Meaning in complexity

It is not uncommon to get asked for research results at the start of a research project, rather than the end of it!  It is gratifying that the research projects we carry out are perceived to be so relevant that people are keen to know the ‘answers’ so soon, but it does take a while to get the projects set up, and the data collected, analysed and condensed into a form that is accessible for those who are going to use them.  And getting the results into that form raises another issue.  Not only is there a temporal challenge to making results available; there is also one of precision.

Much of our research is focussed on developing management practices that will have environmental benefits of one sort or another.  If they do not, then we say so.  It is as important to share negative outcomes as it is positive ones.  Where they are successful, we need to get the message out there so that the management practices can be adopted more widely. 

For the ‘message’ to be accessible, it must be concise.  Soundbites and infographics are indisputably effective means of conveying simple messages with maximum impact.  The problem is that the messages are often not simple.

A classic example is provided by research into soil management practices to reduce soil and nutrient loss via surface runoff.  Reducing the intensity of cultivation and positioning a beetle bank across the slope were both beneficial management practices.  Compared to conventional practice, reduced tillage reduced surface runoff by between 4 and 81%, and a beetle bank across the slope reduced soil loss by 16 to 94%, and total phosphorus loss by 9 to 97%. 

While both farmers and policy makers want to know, in simple figures, the extent to which management practices are beneficial, in these cases we have to question the meaning of the mean.  It is the range of values that reflects the complexity associated with soil type, compaction, slope, topography, rainfall, antecedent soil moisture etc that influences the outcome. 

In most cases, the range in values was lower than the examples I have given, but the point is that understanding and accepting complexity and variability is important to managing the expectations of both farmers who may be considering adopting management practices, and policy makers who may be considering promoting or supporting them. Climate change brings additional uncertainty to the mix. 

Accepting this is particularly important when payments by results are being considered as a means of remunerating farmers for management practices that deliver public benefits.  But, somehow, this should not detract from the fact that the effort and skills that farmers apply to management practices also play a major part in the extent to which public benefits are delivered. We need to embrace this complexity in order to be meaningful.

Taking the P out of farming

Sewage is the link between our diet and the aquatic environment

Phosphorus is an essential element.  It is involved in multiple biological functions and is an important fertiliser for crop growth.  It is also a finite resource and one that must be imported to the UK from other countries, some of which are politically unstable.  Phosphorus security is a growing concern, not least for farmers for whom the cost has doubled over the past decade or so, while crop yields and prices have remained more or less constant.  We need to use phosphate fertilser more efficiently for these reasons.

Phosphorus also causes ecological problems in water, even at quite low concentrations, as our research in the past has revealed.  Phosphorus gets into water at both ends of the food chain.

Phosphate fertiliser applied to land to produce our food is taken up by crops and some of it ultimately ends up in the food we eat.  However, most of it gets bound to soil particles and remains in the field.  In fact, most of the phosphate fertiliser applied to land is estimated to be still sitting there in a form that is unavailable to crops.  But some ends up in watercourses when soil is eroded from fields.  Much of the research we have been doing at the Allerton Project in recent years aims to improve soil management to reduce the loss of soil and phosphate from land to water.  We don’t have all the answers, especially on our clay soils, but our research is improving our understanding of how to address this issue.

At the other end of the food chain, phosphorus in food that is surplus to our requirements is excreted.  This ends up in sewage treatments works and septic tanks.  The efficiency of urban sewage treatment works has improved in recent years, but at a price.  This cost cannot be justified for small rural sewage treatment works in agricultural areas.  Our results from the Water Friendly Farming project consistently show that this domestic source of phosphorus, rather than farming, is the main contributor to phosphorus concentrations at the base of our study catchments.  Its soluble form, and predominance during summer and autumn baseflow also mean that it has the greatest ecological impact.  Logic, and the requirements of a circular economy, suggest that we should capture that phosphate and use it as fertiliser, but the average amount produced by our local sewage works is enough to apply to just one acre of land.  It is not remotely cost effective to do so. 

RePhoKUs is a research project run from Lancaster University which is looking at the whole phosphorus system with a view to developing approaches that optimise the sustainable management of this crucial resource.  The Welland is one of three national case studies in which local farmers are contributing to the project by sharing data and ideas.  We are also interested in how our diet influences the amount of phosphorus in the food production and consumption system, including its occurrence in water, as different components of our diet are associated with different phosphorus concentrations.  There is an online survey for local residents to complete.  If you live in the Welland river basin, take a look, answer a few questions about what you eat, and ponder how you fit into the phosphorus system!

Beyond Brexit

The middle of January this year found me on the ferry to Ireland to give a keynote presentation on our catchment management research in the UK to an audience of EPA and local government staff from across the republic.  It seemed appropriate to be leaving behind the turmoil associated with the first defeat of the government’s EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill the previous day.  In April, immediately after the third defeat of the Bill, I found myself travelling to Almeria to report on our contribution to the EU funded SoilCare research project, share ideas, and benefit from the wealth of scientific experience amongst our project partners.

