What are field labs?

We believe that agricultural research should tackle the real problems farmers face and help them make the best of the resources they have to hand. Field labs are the opposite of an approach that assumes scientists have all the good ideas, which then get told or sold to farmers by extension advisers. Instead we’ve taken our lead from 'farmer field schools' which, developed as a self-help tool in some of the poorest parts of the world, have enabled millions of farmers to find low-cost and sustainable solutions to practical problems like managing pests and building soil fertility.

Field labs adapt this approach to the UK, where farms are larger, there is more access to research and the challenges are different. Each lab will be hosted by a producer who has pinpointed a problem and is trialling how to tackle it, either under their own steam or working with researchers. A small group of farmers will meet 2-4 times during the trial to track progress and compare notes. The aim is to work out effective practical approaches to tackling that problem, learn how to do more effective DIY trials and identify real gaps where academic research could make a crucial difference.

We provide a facilitator to help organise the field lab and a researcher, both to help out with measuring progress and to learn about the producers’ needs and research priorities. The field labs focus on ecological farming, so are particularly relevant to producers who farm to organic standards yet open to all.

Our current field labs