Bringing together world-class researchers from Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, Cambridge and City Universities, this proposal seeks to transform the UK food system 'from the ground up' via an integrated programme of interdisciplinary research on healthy soil, healthy food and healthy people (H3). The H3 Consortium addresses the links between food production and consumption and takes a whole systems approach to identify workable paths towards a transformed UK food system, delivered via a series of interventions: on farm, in food manufacturing, distribution and retail, and in terms of the health implications and inequalities associated with food consumption in UK homes and communities. The proposed research addresses all of the UK government policy drivers outlined in the Call text from diet-related ill health to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, from biodiversity to soil health and water quality, rebuilding trust in the food system, promoting clean growth and supporting the translation of scientific research and new technologies for the benefit of the UK economy and society. Our approach is thoroughly interdisciplinary, combining world-class soil and plant scientists, health researchers, economists and social scientists The research team have many years' experience of working together, leading interdisciplinary research centres, co-supervising PhD students and collaborating on numerous research projects including the N8 agri-food programme. We take an integrated approach to the agri-food system, recognizing its inherent complexity and addressing the governance challenges that arise from the rapidly changing regulatory landscape. Our proposed research involves six interconnected work-packages. The first advances novel growing technologies via fundamental research into agricultural practices that have the potential to transform the quality of food we grow while minimising its environmental impact. The second aims to combine hydroponic and conventional soil-based agriculture, creating a linked network of hybrid demonstrator farms in peri-urban areas to encourage improvements in dietary health and environmental sustainability. The third extends these ideas to the landscape scale, evaluating the benefits of regenerative agriculture in terms of reduced fertiliser and pesticide use and increased food quality. The fourth addresses the key public health challenges of micro-nutrient deficiency through the application of state of the art methods of biofortification, enhancing the nutritional value of foods that are already part of established UK diets. The fifth seeks to increase the consumption of fibre with its attendant health and sustainability benefits, based on lessons learnt from the Danish wholegrain partnership; while the sixth seeks to increase food system resilience to economic, health and environmental shocks through collaborative research with retailers and consumers. Three cross-cutting themes (CCTs) provide further integration across the work-packages. The first focuses on the application of integrative methods such as LCA and scenario-building approaches to assess the environmental, social and economic impact of different interventions and policy options. The second focuses on issues of consumer demand, public acceptability and affordability; while the third ensures that stakeholder involvement features consistently throughout the programme, with a strong emphasis on knowledge exchange and impact within and beyond the five-year funding period. The H3 Consortium is led by Professors Peter Jackson and Duncan Cameron who co-direct the Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield. They are joined by a core team, comprising the work-package and CCT leaders, a wider group of co-investigators and PDRAs, and an experienced business development manager, focused on maximising the impact of our research in government, business and civil society.

