The fifth Groundswell event was the biggest yet, welcoming farmers to cultivate new ideas and dig the dirt on regenerative farming techniques. Alice Dyer and Chloe Palmer went along.
As well as the role that chemical inputs have in regenerative agriculture, the role that agronomists and distributors would play moving forward was under the spotlight.
As more farmers show willingness to reduce their inputs and Government cracks down on pesticides, a key challenge will be how knowledge exchange is subsidised going forward, with independent institutes falling short of funding to address R&D, and input product sales currently driving a large proportion of crop production research.
Targets
Agrii agronomist Mark Dewes said: "It is a very imperfect system.
"If you look at distributors, a lot of work done that is interesting is not associated with product use, but the business model is not well set up to supply that. If you make your money through the profit of selling products, and we move to systems where you sell fewer products, clearly the finance stream dries up."
Although the UK is no longer in the EU, which has set targets to reduce inputs by half by 2030, Mr Dewes said he thought it unlikely it would escape the same pressures, and he foresees specific pesticide use reduction targets on the horizon.
Mr Dewes added that although he had no doubt that agronomy companies would bring forward new and innovative services surrounding areas such as soil health, biologicals and genetics, he was aware that farmers would not want to necessarily swap one set of inputs for a non-pesticide set of inputs.
"We're looking at a more systems-based approach, not a product-based approach and that's going to take a different level of support from the infrastructure that exists in the agronomy support sector."
Knowledge
Kent farmer and regenerative agriculture adviser, Andrew Howard said going forward he believed farmers would instead have multiple advisers, as they move towards a knowledge intensive, rather than input intensive approach.
"Regenerative agriculture is such a huge subject you're going to have a pesticide agronomist, biological agronomist, livestock adviser, soil scientist, environmental adviser and more. Having one person you take advice from is probably coming to an end because not everyone can be an expert in everything. Agronomy of the future will have to be above BASIS, FACTs and RB209. Agronomists will need to look at brix, redox, electrical conductivity, tissue tests and sap tests."
Much of this stems from an increased focus on margins over yields.
"One of my worries is going from selling pesticides, to biostimulants, to precision ag, giving us lots of data that we don't know what to do with," Mr Howard said.
"You've got to tread carefully as a farmer as to where you spend your money. I also worry about models where agronomists share the margin as a performance matrix. If they are part of that will they want to push change and push trials which might go wrong? I want my agronomist to be pushing me to do new things rather than safe things."
Relationships
A lot of this will come down to the relationship between the farmer and the agronomist, Mr Dewes said.
"If you are an unaccountable decision maker spending someone else's money the temptation is to take a very risk averse approach. If you're involved in the risk assessment and you agree on the brief with your employer, you can take a group decision on the approach to risk.
"There is over comfort that agronomists get in working for someone for 20 years - you're looking at things and seeing the same problems, whereas a fresh pair of eyes often stimulates a different view on it. We've got an enormously loyal customer base as agronomists and it gives us security we enjoy, but I do think that over familiarity stifles innovation."
Gary Markham, LFB director, who runs a regenerative agriculture benchmarking group said agronomists need to look at total farm costs more, including machinery and labour, and he was seeing a move in the top performing farmers in his group taking agronomy in house and then recruiting consultants who advise on regenerative agriculture.
"I see that as the future and that's what I'm observing with our clients."
