Healthy Soil, Healthy Food, Healthy People (H3): Co-designing a regenerative agriculture trial with farmers
Assessing the impacts of regenerative agriculture farming practices
Overview
This research aims to understand the beneficial impacts of regenerative agriculture* farming practices on soil health, biodiversity, wider environmental outcomes, crop yields and food quality, through the co-design of an experimental trial with farmers. Listening to farmer voices, acknowledging farmer expertise and the 'practical wisdom of those who are closest to the ground' (Beacham et al., 2023), may enhance the applicability of findings and implementation of new farming practices, and identify approaches that are responsive to local conditions (Jackson et al., 2021). This research project is part of WP3 of the H3 programme.
* Despite lacking a consistent definition, regenerative agriculture is described as "a farmer-led approach to land management innovation aimed at restoring soil health" (Jaworski et al., 2023: 2), with practices adapted to local farming contexts. See also (H3, 2022, 2021).
People involved
A multidisciplinary team of academics from social and natural sciences are working in partnership with farmers from two farm cluster groups. The clusters are existing networks of farmers that have formed voluntary peer support networks. The two farm clusters regularly organise farmer-led meetings and guest lectures to discuss farming innovations and share knowledge with peers. These clusters cover 25 farming sites, including mixed and arable farms using a range of farming systems, from conventional to regenerative agriculture practices.
This research stream is thoroughly a co-production stream, in that from the outset it has been designed as a project that works 'with' rather than 'on' farmers.
(Researcher, H3)
Key project activities
Initial online conversations with farm cluster leads
The farm cluster leads are also part of a project working group that meets regularly.
The farm cluster leads are also part of a project working group that meets regularly.
Farmer-led cluster meetings
The research team attended farmer-led cluster meetings in-person to introduce project aims, learn about farmer interests and concerns, and co-design trial methods. Farmers were also asked to produce a list of practices that they felt best represented regenerative farming. Cluster meetings have also been an opportunity for farmers share with peers the results of any changes to farming practices:
The research team attended farmer-led cluster meetings in-person to introduce project aims, learn about farmer interests and concerns, and co-design trial methods. Farmers were also asked to produce a list of practices that they felt best represented regenerative farming. Cluster meetings have also been an opportunity for farmers share with peers the results of any changes to farming practices:
"They want to learn and know whether it's worth making any changes… they have some trust in the group and the lead farmer." (Project collaborator, H3)
Co-designing trial methods
Researchers engaged in in-depth discussions as well as participative mapping with farmers regarding the methods and locations of the trial, and the choice of practices to be monitored. Joint decisions were made about data to be collected and how and when it should be sampled, using farmers’ local knowledge about appropriate times for monitoring key bird or insect species, as well as identifying measures (e.g., soil carbon) of interest to farmers. A scoring system for assessing the implementation and impacts of regenerative farming practices was also co-developed with farmers.
Researchers engaged in in-depth discussions as well as participative mapping with farmers regarding the methods and locations of the trial, and the choice of practices to be monitored. Joint decisions were made about data to be collected and how and when it should be sampled, using farmers’ local knowledge about appropriate times for monitoring key bird or insect species, as well as identifying measures (e.g., soil carbon) of interest to farmers. A scoring system for assessing the implementation and impacts of regenerative farming practices was also co-developed with farmers.
Meetings with individual farmers
A member of the research team met with individual farmers to clarify questions, learn more about the land within the clusters and negotiate details of the trial methodology.
A member of the research team met with individual farmers to clarify questions, learn more about the land within the clusters and negotiate details of the trial methodology.
Co-production principles
Knowledge
Researchers highlighted the value of farmer expertise and local knowledge in this project:
"I always consider them to be the source of knowledge… they do know a lot, and some of them, they’ve been farming for more than 50 years." (Researcher, H3)
Inclusivity
A variety of approaches were used in meetings to discuss and negotiate the design of the trial with farmers:
"In these meetings we brought, you could say, props… understanding that people don't engage in the same way, so this working around this big printout of the landscape was extremely useful because it was very easy for the farmers to just grab a pen or a marker and start finding their own fields and having a conversation around this object." (Researcher, H3)
Relationships
The research team noted the importance of taking time to build relationships with farmers involved in the project:
"We needed farmers on board, so I needed to build that personal contact with them, to make sure they were really interested, that they were happy to be part. So, this was very important. It meant being able to take time to visit them one by one. This takes time." (Researcher, H3)
The value of connections built within the farm cluster was also noted:
"It’s such an isolated job, it is often just you making decisions…and then suddenly you’ve got a whole network of people you can share things with." (Project collaborator, H3)
There are plans for H3 researchers and farm clusters to continue collaborative work with ongoing applications for additional project funding.
