With nearly 70 million people and a UK land area of c. 24 million hectares, ensuring that there is enough space for nature, water, and carbon capture, as well as all the infrastructure, housing, and food required by a rising population, will be an increasing challenge.
Back in January 2025 the Government launched a consultation on its vision for land use in England, and how to deliver it within a Land Use Framework. The consultation, which closed on 25 April, sought views on the types and scale of land use change that might be needed to meet environmental and climate targets, while also delivering new infrastructure and housing, and maintaining food production.
Meanwhile on 26 February the Climate Change Committee published its statutory report providing advice to the UK Government on the recommended level of the Seventh Carbon Budget (2038 to 2042). Nature- based measures such as planting new woodland and restoring peatlands, and energy crops, were identified as being integral to increasing land-based carbon sequestration, and to offsetting the residual emissions from the combined agriculture and land use sectors by 2050.
In addition to producing enough food, the need for multifunctional land use is clear. The cropping options within CHCx3 can undoubtedly help achieve this, enabling increased carbon capture, a diversified farm environment, and an enhanced supply of home-grown forage for livestock, bioenergy and biomaterials. See our articles in News from the Hub for more on these developments.
There are many ways to engage with the CHCx3 research and Partners, including free events, and information and resources on www.carboncapturecropping.com to support productive carbon capture cropping. If you are interested in getting more involved in CHCx3 or have a suggestion as to how else we can help, please do get in touch. Our contact details are provided on the last page of this newsletter.
In this edition of Insights, Lydia Smith, Niab CHCx3 Project Lead gives her viewpoint on the challenging weather for carbon capture cropping over the past year. Helen Shiels describes progress with the Value Chains research. In ‘News from the Hub’ we highlight new developments from CHCx3 and elsewhere. We hear from CHCx3 partners Bitrez and Rothamsted Research about their work and aspirations for carbon capture cropping, and from flax grower Andrew Stephenson.
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