Nature Friendly Farming Network: New project shares farm-level knowledge on improving farm resilience and productivity

Farming for Resilience, a six-month project launched by the Nature Friendly Farming Network, will help farmers develop and share skills, knowledge and experience to meet new challenges in farming.
By Joanne Knox
Published 20th Oct 2022, 14:00 BST
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Earlier this month, NFFN members took home multiple awards at this year’s Farming Life Awards, including Young Farmer of the Year, Farmer of the Year and Agri-Food Business/Impact of the Year. NFFN NI also won Sustainable Initiative of the Year.

This project, funded by DAERA’s Environment Fund, is designed to help farmers build resilience by improving soil health, reducing reliance on costly artificial inputs and adopting grazing systems through whole-farm planning for greater sustainability.

The six free-to-attend events are planned across Northern Ireland starting at the end of October.

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Farming for Resilience, a six-month project launched by the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), will help farmers develop and share skills, knowledge and experience to meet new challenges in farming.Farming for Resilience, a six-month project launched by the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), will help farmers develop and share skills, knowledge and experience to meet new challenges in farming.
Farming for Resilience, a six-month project launched by the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), will help farmers develop and share skills, knowledge and experience to meet new challenges in farming.

The first two events are introductions to how farms can achieve a production 'sweet spot' to increase profits and reduce costs. This ‘sweet spot’

is the Maximum Sustainable Output (MSO), a calculation framework for establishing when a farm is most profitable.

MSO considers the carrying capacity of the land based on the farm's geography, the fixed and variable costs, and the point at which inputs maximise outputs to farm more efficiently.

In early November, two Improving Soil Health workshops will be led by sustainable farming expert Niels Corfield, focused on improving and monitoring soil health for optimum crop and grassland performance.

These workshops will explore the role soil biology plays in agricultural performance, pasture health and farm viability and what practices can be used to support healthy soils. It will look at how natural ecosystem processes affect soil quality and how farmers can work with these processes to improve soil health.

The final two workshops focus on sustainable grazing and whole-farm planning.

Full events schedule:

Book now: Farming for Resilience, Cookstown, Tuesday 25 October, 2 pm – 4 pm

Book now: Farming for Resilience, Antrim Hills, Wednesday 26 October, 1 pm – 3 pm

Book now: Improving Soil Health, Mount Stewart, Monday 7 November, 9.30 am – 5 pm

Book now: Improving Soil Health, Crom Estate, Tuesday 8 November, 9.30 am – 5 pm

Save the date: Sustainable Grazing, Friday 16 December

Save the date: Whole Farm Planning for Sustainable Agriculture, Tuesday, 10 January

Book your place on any of this project’s workshops here or by emailing Caolan McCaughan at [email protected]