Today, I am writing this on the train, heading back home from an extremely informative meeting in Brussels.  A few hundred metres up the road, Boris Johnson was confirming a deal for the UK’s departure from the EU, but whether that will happen continues to remain uncertain.  Such is the opposition in the UK to the current version of Brexit that even now it is hard to know whether this has been my last visit to the continent as an EU citizen.

My reason for going to Brussels this time was to learn from a range of EU partners about the latest developments in results-based payments for biodiversity, a topic that may take on heightened relevance as the UK proposes to move from agri-environment schemes that make payments to cover income forgone and costs of habitat creation and management, to one that is based on delivery of services with uncertain rates of remuneration for farmers. 

The GWCT pioneered farmer clusters in which farmers take ownership of landscape scale wildlife conservation, incorporating their own initiatives with existing Stewardship schemes as part of their approach.  However, as we have discovered in our own landscape scale research, highly motivated pioneering farmers and iconic species on which to focus are not present everywhere.  The results-based approach, alongside conventional management-based approaches to deliver environmental objectives, could well play an important part in rolling out landscape scale wildlife conservation.  The broad approach may also have a role to play in achieving wider environmental objectives.

Back in 1999 I was in Brussels from time to time, reporting to the EU Environment Directorate on a commissioned review of environmental impacts of western European arable farming systems, work that found its way into the public domain in the form of a paper in Journal of Environmental Management.  A decade later, I led a follow-up paper with various European authors, this time also taking into account grazing livestock systems, and the Eastern European countries which had recently joined the EU.  Drawing on the latest scientific research, including our own, these two papers highlighted the range of environmental issues requiring attention, the opportunities arising from reform of the CAP to develop agri-environment schemes to cover the economic costs of addressing them, and the importance of a Europe-wide but locally relevant approach across the member states.

Environmental issues have become no less important or urgent over the intervening twenty years, with ever increasing scientific evidence and associated concern about biodiversity loss and what is now generally accepted within the scientific community as a climate crisis.  The science has been clear throughout that time but is now all the more so.  It is no longer alarmist to say that the future prospects of our own society are inextricably bound up with these enormously complex and integrated global issues.  How we manage agricultural land in the next few years has a substantial impact on how things play out, and that is not something that can be done by individual countries in isolation.  The UK may be leaving the EU, but whatever happens with Brexit, it will not be leaving Europe.

While increasing emphasis is needed on the environmental objectives for land management, as we stated in our two journal papers, it is imperative that food production is maintained at local and national scales, both to ensure national food security and to avoid exporting negative impacts to other parts of the world.  There are strong social, cultural, economic and environmental reasons for not sacrificing UK farm businesses on the Brexit altar.

The development and implementation of effective evidence-based agri-environmental management must also be conducted quickly, drawing on the many experiences of recent projects across Europe, including our own research at the Allerton Project.  While the Brexit process may accommodate repeated resetting of deadlines, the environment on which we depend will not.

Post-truth truth post

We seem to be living in a world dominated by those who bluster best.  It is time to be concerned when facts can be dismissed as less important than dogma.  Ideology is important, even when driven by emotion, but it must be consistent with whatever scientific evidence is available if it is to contribute to our collective and sustained wellbeing.

The statements we make to inform policy and practice are based on independent scientific research carried out, either by us or by others, even when the results of that research are not totally aligned with what we may have expected or hoped for.  We adapt the way we think according to our findings.

Most recently, evidence from our published research over the years was used to support the case for targeted control of crows and magpies for the conservation of certain predation-prone species such as spotted flycatcher and song thrush.  Many years ago, we investigated and tested the potential of wild bird seed crops which subsequently became adopted nationally as a popular Stewardship option.  We provided evidence for the role of supplementary winter feeding as a means of increasing songbird survival and breeding numbers.

Discussing cover crop research results with EA CEO, Sir James Bevan

Our research continues to inform decisions about both national policy and on-farm practice.  We highlighted the impact that sewage treatment works and septic tanks have on water quality where the blame had previously been laid wholly at the door of agriculture.  We discovered that detention ponds designed to reduce sediment movement to streams rarely did so on our clay soils, although they were fine on lighter land.  We identified environmental benefits of cover crops and direct drilling, but also the challenges associated with them on our soil type, and sometimes the economic cost.

Where are the people in all this science?  We recognise that, amongst the farmers, agronomists, conservationists, policy makers and regulators we work with, there are differing knowledge cultures, between and within these groups.  That is a subject I touched on in a recent journal paper on our participatory research with farmers and others.  We previously adopted a social learning approach to improve our collective local community knowledge of land use and environmental issues in the Eye Brook catchment, and we have studied how farmers learn through their practical experience of Stewardship schemes.  Such integration of research disciplines is important for a comprehensive understanding of often complex issues.

We are learning new things all the time. Our perceptions of truth evolve.  But our statements are based on our understanding of the situation following research, not before it, and certainly not in denial of it.  It is at the heart of all we do.  No bluster.