Conservation organisations are concerned with the protection of natural habitats and species, for their intrinsic value, the services they provide humanity and for their amenity value. Under international and local statutes, conservation organisations are obliged to prevent wild habitats from becoming degraded and halt or reverse the decline of species of conservation concern. This job is increasingly difficult given the extent of degradation and fragmentation of habitats and the threat of global changes, such as climate change. Until now, conservationists have been mainly concerned with habitats and species, and have neglected to consider a third strand of biodiversity called 'genetic diversity'. Genetic diversity can be found in all species. It is variation among individuals in DNA sequences that cause differences in their physical attributes, and is responsible for the familial resemblance among relatives. Genetic diversity is relevant to conservation in a number of ways. Firstly, many populations of endangered species are isolated and consist of small numbers of individuals. These populations often have little genetic variation, and this can hamper their ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions through natural selection. Adaptation is key to success in conservation, because without it, species will be prone to extinction under environmental changes such as climate change. Secondly, small or isolated populations often consist of closely related individuals, and mating among these close-relatives can lead to inbred offspring that suffer immediate health problems. This can act as an additional burden on endangered species, making their populations more difficult to conserve. Thirdly, similar problems can occur due to inter-mating between very divergent populations. This may occur if human-aided movement of species brings previously separated populations into contact. Although these types of genetic problems are relatively well understood, there is no generic framework for assessing which species are at risk of which genetic problems, or decision-making tools to guide management actions. In addition, conservationists may be disinclined to incorporate these genetics problems into their action plans, because jargon and terminology in genetics can make the field inaccessible to conservationists without a genetics background. Our aim in this project is to enhance dialogue and the exchange of knowledge between researchers interested in genetic biodiversity, and wildlife conservationists. In doing this we will facilitate improved strategies to conserve species and enable the best use of genetic data in conservation programmes. Firstly we will develop a working group consisting of geneticists and conservationists to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, ensuring that geneticists are aware of the key conservation challenges, and conservationists are aware of when genetic information is likely to be useful. Secondly, we will evaluate previously published genetic information to fill gaps in understanding, and to determine when genetic problems are most likely. Thirdly we will develop a mechanism to assess the risk of genetic problems faced by any individual species, and link this to a framework recommending the best course to alleviate these problems. We will then test and refine this approach using species of conservation importance in the UK. Our fourth objective will provide standard protocols for choosing the sources of individuals for human-aided movement of plants or animals from one place to another. We will develop a system for recording the success and failure of these translocations to better inform future guidelines. Finally, our key goal is to make all of this information accessible. We will produce user-friendly handbooks aimed at explaining genetic issues in conservation, and will produce web-pages to assist conservation managers develop management strategies that incorporate genetic approaches.

Ensuring there is sufficient energy is a global challenge, caused by increasing demand and the need to move to low carbon energy to avoid dangerous climate change. Photovoltaics, including those mounted on buildings and the ground, are predicted to provide a key component of energy in the future, with the recent US Clean Power Plan and policies in China and Japan placing particular emphasis on solar power. Further, solar energy is increasingly cost competitive, with large scale solar park costs now similar to that of conventional energy sources. Within the UK, 47 % of solar photovoltaics are ground-mounted as solar parks. There has been a shift towards ground-mounted solar parks in countries within 35 degrees of the equator and a shift toward large-scale ground-mounted systems in Europe is anticipated. Solar parks take up a relatively large area of land for the energy they produce compared with conventional sources of energy. Yet, despite the expanding land area occupied by solar parks little is known of the impacts of their construction, physical presence and management on the landscape, or how we can use the opportunities provided by this land use transition to bring additional benefits, such as enhanced green infrastructure and ecological connectivity. Alongside switching to low carbon energy sources, in the light of growing populations and heightened pressures on resources, it is becoming increasingly recognised that we need to protect our environment, since it provides many goods (e.g. crops) and services (e.g. carbon storage) that contribute to the wellbeing and economic prosperity of society. The increasing land cover of solar parks presents an excellent opportunity to maximise the provisioning of such goods and services, with management options relatively low cost compared with those related to solar park construction. Therefore, this project will develop a decision-support tool to assess the impacts of solar parks, including their