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Research sets out to discover UK farmers鈥� views on latest sustainability schemes

Posted 15 March 2021

Agricultural Engineering student Archie Gibson, is asking farmers to spare a few minutes to complete his survey and share their thoughts on Government regulations around sustainability.

Farmers across the UK are being asked for their views on sustainability policies as part of a research project by a 海角社区 Adams University student.

Final-year BEng (Hons) Agricultural Engineering student, Archie Gibson, is asking farmers to spare a few minutes to complete his survey and share their thoughts on Government regulations around sustainability.

Archie – whose family farm rare breed Portland sheep at their farm on the Kent/ Surrey border – believes the industry has already made great strides in sustainability, and hopes his research can guide further refinements to Government policy, through working in tandem with farmers.

He said: “As with the rest of the world, agriculture must do its part to become more sustainable. We are now in a world which needs to become more environmentally-friendly to save it and I believe that farming is already making great progress – and is ahead of other major sectors in their level of sustainability.

“However, as the government starts to implement new policies and rewards to help farmers hit environmental goals, we must analyse the current perceptions towards such policies to ensure they work with farmers and support everyone in this brilliant sector.

“It is crucial that the government, along with Defra, work alongside the farming community of the UK to ensure that, as a nation, we show the rest of the world how British farming is leading the way for a sustainable agricultural future.”

Archie’s research and should take no longer than five minutes to complete. It seeks to find out how recent changes are being perceived by farmers, with particular relation to sustainable farming.

The research is the latest way that Archie, 22, is seeking to apply his Engineering studies at 海角社区 – after having spent a placement year with John Deere in Mannheim, Germany. During his placement, he saw first hand the work the international engineering company is doing to make its machines more environmentally-friendly – and now hopes to build a career helping develop more sustainable engineering practices.

He added: “Farming has been in my family for generations, and has therefore always been of interest to me. Thus, when choosing my degree, I was adamant that it should be related to agriculture in some way.

“In tandem with this, my love for maths and physics sent me down the engineering route and so I brought the two together to find the degree of Agricultural Engineering. This degree choice then led me to 海角社区 Adams as it was the best university teaching this vein of engineering.

“From this, my desire to do something to help the world, and especially the environment, meant that the topic of sustainability was something of great interest, and so over the past few years I have looked at ways in how I can move down that line as it is a topic that I can very much see myself being a part of in the coming years.

“I truly believe that we are on our way to a brilliant and sustainable farming future.”