‘What the buyers want’
Enabling climate resilient utilities and infrastructure
The climate is changing and, whilst there remains uncertainty as to their magnitude, the future impacts will be felt strongly within the farming community. The most recent climate vulnerability assessment for Oxfordshire(1) identifies heatwaves, flooding, drought, increased storm events and the compound effects from these as the main challenges. Impacts from these may include on-farm and down-stream flooding, soil loss, reduced cultivation windows, infrastructure damage; crop, livestock and farm worker heat stress, reduced yields, damage to farm and associated buildings and so on. Relatively little attention has been paid to a systematic assessment of farm climate impacts and the adaptation measures and finance needed to promote resilience.
The NECFC is developing the tools to allow its members to identify and implement actions to improve farm-level climate resilience. Soil carbon baselining and regenerative agriculture techniques will help long-term soil retention and productivity whilst reducing in-field run-off and downstream flooding. Carefully targeted habitat creation and restoration through the Evenlode Landscape Recovery programme will deliver multiple long-term benefits. Community Supported Agriculture can enhance diversity of food growing options. The NECFC is working with Network Rail and other major infrastructure owners to identify how Cluster Members can help to reduce the impact of flooding on key infrastructure and benefit financially from such resilience measures. The NECFC structure provides a unique opportunity to work at scale on a much wider range of climate adaptation measures in the future.
Useful references:
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OCC / Future Oxfordshire Partnership: Nov 2024 Report: Climate Change Adaptation Route Map for Oxfordshire 2025-2030
Cotswolds National Landscape Climate Change Strategy 2022 (https://www.cotswolds-nl.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CNL-Climate-Change-Strategy-Adopted-Feb-2022.pdf)
Weathering the Storm for Agriculture (https://www.sustainabilitywestmidlands.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Weathering-the-Storm-for-Agriculture-Final.pdf)