construction, physical presence and management, on the goods and services the landscape provides. There are five key components: 1. Synthesis of existing solar park guidelines; 2. Production of a compendium of the beneficial and detrimental effects of solar parks on goods and services supplied by the landscape; 3. Quantification of the change in goods and services over the operational life-time of solar parks; 4. Development of a decision-support tool that promotes the optimal deployment and management of solar parks; 5. Dissemination of the outcomes of the project to the broader solar development community. There are 11 project partners, covering all solar park stakeholders: Christine Coonick, National Solar Centre; Ed Jessamine, Novus Solar; Nick White, Natural England; Jonathan Scurlock, National Farmers Union; Jon Abbatt, ADAS; Richard Winspear, RSPB; Melanie Dodd, Wiltshire Council; Adam Twine, Colleymore Farm; James Ryle, Good Energy; and Phillip Duncan, Corylus. The key output from the project is the SPIES (Solar Park Impacts on Ecosystem Services) decision-support tool, which will provide a standardised means of identifying the best way to install and manage solar parks. Thus the tool will be useful for developers, consultees and regulatory agencies and may reduce prolonged and expensive planning applications, which will be beneficial to all parties. The National Solar Centre will help us drive the tool into policy which would lead to a noteworthy sustained contribution to sustainable energy generation and the supply of goods and services from the landscape. Further, given the global proliferation of solar parks and the growing global awareness of the importance of our natural environment, the proposed tool could help to stimulate innovation in business and investment opportunities, and build the UK's reputation as a global leader in solar park deployment. Keywords: solar parks, low carbon energy, ecosystem services, green infrastructure

Only 30% of Earth's surface is land, only 9% is cultivated, and there is little scope for future expansion. The supply of water and nutrients from soil to crops in approximately 7800 km3 of topsoil (to 0.5 m) currently sustains 7 billion humans. This soil resource is the essential foundation of arable farming on which plant production for food, fiber and biofuels, and ultimately the entire global economy depends. How we manage this vital, life sustaining, resource will determine the quality of life and Earth's carrying capacity for future generations. SoilBioHedge addresses the central problem for soil security: continuous conventional arable cultivation depletes soil organic matter, degrades soil structure, reduces water drainage and water holding capacity, and increases the susceptibility of soil and crops to the impacts of climatic stress through decreased resilience to flood and drought conditions. We will test our central hypothesis: grass-clover leys sown into arable fields and connected to hedgerows and unploughed grassy margins enable key ecosystem-engineers (earthworms and mycorrhizal fungi) to recolonize the fields, restoring and improving soil quality compared to leys unconnected to field margins. We will determine for the first time the importance of connectivity from biodiversity refugia under hedgerows to arable fields via grass-clover leys in restoring functional biodiversity. We will quantify soil quality as functional benefits from soil-organism interactions: increases in soil organic matter, water-stable macroaggregates, water holding capacity, infiltration rates, drought and flood resilience, and resulting crop yields. We will quantify the operational temporal and spatial scales for ecosystem engineers (grass-clover roots, AM fungi, and earthworms) and soil functions to synergistically develop with land use and management change. We will transform mechanistic understanding of soil structure dynamics by combined metabolomics and metagenomic analyses tracking soil aggregate formation over 3 growing seasons. Our research design includes three nested scales of observation. 1) Hedge-to-Field Experiments at Leeds U. farm to quantify spatial/temporal changes in soil functions and biodiversity, arising from arable-to-ley conversion strips that are disconnected or connected to the field margin, and across a whole field converted to arable in 2012, and ley-to-arable conversion using conventional vs. minimal tillage strips and a field that converted to ley in 2009. Monolith mesocosm studies will use turf blocks removed from the experimental plots, treated with herbicide and direct drilled with wheat. We will compare crop yields between the field and monoliths maintained at near-ambient conditions, under simulated drought and excess rainfall causing flooding. The results will quantify soil quality and the resilience of the crop and soil organisms and functions to these stresses. 2) Landscape-Scale Hedge-to-Field Transects will quantify soil functional changes on long-term arable fields and pairs of arable fields converted to ley over 2 differing time scales. We will utilize our network of >100 farms that provide a range of soil types, and management (conventional, organic, and minimal tillage). 3) Field-to-Landscape Scale mathematical modelling to establish an integrative and predictive spatiotemporal model of soil quality change at field-to-landscape-scale, including the role of dispersal of hedgerow and field margin biodiversity into arable land resulting from land use and management change involving leys. We will integrate mechanistic understanding of soil aggregation and carbon accumulation through the synergistic actions of roots, AM, and earthworms from our experiments and landscape-scale transect observations with existing Countryside Survey data and national digital soil map, to deliver a step-change in understanding for sustainable soil management policy and practice.

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