The Agricultural Resilience Impact and Innovation Hub (AGRIIH) aims to generate a transformational shift in the scope of Oxford‘s agricultural research impact, by engaging industry and stakeholders to co- develop novel and industry-relevant research and innovation that transforms our agricultural systems for a sustainable future.
Agriculture is a major cause of biodiversity loss and carbon emissions globally. Oversimplification of the system, reliance on high levels of inputs, and a disconnect from nature and the important services it provides, leaves our food systems inherently vulnerable to environmental and economic shocks.
The University of Oxford is home to world-leading research into all aspects of agriculture from plant science, climate and ecology, to social science, business and economics providing a melting pot for the interdisciplinary collaboration that is needed to generate real solutions and innovation that effectively harness technology, people and nature to transform agricultural systems for the future.
The AGRIIH will stimulate collaborations across disciplines to develop a coordinated multi-dimensional offering that integrates molecular plant science with ecology within a broader food system framing, all informed by business needs and supported with industry funding.
The Flourishing Landscapes Programme (FLP) addresses the triple challenge of livelihoods, climate change, and biodiversity loss at tropical forest frontiers. It will develop novel landscape-scale transdisciplinary research, via a new network of scientists and practitioners, to investigate strategies to both biodiversity and the climate resilience of smallholder farmers. By investigating agroforestry and community-led reforestation as nature-based solutions (NbS), the FLP addresses key knowledge gaps regarding the role of biodiversity in maximising nature’s contributions to people (NCPs) in agricultural landscapes. Building on this, via a human-centred design approach applied in Ghana, Ecuador and Viet Nam in coffee and cocoa production landscapes, the FLP will co-design, with rural communities, a citizen-led biodiversity monitoring toolkit to empower communities to utilise adaptive management to harness NCPs in their production. To showcase the value of the research data sets and citizen-science approaches, we will lead a co-design process with farmers, value chain actors and the insurance industry to explore risk sharing mechanisms that incentivise value chain investments in nature.
Target landscapes
The FLP focuses on landscapes with agricultural land-use dominated, to varying extents by, by coffee or cocoa production. In particular, we will focus on agricultural-forest matrix landscapes in three biodiversity hotspots: 1) Napa Province, Ecuador (the Tropical Andes hotspot), 2) Ashanti Region, Ghana, (Guinean Forests of West Africa) and 3) Central Highlands, Viet Nam (Indo-Burma). These landscapes represent forest-frontier areas where agricultural production, particularly cocoa (Ghana and Ecuador) and coffee cultivation (Viet Nam), intersects with severe fragmentation of natural forests.
Consortium and stakeholders
The Flourishing Landscapes Programme is driven by a novel global consortium of research, civil society and industry collaborators. We are motivated by a shared desire to deliver transformative change in the food system, by enhancing smallholder farmer climate resilience through the scaling of biodiversity’s benefits across topical agricultural landscapes. The consortium was built on the backbone of several longer-term collaborations between the Nature-based Solutions Initiative, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Tay Nguyen University and PanNature. The FLP brings together a consortium of research (Oxford, KNUST, TNU, Universidad Regional Amazónica Ikiam), finance (WTW), technology (NatureMetrics), NGO (PanNature, WWF) and community (YAKUM).
Funding
The Flourishing Landscapes Programme (FLP) is one of thirteen recipients of the first round of research grants awarded by the Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate (GCBC) – a UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) research and development programme that funds research to unlock the potential of nature to provide climate solutions and improve livelihoods. It is funded by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs working in partnership with DAI Global as the Fund Manager Lead and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as the Strategic Science Lead. Learn more about GCBC and this grant.
HARP Project: Facilitating Sustainable Reforestation in Tropical Agricultural Landscapes – The High Agricultural Reforestation Potential (HARP) Toolkit
This project asks how can practitioner and scientific information be better integrated to enhance the sustainability of agroforestry transitions in smallholder production landscapes? Focussing on Ghana and Vietnam, to address this question we use transdisciplinary, human-centred design, remote sensing, on-farm biophysical measurements, socio-economic household surveys, and semi-structured interviews. HARP will be a set of tools designed to facilitate sustainable agroforestry-based reforestation in tropical agricultural landscapes, with a particular focus on cocoa and coffee producing landscapes at forest frontiers.
