together.”

Photo credit: Veterinary Record Mark Thomas

A successful conference brought together more than 50 attendees to discuss the latest challenges which are facing animal science.

The Joint AgriFood Charities Partnership Conference was held in the Harper Adams Food Academy earlier this summer, and drew researchers, students, academics, farmers, charity representatives and more for a full day of discussion and networking.

Among the organisers were Harper Adams Honorary Professor in Agricultural Economics Bob Bansback and ABP Chair of Sustainable Beef and Sheep Production Professor Jude Capper.

Bob said: “It was really encouraging to have over 50 conference attendees at this highly successful event.
“There was participation from AFCP member charities, animal scientists and researchers from Harper and other universities, post-graduate students in animal science as well as farmers - the excellent presentations and the variety of participants really enhanced the whole day. There was a particular buzz of conversation during the lunchtime poster session.”

Alongside academics from other universities, Harper Adams was well represented during the day, with research and presentations from Professor Michael Lee, Professor Liam Sinclair, Professor Karl Behrendt, Professor Bob Bansback, Dr Lynn McIntyre and the Director of the School of Sustainable Food and Farming, Simon Thelwell.

Professor Capper emphasised the importance of the conference in encouraging the next generation of animal scientists.

She said: “It was a real pleasure to be part of the organising committee for the Joint Agrifood Charities Partnership Conference on the challenges facing animal science. We had a great day, delegates ranging from farmers to academics, students to industry professionals.

“The number of topics covered were equally diverse, from sharp focuses on sheep foot health and modelling environmental and economic sustainability of beef finishing systems; through to the global challenge of choosing the correct metrics to quantify the sustainability of ruminant systems. 

“Of particular note were the excellent posters presented by Harper Adams MRes, PhD and post-doctoral researchers.

“The conference provided these early-career researchers with a great opportunity to talk one-on-one and explain their research to interested delegates.

“It was lovely to see how much interest these posters generated and the very high quality of these short poster presentations."

The conference was kindly supported by sponsors Alltech and MSD Animal Health.

AFCP Chairman, Professor Graham Jellis, added: “AFCP is very grateful to HAU for hosting this meeting and providing some of the excellent speakers and posters, and to our sponsors for their support. It was also a pleasure to hear presentations and read posters from current and past students supported by AFCP charities.”

Cultivations and Carbon

Capturing value from the 10-year Traffic & Tillage Project at Harper Adams

The long-term programme of Traffic & Tillage research at Harper Adams University started in 2010 with the first experimental crop harvested in 2012 and has been the “field laboratory” for three successful doctoral graduates (Emily Smith, Anthony Millington and Magdalena Kaczorowska-Dolowy).

This is a long-term internationally unique study focusing on soil management techniques where the interaction between traffic management practices and different tillage practices are considered. It resulted as a direct output from the formation of the industry led (coordinated by Agrii) Soil and Water Management Centre at Harper Adams University with scholarship funding and in-kind support from, The Morley Agricultural Foundation , Douglas Bomford Trust, Michelin, Vaderstad, AGCO and Harper Adams University.

The research started with an initial focus on the soil physical conditions, yield and the cost/benefits of the effects of three traffic management systems imposed on a sandy loam soil:

1. standard inflation pressure tyres (STP)
2. low tyre (high flexion) inflation pressure tyres (LTP) and
3. controlled traffic farming (CTF)

on soils managed with three tillage treatments:

1. deep (25 cm),
2. shallow (10 cm) and
3. no-till

for a winter wheat/winter barley/spring oats/winter field beans crop rotation.

Figure 1 - a) Experimental design map showing the distribution of the blocks and plots and the different traffic and tillage treatments. b) Aerial photo of Marge Marsh field.

More recently, in addition to maintaining the monitoring of soil physical conditions and crop responses, the focus moved to studying soil biological and health condition and is now focusing on soil carbon sequestration.

The results of the continuing long-term study have shown that the effect of both traffic management and tillage systems can have significant effects on the crop yield and farm economy together with soil biology and health.

Key messages on crop yields:

1. Deep tillage gives no yield advantage over shallow tillage.
2. Shallow tillage gives the best compromise between yield and soil structure.
3. Zero tillage produces lower yields initially, though yield recovers over time (7-8 years) as the soil structure develops.
4. Rotations need to be adjusted to manage crop residues to optimize zero tillage systems.
5. The benefits of mitigating traffic (low pressure tyres and CTF) appeared from the start of the system and are consistent over time.
6. Deep tilled soil benefits the most from traffic mitigation, indicating that loosening and re-compaction causes the most damage to soils.
7. Zero tilled soils show the least response to traffic mitigation, indicating that they are more resilient to traffic.

Figure 2: Samples from CTF zero tillage (left, not tilled for 10 years) and CTF deep tillage (right, tilled down to 250mm for 10 years) showing very little difference in crop growth and large differences in soil structure, its stability and resilience (zero tillage) vs weak and loose soil at high risk of soil damage (deep tillage).

Key messages on soil carbon:

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a component of soil organic matter (SOM). There has been growing interest in soil carbon dynamics in recent years. Many agricultural soils have reduced SOM and so, it is argued, they likely have the potential to sequester carbon through building SOM. Different soil management practices have different impacts on SOM dynamics and so total soil carbon stocks.

The results from our field experiment to date have shown that:

1. Tillage had a strong effect on total carbon (C) stocks, with soils under Zero tillage storing 5 t/ha more than Shallow and Deep tillage treatments on average at 0-30 cm depth.  
2. The highest total C stocks were observed in Zero tillage CTF (89.0±4.2 t/ha), followed by Zero tillage LTP (85.3±4.1 t/ha). The lowest total C stocks were observed in Shallow and Deep tillage both in CTF treatments (70.0±4.0 t/ha and 70.1±4.3 t/ha respectively). 

