What do you need to monitor beneficial insects on your farm?
Biodiversity monitoring is becoming more important to inform sustainable farming policy and practice. Researchers from the AgZero+ project are asking farmers and agronomists to complete a survey to learn what tools, knowledge and resources farmers need to help them monitor insects on their land.
About AgZero+
AgZero+ is an ambitious five-year research programme supporting the UK’s transition towards domestic food production that is sustainable, carbon-neutral and has a positive effect on nature. The programme brings together a community of researchers and farmers to evaluate innovative farming methods and to define practical pathways to achieving “net zero plus” arable and livestock farm systems.
A key element of the project is investigating synergies within ecosystem services provision, with a focus on beneficial insects such as carabids.
Survey overview
Researchers have designed a survey for farmers and agronomist that will ask what they need to assist with insect monitoring. This may include practical tools, but could also encompass training and knowledge exchange. Through this survey, researchers hope to discover how they can effectively support farmers to uptake practices that are good for insects and biodiversity, and what particular practices should be focused on.
The survey consists of 4 sections, and should take no more than 20mins to complete. You do not have to complete this at one go. The data gathered will be used towards developing tools that really work for farmers to monitor beneficial insects, and are informative to scientific discovery.
The survey is being led by entomologist and carabid-expert Dr Kelly Jowett from Rothamsted Research, author of our upcoming Beneficial Insects Technical Guide.
Get involved
By taking part in this survey, you will be helping to discover how monitoring beneficial insects in farmland should be carried out. It is really vital to get the opinions of farmers in this matter!
Follow this link to complete the survey.