The Future of Nafferton

Here at Newcastle University’s Nafferton Farm we are at an exciting crossroads for our research infrastructure, with many changes on the horizon. University restructuring has brought new colleagues from a wide range of disciplines. We are keen to build on the legacy of our role as a research farm and uncertainties about future EU funding mean we need to think creatively about how to maintain our research platform.

This is an ideal opportunity to step back and rethink how to exploit our valuable research resource.

Bringing People Together

Sharing knowledge of what Nafferton has to offer could lead to better collaborative research, bringing with it new partnerships and funding to maintain and develop our infrastructure – and to that end we hosted a SIRN brainstorming workshop at the farm in December 2017.

We wanted to pull together UK researchers and other stakeholders interested in sustainable farming and food. With the aim of targeting spring funding calls, our timetable was tight for a December event, but invitations went out far and wide. Some of you were keen to get involved but unable to make the date and most of the 23 turning up were Newcastle colleagues (many unfamiliar with the farm), but we also had attendance from Durham and York Universities, AFBI in Northern Ireland, FERA, Natural England, the Soil Association and the Permaculture Association. We achieved our targeted diversity in disciplines with interests in agronomy, GHG modelling, biodiversity, livestock husbandry, economics/business, big data and food quality all represented.