Insights from project collaborators
A blog post shares a farmer’s perspective of involvement in the H3 project.
This highlighted the importance of pre-existing relationships within farm clusters as members "already know and trust each other and so are happy to collaborate and share resources and data." (Project collaborator, H3)
Getting a farmer involved in the research from the start on a steering committee was key: "having a representative farmer on board from the outset provides vital input into the research design. The original concepts proposed by the scientists in H3 would not have worked on a commercial farm." (Project collaborator, H3)
Regular updates with farmers to review research findings and key learning points were valued, and while there was no payment for farmers involved in the project, it was felt that "the benefits of H3 will go on beyond the lifetime of the project. Our group is growing as farmers are 'looking over the hedge' and seeing the benefits. There are currently 36 farmers benefitting from the H3, of which seven are currently practicing regenerative agriculture. Research is a brilliant way of sharing and facilitating learning." (Project collaborator, H3)
In future partnerships, project collaborators recommend that researchers budget for farmer’s time in funding proposals and consider long-term plans beyond project timescales: "I think one of the things that has come out of it… is the feeling that farmers are doing an important part of this research. And they should be paid for it." (Project collaborator, H3)
Find out more about this project
Related references
Agri-TechE (2024), The benefits of farmer-led regenerative agriculture research. Retrieved 23 April 2025 from https://www.agri-tech-e.co.uk/the-benefits-of-farmer-led-regenerative-agriculture-research
Beacham, J. D., Jackson, P., Jaworski, C. C., Krzywoszynska, A., & Dicks, L. V. (2023), Contextualising farmer perspectives on regenerative agriculture: A post-productivist future? Journal of Rural Studies, 102, 103100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2023.103100
Berthon, K., Jaworski, C., Beacham, J. D., Jackson, P., Leake, J., McHugh, N. M., Capstick, L., Daniell, T., Krzywoszynska, A., and Cameron, D. (2024), Measuring the transition to regenerative agriculture with a co-designed experiment: design, methods and expected outcomes. Environmental Research. Food Systems. 1, 025007. https://doi.org/10.1088/2976-601X/ad7bbe
Berthon, K., Wade, R., Leale, J., Chapman, P.J. (2024), Sharing experiences of regenerative agriculture: A Transforming UK Food Systems Programme Workshop. H3, Fix Our Food, TUKFS, UKRI, Global Food Security. Retrieved 23 April 2025 from https://fixourfood.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Sharing-Experiences-of-Regenerative-Agriculture-report.pdf
Berthon, K., Wade, R.N., Chapman, P. J., Jaworski, C. C., Leake, J. R., Daniell, T., McHugh, N. M., Collins, L., Zhao, Y., Watt, P. J., Doherty, B., ,Jackson, P., and Dicks, L. (2025), Measuring the socio-economic and environmental outcomes of regenerative agriculture across spatio-temporal scales. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2024.0157
Groundswell Agriculture (2024), Making research work in practice for regenerative agriculture. Retrieved 23 April 2024 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hss0Bh4hZyQ
H3 (2021), H3 Research consortium respond to the National Food Strategy. Prospects for more sustainable food production. https://h3.ac.uk/h3-research-consortium-respond-to-the-national-food-strategy-prospects-for-more-sustainable-food-production/
H3 (2024), H3 landscape-scale regenerative agriculture: introduction and update. Retrieved 23 April 2025 from https://h3.ac.uk/h3-landscape-scale-regenerative-agriculture-introduction-and-update/
Jackson, P., Cameron, D., Rolfe, S., Dicks, L. V., Leake, J., Caton, S., Dye, L., Young, W., Choudhary, S., Evans, D., Adolphus, K., & Boyle, N. (2021), Healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people: An outline of the H3 project. Nutrition Bulletin, 46(4), 497-505. https://doi.org/10.1111/nbu.12531
