Sustainable Intensification Project

Baseline Survey

15 May 2015

The SIP baseline survey commenced in March, with interview teams hard at work contacting farmers across the case study areas. So far, over 100 farmers have now kindly taken part in the survey and the majority of these have responded positively to the possibility of taking part in follow-up research. The survey includes a range of questions about current land and environmental management activities, future plans, and thoughts around the opportunities and challenges of co-operating with other farmers.

Interviews will continue over the next few months and are yet to be analysed, so it is still early days at this point. However, we are pleased with the survey's progress and confident that it will serve as a rich source of information about existing practices and farmer attitudes towards collaborative working. The results will help shape the design of farmer focus groups in each case study area, which will further explore opportunities and challenges for collaborative working at the landscape scale. They will also ultimately inform the development of potential tools to support and encourage landscape-scale sustainable intensification activities.