Sustain-Cocoa: Sustainable sourcing policies for biodiversity protection, climate mitigation, and improved livelihoods in the cocoa sector
The conversion and degradation of tropical forests have multiple negative socio- environmental impacts. Conversely, their restoration, including enhancing tree cover on already cleared farmland, is a powerful nature-based solution to climate mitigation and adaptation, with potentially large biodiversity and rural livelihood co-benefits. A major driver of forest loss and degradation in the tropics is the production and trade of food commodities and associated land management practices, with cocoa being the leading forest-risk commodity in West Africa. Yet, cocoa production in agroforestry systems harbours the potential to partially restore biodiversity in key hotspots. Acknowledging these challenges and opportunities, ending deforestation and encouraging agroforestry has become a high priority in cocoa supply chains as part of interventions such as the Cocoa and Forests Initiative.
Main objectives
In the proposed research SUSTAIN-COCOA aims to investigate the conditions under which supply chain sustainability initiatives (SSIs) can lead to reduced deforestation and increased shade-tree cover in cocoa production systems and, in turn, a triple-win of increased biodiversity, climate change mitigation, and livelihood resilience. To meet this aim, six sub-objectives are integrated:
Developpe and synthesise datasets of cocoa supply chains, SSI attributes and coverage, and current extent of cocoa agroforestry;
Quantify the impacts of shade-tree cover on farm-level biodiversity, carbon storage, food production, farm and household income, and climate resilience;
Identify the drivers and impacts of SSIs on shade-tree cover, deforestation, and biodiversity in cocoa producing landscapes;
Estimate the potential carbon and biodiversity benefits of shade-tree adoption at regional scales;
Assess the overlap between SSI benefits and company motivations for adoption;
Deliver recommendations for how to improve the design, uptake, and implementation of SSIs in cocoa producing landscapes to promote biodiversity, climate, and livelihood synergies.
Main activities
To achieve these objectives, SUSTAIN-COCOA integrates (agro)-ecological fieldwork in cocoa agroecosystems, household and supply chain interviews, supply chain and land cover mapping, regional modeling, and stakeholder workshops. The cross-scale, interdisciplinary, and transnational approach will provide insights into the on-the-ground impacts of existing SSIs in the cocoa sector and the potential impacts of scaling up SSIs to reduce deforestation and enhance shade-tree cover. Furthermore, the role that agroforestry can play in helping deliver multiple sustainability objectives will be clarified: protecting biodiversity, climate mitigation, and improved farmer livelihoods.
Understanding the value and limits of NbS to address climate change and other development challenges in the Philippines
This research provides a country-specific analysis of nature-based solutions (NbS) for addressing societal challenges in the Global South, with a focus on the Philippines. This project examines the potential of NbS to support climate change adaptation, identifying intervention types, outcomes, priorities, and the factors that hinder or enable NbS. A central question guides this work: NbS for what, and for whom?
To understand the potential holistic nature of NbS, this research explores a diverse range of potential adaptation contributions, including social, economic, biodiversity, cultural, resource security outcomes (e.g., food, water, income), as well as health and wellbeing outcomes.
This action-oriented research employs a mixed-methods, combining systematic literature reviews, participatory workshops and knowledge-exchange events. This includes capturing diverse perspectives and comparing academic insights with on-the-ground experiences of NbS in the Philippines.
Impacts & Outputs
In addition to scientific articles, this project prioritises public engagement and accessibility, producing outputs in formats for decision-makers in practice and policy, and media for the public to foster broader awareness.
Ultimately, this project aims to develop a co-created, evidence-based understanding of NbS in the Philippines, to mitigate potential risks of NbS misuse while strengthening national and local adaptation strategies. A key ambition is to lay the foundation for an NbS Philippines platform and Southeast Asian network, enabling collaboration to tackle shared societal environment and development challenges and support thriving, adaptive communities and ecosystems.
Public engagement
Short documentary film on the symbiotic relationship of indigenous peoples and their ancestral landscape in Mindanao, Philippines, at the Mt Kitanglad Range Natural Park protected area. Shown at the NbS in Action film festival at Natural History Museum, Oxford, 2024
Community NbS workshop, Lokal Lab, Tropical Academy, Surigao Del Norte, Philippines, 2024
Outreach activities
Short documentary film on the indigenous peoples who protect the Mt Kitanglad Range Natural Park – In post-production
Community NbS workshop at Tropikal Academy, Lokal Lab – Pending 2023
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) – PENRO Bukidnon, Mt Kitanglad Council of Elders, KIN Philippines, Philippine Parks and Biodiversity, TAYO PH, Lokal Lab, Centre for Sustainability PH, ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity, Environmental Change Institute Oxford
Addressing climate vulnerability with nature-based solutions in Bangladesh
Bangladesh, like many lower income countries, is exceptionally vulnerable to increased climate risks, exacerbated by environmental degradation and socio-economic challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature-based solutions could provide cost-effective options to address these challenges but policymakers lack evidence on their effectiveness. To address this, we produced a comprehensive synthesis of evidence on the effectiveness of NbS for addressing climate impacts in Bangladesh, and the outcomes for other sustainable development goals.
