TAKING STOCK. Practical farmer-led evidence of biodiversity recovery.

Biodiversity is now just a slogan. What does it look like on your farm and how do you know if you are succeeding in recovering nature?

Farming for biodiversity is increasingly a tenet of UK agriculture, advocated to restore nature and support resilient food production. There is a lot of advice on what to do, but few specifics or accessible explanations of why exactly. Where can you get the evidence behind what options are trying to achieve, and what success looks like? In a sector driven by tracking productivity to tailor best outcomes, many farmers are feeling a lack of accessible expertise and affordable metrics to track the biodiversity they are essentially being asked to grow. A practical ecological literacy is needed that will help to explain what is happening on the land during increasing climate and environmental uncertainty, that re-connects farmers with nature through data driven evidence and supports farmer naturalists within a community of practice.

Divided into repeated half day sessions to fit around farm work, this friendly and approachable event will enable farmers and land managers to undertake or commission farmer-led biodiversity audits that produce useful and timely outputs farmers can understand. Short talks on a farmer-led biodiversity audit projects in Gloucestershire will be followed by opportunities to get hands-on with real farm case study data including an insect workshop using specimens collected using the accessible methods discussed. Being an absolute beginner is almost a requirement, but knowledable naturalists are welcome too! Farmers able to stay for the whole day will get lunch and greater depth, half day ticket holders will leave enlightened and experienced.