These results confirm that soils have different levels of potential to store carbon dependent on management, with almost 20 t/ha of C stored more under the optimum management practice compared to the most detrimental practice. This leads to the obvious question as to how or why more C is stored under some treatments than others.

The next steps of the project

Ana Prada (PhD student, apradabarrio[at]live.harper.ac.uk) will investigate this by using natural abundance C12/C13 stable isotope probing. By growing millet, a C4 plant, in soils where only C3 plants have been grown previously, it will be possible to trace the flow of C from the plants into the different organic matter fractions. These have different turnover times and dynamics within the soil and so this investigation will provide insights into the mechanisms that determine the residence time of C in soils. This will help inform as to best practices for maximising C sequestration into soils thereby improving soil health and helping to help mitigate climate change.

David Jones, manager of Morley Farms Ltd.

The Morley Clean Water project began in 2019 with the aim of ensuring water leaving the farm was as clean as when it arrived. The Morley Agricultural Foundation (TMAF) owns and operates a 700ha arable farm near Wymondham, Norfolk. The soils are predominantly medium. The farm commercially grows crops including wheat, barley, oats, sugar beet and maize with 8% of the area in environmental schemes. The profit and rent from the farm provide funding for the charity to grant money for agricultural research and education. The farm also is a place for organisations like NIAB, John Innes Centre (JIC) and British Beet Research Organisation (BBRO) to conduct research and demonstrate good practice.

The Clean Water Project

We assume our in-field practices (e.g. cultivations, fertiliser practices and use of cover crops) are good and have little impact on water quality. So our attention turned to farmyards, tracks and highways. Initially we carried out a review of our water courses. This sounds straight forward but many published maps, including Ordinance Survey, are inaccurate. Therefore, we made our own maps and identified areas where we could ‘do better’ by reducing silt and nutrients entering water courses.

 Dirty water from a farm track

A long farm gravel track sloping down to a rural road was identified as responsible for dirty water run-off entering a roadside ditch and for soil being deposited on the road surface.   We built a cross-drain (pictured below) to divert water into a small sunken area where sediment settles out and the water drains through the soil.  The total cost was less than £1,500.

One problem area

Adjacent to one area of the farm is a row of 24 ex-council houses. The sewage goes to a small Anglia Water treatment works where water discharges into a farm ditch. The water is black and smelly. When tested it was found to be high in nitrates and literally off the scale for phosphate. People’s lifestyles have changed since the houses were built. People wash more, use washing machines more regularly and generally use more water. Often hard surfaces (driveways, patios and greenhouses) have been added resulting in more water going down the drain. While the water appears to have gone, it has created problems elsewhere. In this case it goes to an unregulated sewage works. Many sewage works outfalls are regulated by the Environment Agency (EA) which states the water quality permitted to enter a water course. As you can imagine 24 rural houses are not a top priority for EA or Anglia Water.

How can the farm help? The ditch past the outfall opens up into a large hole approx. 50m X 20m and 2-3m deep. The water finds its way through on a path of least resistance. With some guidance from our local Anglia Water (AW) catchment adviser we re-profiled the hole making 3 tiered pools by installing earth banks. The banks have pipes installed so when the water reaches a specific depth it flows to the next pool. The idea is to hold back the water so that silt can settle out. Two ponds have been planted with aquatic plants to absorb nutrients from the water.

With the help of an environmental science student from University of East Anglia (UEA) we have been measuring the water quality entering and exiting these settlement ponds. As an average over a 27 monthly period when testing the water monthly, both nitrates and phosphate have halved and the turbidity reduced by two thirds. Within this period the values have fluctuated depending on time of year, natural rainfall and the particular day the water was tested. However, on all occasions the results show a big improvement in the water quality.

Whose responsibility?

As a farmer is water quality my problem?  Surely it is AW’s responsibility to treat sewage properly, but it all comes at a price. That’s a balance between what AW charges customers and its obligation to EA. I would suggest 24 rural houses are way down the list of priorities. Our work was quite modest with three days’ use of the farm digger. The hole was there anyway. This is a good example where landowners can make small changes to practice and the landscape but make big differences for the community. TMAF is keen to work with AW and demonstrate what can be done. Hopefully, other stakeholders will recognise the value and in future offer funds and support for such collaboration.

Water has always been and always will be a controversial issue particularly on a small populated island like UK. There are so many demands from cooking, cleaning to growing food and washing cars. We all want access to clean fresh and safe water. Once it has been used we want it to go away as quickly as possible with little care for any contaminants it conveys. This ‘dirty’ water runs into streams and rivers which support wildlife, invertebrates, fish and birds. Also, a whole ecosystem of wetlands and marshes. Along with nature it is a place for recreation boating, fishing etc.

There are so many demands on water despite all the effort, legislation, forums, focus groups at no point in the future will people say ‘that’s it we have cracked it, all water problems are solved, every stakeholder is happy’.  But what we can do is make improvements by managing water wisely and responsibly. This is particularly true for landowners as we have the space and natural landscape to help find solutions.

The Morley Clean Water Project has created a number of other features including v-notched sediment traps and a remodelled an area to manage dirty water from a pressure washer. To find out about other initiatives www.tmaf.co.uk/category/morley-clean-water-project/ or contact David Jones [email protected]

It is a great example of where a charity has the flexibility and the ability to conduct a long-term initiative to improve environmental practise.