Sustainable Intensification Project

Study farms

The SIP study farm network tested and demonstrated a range of farm management practices with the potential to improve the economic, environmental or social performance of farming systems.

The five farms covered a range of farming types and regions, focusing on those that represent significant areas of land use across England and Wales:

The SIP work at the Study Farms built on existing research activities relevant to SI through: additional interventions, new measurements and analyses, and/or scaling-up evaluation. Each farm has established a baseline from ongoing or new data, enabling the actual or potential economic and environmental impacts and benefits of the alternative practices to be assessed.

Related and wider work continues at each of the Study Farms, beyond the end of the SIP. Please click on individual study farm links to find out more.

The final report for this work will be published soon. Science, Policy and Practice notes on the Role of cover crops within sustainable soils manangement and Sustainaing trace elements in grazing sheep are available:

The data generated by the SIP is freely available via Defra for future use.

During the SIP, the study farms were centres for knowledge exchange with farmers, advisers and other stakeholders. If you are interested in finding out more about future open days, please follow the individual study farm links.