AREFLH is a partner of the NOVASOIL project (Innovative Business models for soil health). Its general objective is to highlight the benefits of investments in soil health for society and the environment.

NOVASOIL features on its website the case study “Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs)”. It is developed by sustainability consultancy 3Keeel, it develops integrated, place-based marketplaces for ecosystem services. It has been selected by NOVASOIL as a good example of a reliable and profitable business model that can promote soil health.  

The creation of a marketplace allows companies and government agencies interested in incentivizing nature-based solutions and delivering landscape-level outcomes to enter into trading contracts with farmers, farmer cooperatives and landscape managers who are able to deliver aggregated ecosystem services (e.g. water quality management, soil carbon sequestration, flood risk management, resilient and sustainable crop production, biodiversity outcomes, etc,).  

 

The case study will assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with the adoption LENs as an approach to:  

1. Encouraging the adoption of land management practices by farmers, farmer cooperatives and land managers; 

2. Encouraging companies and government agencies to take a holistic, landscape-level view of soil health and commit to scaling up soil health-related outcomes.  

 

The case study is interested in assessing whether the extent to which farmers and land managers are involved in the process of establishing a LEN has an impact on the scaling process and the ability of LEN stakeholders to achieve the desired outcomes in terms of ecosystems service provision.  

 

Potential inhibitors: 

• Supply chains without long-term contracts, resulting in supplier-buyer relationships that are not characterized by loyalty and trust; 
• Uncertainty due to changing UK policy on agri-environment schemes and payments; 
• The inability of LEN partners to negotiate and/or achieve fair, transparent and locally accountable trading contract outcomes.  

  

Potential enablers:  

• Formal and informal relationships in existing supply chains; 

• Existence of entities, such as co-operatives and small processors, that can represent farmers and negotiate with aggregators of supply and demand on behalf of farmers and landowners;  
• Awareness among UK farmers, farmer co-operatives and land managers of importance of soil health in securing ecosystem functions;  
• The emergence of a UK agricultural soil carbon market;  
• Increasing pressure on UK businesses to contribute to the UK’s pathway to net zero by 2050.  

  

Know more about Novasoil

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement n°101091268