Event
Farming the Fens: Building resilient peatland systems
Join this free webinar hosted by Fenland SOIL and Soil Association, exploring new developments in sustainable farming systems on the Fens.
Background
Lowland peat soils support some of the most productive farming systems in the country but are also responsible for a significant proportion of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers working these soils face growing pressure to reduce emissions and restore peat, while maintaining profitable food production.
This session explores how landscape opportunity mapping can support climate‑positive decisions on lowland peat. It will share new evidence from paludiculture and raised‑water‑table trials, including what these approaches mean for yields and carbon emissions. You’ll also hear insights from flux‑tower research showing how regenerative practices are influencing carbon dynamics across commercial peatland farms. Finally, the session brings together practical experiences from growers trialling sub‑irrigation, water‑table management and regenerative approaches at scale, helping to shape a more sustainable and resilient future for farming on the Fens.
About the speakers:
- Christian Kielinger, Project Manager – Fenland SOIL: Christian leads the development and delivery of whole-farm land use strategies across the Fens. His work focuses on tackling climate change and enhancing biodiversity while maintaining productive agriculture. Christian oversees the development of evidence-based greenhouse gas emissions data for peat soils and leads the use of landscape opportunity mapping to support practical, sustainable land management decisions that balance climate mitigation with profitable farming.
- Callum Bennett, Technical and Innovation Manager – G’s Norfolk: Manages Innovation and Technical at Norfolk Farms and Feltwell Growers, two G’s growers. The farms have completed 2 years of paludiculture trials at 20cm water table, mostly focused on salad crops with trials on chinese leaf, mini romaine lettuce and celery. They have also trialled farming at water tables of around 45cm with radishes, lettuce and celery. Both trials have collected extensive yield and carbon data with a goal of evaluating the opportunities and drawbacks of raising water tables. The farms make use of a sub-irrigation system, utilising the drainage under the fields and a network of dams to control water tables under the crop, making them a great trial site for this work.
- Lucy Harler, Future Farming Manager – G’s Fresh: Lucy supports farming colleagues in multiple countries across 14,000Ha of salads and vegetables in their transition to regenerative practices. Having studied biochemistry at university, Lucy is fascinated with the working of biological systems and is dedicated to developing and sharing our understanding of how these systems can have positive outcomes for sustainable, healthy food production.
The session will be chaired by Josiah Judson, Senior Farming Advisor (Soil Health) – Soil Association. Josiah is a soil scientist contributing to European research including through NBSoil: a Soil Mission Horizon project training new advisers in deploying six rigorously-tested nature-based methods – paludiculture, blue-green infrastructure, cover crops, organic fertiliser, bioremediation and forest diversification – to address critical soil threats. His own research looks at how soil benefits of agroforestry interact and how they can be maximised in different contexts.
Agenda:
1:00pm – Introduction
1:10pm – Speaker presentations
1:55pm – Audience Q&A
2:15pm – Closing remarks
We encourage attendees to bring their questions to the panel through the Q&A, where there will be plenty of time for discussion. The webinar will be recorded. Register to receive a link to the recording.
Information about our contributors:
This webinar is part of the ground-breaking Farm to Fork Partnership between Ocado Retailand Soil Associationwhich has been established to help transform the way we eat, farm and care for our natural world.
Fenland SOIL was set up in 2021 by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s Independent Commission on Climate with a team of dedicated farmers at its core to tackle climate issues relating to agriculture and peat in the Fens. We are a not-for-profit members organisation that aims to inform and develop ‘whole farm’ land use policies, aimed at achieving climate change mitigation and biodiversity enhancement in the fens, and to help establish an agreed set of numbers for GHG emissions for deep, shallow and wasted peat soils.
G’sis one of Europe’s largest family-owned, fully integrated fresh produce companies, growing c. 17,500Ha of crops. G’s supply quality salads, vegetables and added value produce to major UK, European and North American retailers. We have a group strategic objective to be farming regeneratively across all our farming sites by 2030 in an effort to improve soil health, product quality, biodiversity and business resilience whilst making meaningful reductions in our carbon footprint.
NBSOIL is a Soil Mission Horizon project training new advisers in deploying six rigorously-tested nature-based methods – paludiculture, blue-green infrastructure, cover crops, organic fertiliser, bioremediation and forest diversification – to address critical soil threats. Access a range of educational resources such as the free NB SOIL Academy here.
