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Why a blog?
The Farming Futures blog is for farmers, land managers and their advisers to discuss and debate the issue of climate change and sustainability in agriculture.
We’re interested in how you think we can produce more food for a growing population in the context of Government targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, hotter, drier summers, higher energy and input prices, and the increased consumer interest in 'low carbon' food.
This is your place to take part in the debate. Find out why we think a blog is important by clicking here.
Blogs marked with our weak signals logo explore ideas, trends, technologies or behaviour changes that are as yet unrecognised by the mainstream farming industry. They might have a big impact on future farm practices or they might disappear. They help us to challenge assumptions about the future, navigate risk and seize new opportunities. If you spot a weak signal, get in touch and we'll get it on the site.
Want to contribute? Contact Tamsin: farmingfutures@niab.com (01223 342329).
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Blog: food security
She grew up on a dairy farm, bought her first cow when she was seven, and her husband's a dairy nutritionist. So when Michele Payn-Knoper was stumped by her Holstein dairy calf not weaning, she did what any self-respecting 21st-century farmer would:...
Madeleine Lewis~Tuesday, 29 March, 2011 - 15:10 | 0 comments
The launch of the Renewable Heat Incentive on 10th March was welcome news to many farmers and rural businesses. Farmers can now invest in renewable heat technologies, reduce their costs and carbon footprints.The £860 million government scheme i...
Rebecca Seaman~Friday, 18 March, 2011 - 09:49 | 2 comments
Dr Karen Wonnacott spoke at the Dairy and the 21st Century Diet: Nutrition and Sustainability conference on the 27th January. We managed to catch her for a few minutes to ask how the dairy road map is progressing and what her one wish for the sector...
Karen Wonnacott~Tuesday, 15 March, 2011 - 13:46 | 0 comments
It’s challenging, inspiring, and very tiring, and I always find the Soil Association conference ‘re-fuels’ me for the rest of the year. On the way home I got to thinking about the journey I had been on over nearly 40 years working i...
Phil Stocker~Monday, 28 February, 2011 - 09:00 | 0 comments
Patrick Holden, former Director of the Soil Association, talks us through his top tips for creating sustainable soils.
Patrick Holden~Friday, 4 February, 2011 - 09:31 | 1 comments
One of the most striking things about the obesity report that the Foresight team produced in 2007 was the fiendishly detailed ‘systems map’ developed by the research team. For me, one of the most striking things about the launch of...
Julian Hunt~Tuesday, 1 February, 2011 - 10:33 | 0 comments
Our food system needs a revolution. That’s the message from the ‘Global Food and Farming Futures Report’ released today by the Government’s Foresight Institute. The report is a bible of facts and information on a hugely comple...
Will Frazer~Monday, 24 January, 2011 - 18:35 | 0 comments
Attending the Oxford Farming Conference for the first time it was my intention to absorb every bit of information thrown at me but it was the very first person that I met who gave the most pertinent piece of advice, “Establish who are the dynam...
Patrick Barker~Friday, 21 January, 2011 - 09:32 | 0 comments
The only way to achieve food security is to have a sustainable food system. That’s the message from Professor Tim Lang of City University’s Centre for Food Policy, who we met at the Inside Government Food Security Conference back in Novem...
Will Frazer~Thursday, 20 January, 2011 - 15:09 | 0 comments
Climate News and Knowledge is our fortnightly round up of some of the main stories covering climate change and sustainable farming. This time there is talk of rising food prices, solar farms (again), satellite observations and whether we will chang...
Will Frazer~Friday, 14 January, 2011 - 09:23 | 0 comments
Looking at the newspapers, optimism seems to be in short supply at the start of 2011. But amid all the doom and gloom I’m positive for the long-term future of agriculture after some difficult times.I’ve been farming all my life and I...
Richard Scott~Thursday, 13 January, 2011 - 09:46 | 1 comments
The issues of food, farming and population are undeniably immense. The combination of population growth, land and water shortages, along with climate change and peak oil are the challenges that our generation of farmers are facing. So I was really ho...
Angharad Evans~Tuesday, 11 January, 2011 - 14:50 | 1 comments
Climate change is everywhere, Peak Oil is rising on the political agenda, the fate of the economy is still uncertain, resource wars are looming and yet still very few people mention the elephant in the room that could be the root cause of it all; pop...
Claire Wyatt~Friday, 7 January, 2011 - 13:18 | 1 comments
Australian researchers have developed a fast-growing giant napier grass that cleans up toxic soil, and can also be converted to ethanol for transport or combusted for electricity.
Grown at an experimental plantation at Shaoguan University in China, t...
Madeleine Lewis~Tuesday, 4 January, 2011 - 09:00 | 0 comments
As a young couple, both from farming families in the Staffordshire Moorlands, we were keen to put our own stamp on our new farming enterprise. We purchased land that had been intensively farmed, and our aim is to lovingly restore it and farm with the...
Catherine Webster~Wednesday, 15 December, 2010 - 09:08 | 0 comments
Farmers are notoriously busy and time constrained. From feeding the world, GM crops and new technology, to better communications and different scales of production – there is plenty to think about. And for an eclectic mix of farmers, clerics an...
Alan Spedding~Wednesday, 1 December, 2010 - 16:27 | 0 comments
There is one critical issue in securing our future food security that is missing from the global policy agenda: we are facing the end of cheap and readily-available phosphate fertilizer on which intensive agriculture is totally dependent. The supply...
Dr Isobel Tomlinson~Tuesday, 30 November, 2010 - 11:43 | 3 comments
Climate News and Knowledge is our fortnightly round up of some of the main stories covering climate change and sustainable farming. This time there is talk of super dairies, sustainable woodland, investment in agriculture and yet more concern over fu...
William Frazer~Friday, 26 November, 2010 - 13:20 | 1 comments
Let’s be clear – big livestock units are not bound to be bad. It depends, as with small units, how well designed they are and how well run they are. The vast majority of the UK public enjoys eating livestock products and values them as an...
Dr Duncan Pullar~Friday, 22 October, 2010 - 16:35 | 0 comments
A technology that boosts yields whilst using less energy and water, and simultaneously increases soil fertility? Sounds like a magic bullet in our climate changed world, doesn’t it? Some argue that this is what biotechnology offers, but is it t...
Will Frazer~Wednesday, 20 October, 2010 - 08:00 | 1 comments