Rapid Evidence Assessment in Pork, Potatoes and Protected Horticulture

The AHDB is developing a What Works Centre for agriculture and horticulture called the Evidence for Farming Initiative (EFI). AHDB has developed a programme to design and develop the evidence base for this new centre. The EFI brings together fragmented knowledge and evidence on the farming industry to provide a co-ordinated central point for the delivery of quality-assured advice. The evidence-base is being developed through sector-specific rapid evidence assessments (REAs). REAs are used to provide a systematic and transparent basis to identify, critically appraise and synthesise evidence that reduces the potential for bias. The initial focus of the EFI is in investigating Net Zero practices (i.e. those that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or sequester atmospheric carbon). After recent REAs conducted in the dairy sector and the cereals and oilseeds sector, for this current project REAs were conducted for three further sectors: pork, potato and protected horticulture.

Aim

The aim of this project is to conduct REAs for net-zero carbon practices applicable to pork, potatoes  and protected horticulture, to provide AHDB with an overall picture of the evidence landscape.

Objectives

• To provide REAs on practices that reduce GHG emissions and increase carbon storage and develop proxies for quality of the evidence;
• To translate REAs into narrative summaries for each practice that can be presented to farmers and growers through EFI;
• To outline existing evidence syntheses and the nature of these syntheses, as well as to identify gaps in the evidence-base as a focus for further research priorities;
• To outline where there are future data developments and technologies that may give greater insights than current research and data methods may facilitate.
• To provide feedback on AHDB’s ‘organising framework for evidence’ and ‘generation and application of evidence standards’ working drafts.