Investigating the biodiversity, social and sustainable development outcomes of achieving net-zero in the UK
This project explores the climatic, environmental and wider consequences of greenhouse gas removal (GGR) methods. GGR is expected to form an integral part in achieving a climatically sustainable future, and features prominently (sometimes at enormous scale) in domestic and international pathways that successfully reach ‘net-zero’ emissions. The diversity of different practices and relative lack of standardised research raises many questions about the sustainability of large-scale GGR deployment, however. Can we ensure that GGR methods do not compromise biodiversity conservation, food security and other sustainable development goals? How can we balance the removal efficiency suggested for ‘engineered’ approaches with the wider benefits for people and nature associated with ecosystem based carbon storage? To address these questions, we are developing refined and harmonised Life Cycle Assessment approaches, and contributing to the development of national carbon removal strategies. We employ environmental modelling and impact assessment, and work in collaboration with pilot programmes demonstrating greenhouse gas removal in practice.
Scaling-up nature-based solutions in the UK
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have huge potential to support climate mitigation, adaptation, nature recovery, food security, rural economy and human wellbeing, but implementation is slow and patchy. Some interventions are poor quality, leading to adverse impacts and undermining legitimacy and social support.
To address this challenge, this 18 month research ‘sprint’ – part of the Agile Initiative at the Oxford Martin School – worked with stakeholders to identify and tackle key cultural, scientific and governance barriers to the implementation of high-quality NbS in the UK.
The outputs are presented in our ‘NbS Knowledge Hub’, a one-stop-shop for NbS practitioners and policy-makers containing:
The ‘Recipe for Engagement’ – a best practice guide for practitioners to engage meaningfully with stakeholders and the public.
An open source software package to help people create opportunity maps for planning nature recovery and NbS at landscape scale for any area in England.
A biodiversity and soil health monitoring tool
A funding finder tool
An interactive library of guidance on planning, implementation and monitoring NbS.
A series of policy and research briefs.
Exploring the role of nature-based solutions for social-ecological resilience
This project developed a two-part conceptual framework linking social-ecological resilience to adaptation outcomes in NbS. Part one determines the potential of NbS to support resilience based on assessing whether NbS affect key mechanisms known to enable resilience. Examples include social-ecological diversity, connectivity, and inclusive decision-making. Part two includes adaptation outcomes that building social-ecological resilience can sustain, known as nature’s contributions to adaptation (NCAs). We apply the framework to a global dataset of NbS in forests. We find evidence that NbS may be supporting resilience by influencing many enabling mechanisms. NbS also deliver many NCAs such as flood and drought mitigation. However, there is less evidence for some mechanisms and NCAs critical for resilience to long-term uncertainty. We present future research questions to ensure NbS can continue to support people and nature in a changing world.
Role of nature-based solutions for development
This project collated and synthesized evidence on the development outcomes of investments in nature (protection, restoration, management, creation of ecosystem, and nature-based food production). This includes conservation interventions and more recently labelled “nature-based solutions” to societal challenges. The scope of development outcomes considered was broad, ranging from jobs, food security, empowerment, to climate change resilience for local people in poor (low- and lower-middle-income).
Reducing people’s vulnerability to climate change in the rural Global South using Nature-based Solutions
Although evidence for the effectiveness of NbS for adaptation is growing, there is scant information on whether and how NbS reduce vulnerability to climate change in the Global South, despite this region being home to the majority of the world’s most climate-vulnerable people. To address this, we systematically collated 85 case studies of nature-based interventions in rural areas of low and lower-middle income nations across a range of ecosystems and addressing a diversity of impacts of climate change. We assessed the effectiveness of these interventions at reducing social and ecological vulnerability, through three different pathways: reducing exposure and sensitivity, and building adaptive capacity. We then conducted an analysis on the mediating factors of effectiveness of these interventions.
