In a nutshell
Funding ask: £75,000-£150,000+
Length: ~2-3years+
Location: High Weald National Landscape
Aim: To establish a demonstrator site for adaptive multi-paddock grazing and regenerative agriculture in one of England's most historically significant farming landscapes.
The High Weald has been farmed with care for over a thousand years.
Its small fields, deep hedgerows, and ancient grasslands are not just beautiful - they are the legacy of a way of working with land that the rest of the world is now trying to rediscover.
This project safeguards that legacy for the future, using the latest regenerative grazing science to restore the soils, sequester carbon, and secure the food-producing heart of one of England's most treasured landscapes.
The opportunity
Some landscapes carry their history in their bones. The High Weald is one of them.
The key landscape features of the High Weald were established by the 14th century, and it is considered one of the best surviving, coherent medieval landscapes in Northern Europe. From the very beginning, farming has shaped it.
From as far back as the Neolithic period, farmers drove their pigs into the area's woods in late summer and autumn to fatten them on acorns and beech mast - an activity known as pannage. Over time, the dens where they grazed became permanent farmsteads and hamlets, creating the area's distinctive pattern of scattered settlement.
The very fields and sunken lanes that define this landscape today are the accumulated work of thousands of years of careful, small-scale animal husbandry. With their heavy clay soils and steep slopes, many High Weald fields have never been ploughed up to grow crops, and have traditionally been used for rearing domestic livestock. Compared to many areas of Britain, the area still has a relatively high number of ancient, undisturbed, wildflower-rich hay meadows and pastures; some supporting up to 100 species of grasses and wildflowers. It is believed that the Sussex breed of cattle today is descended directly from the red cattle that inhabited the dense woodland of the Weald at the time of the Norman Conquest.
This is a landscape that has always known how to graze well. The opportunity now is to do it with new rigour, new ambition, in a way that regenerates our land and helps us to become more resilient.
Regenerative techniques
Adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing is a livestock management approach that draws on principles both ancient and cutting-edge.
Compared to conventional grazing, animals are moved frequently onto small sections of pasture, subdivided using lightweight, portable electric fencing, so that each area is grazed briefly and then given a long rest period to recover. In doing so, it deliberately mimics the natural grazing patterns of large wild herbivores, considered among the most effective natural land managers.
This rest-and-recovery cycle delivers benefits across the farm:
Biodiversity and habitat
Longer rest periods let grazed areas grow stronger, deeper roots and taller pasture, allowing a wider range of plant species to grow, flower and seed. This increases biodiversity and creates shelter and habitat for small animals and ground-nesting birds.
Soil health
Healthy dung feeds the billions of microorganisms that build healthy soils, which in turn support a greater diversity of plant life and a wider network of invertebrates, birds and other wildlife.
Water resilience
Healthier soils and deeper roots allow more water to soak in and be stored, reducing flood risk in wet weather while making fields more resilient to drought.
The science backing this up is compelling. Research has shown that AMP grazing sites had on average 13% more soil carbon and 9% more soil nitrogen than conventionally grazed sites, with the carbon stored in more persistent, mineral-associated organic matter, suggesting long-term stability rather than short-term gain.
A four-year UK trial on a 486-hectare organic farm in Oxfordshire found the farm's carbon balance to be beyond net zero, at -49.7 tonnes of CO₂e, thanks to a combination of low emissions and carbon sequestration on permanent pasture. The cattle were also healthier, soil structure improved, and biodiversity increased1.
For a landscape with the High Weald's grassland heritage, deep soils, and existing network of progressive farmers, AMP grazing isn't a leap into the unknown. It is a homecoming.
The project
This project would establish a dedicated regenerative agriculture demonstrator site within the High Weald National Landscape; a working farm that becomes a living laboratory, a training ground, and a proof of concept for the wider farming community.
Working in partnership with the High Weald National Landscape team, who already support a growing number of farmers to transition to regenerative practice, the demonstrator would trial and document AMP grazing alongside complementary techniques such as agroforestry, cover cropping, and reduced tillage across a viable farm holding.
The site would serve multiple purposes: rigorous monitoring of soil health, carbon, biodiversity, and livestock productivity metrics; peer learning for neighbouring farmers through regular open days and practical training; and a visible, credible case study that other farms, and investors, can point to. Because the High Weald's small, irregular, hedge-bounded fields are particularly well suited to managed rotational grazing, the model developed here has direct relevance across the landscape and beyond.
The area's smaller, permanent grass fields bound by hedges and woods suit adaptive multi-paddock livestock grazing, with the grass, trees and hedges providing nutrient-rich forage for cows, sheep and other livestock. The area's clay soils particularly benefit from regenerative agriculture techniques, which will allow for better water infiltration during wet conditions. With the right funding, this project would progress through three phases: baseline assessment and site selection in partnership with the High Weald team; implementation and monitoring; and knowledge transfer, creating tools, resources, and networks that allow the model to scale across the National Landscape and inform practice nationally.
1 https://energy-now.co.uk/news/adaptive-multi-paddock-grazing-a-route-to-net-zero-beef
Why this matters
The state of England's soils is a quiet crisis with loud consequences.
UK soils currently hold around 9.8 billion tonnes of carbon, only around half of soil's carbon-storing potential.
The Environment Agency estimated that in England and Wales, soil degradation is putting 4 million hectares of soil at risk of compaction and over 2 million hectares at risk of erosion, costing the economy an estimated £1.2 billion per year2.
The UK's Food Security Report 2024 makes clear that strong domestic food production is dependent on the sustainability of the whole food system, particularly healthy biodiversity, soil and water. Agricultural and climatic changes have been driving shifts in the natural environment that can build up over time to significantly impact UK food security by degrading essential ecosystem services and undermining fertility and yield3.
The High Weald demonstrator offers something rare: a project where the solution to these systemic challenges is not a new technology or an untested theory, but a return to the kind of active, attentive, place-based farming that this landscape embodies at its best.
Research into AMP grazing has shown that including soil carbon sequestration in assessments of beef's carbon footprint can reduce the calculated greenhouse gas intensity of production by up to 65% compared to conventional grazing systems - a figure that has real significance for food businesses, retailers, and supply chains with net zero commitments4.
This is a project that reconnects the dots between landscape heritage, food security, soil science, and climate. It produces food people can feel good about, in a place that has always known how to produce it.
2https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5804/cmselect/cmenvfru/245/report.html 3https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2024/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2024-theme-2-uk-food-supply-sources
4https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39536577/
People and culture at the heart
The High Weald has always been a teaching landscape; its sunken lanes, ancient hedgerows, and small family farms the accumulated knowledge of generations of working people. This project creates a deliberate space to pass that knowledge on.
The demonstrator site could offer structured placements for agricultural apprentices and land management students, providing hands-on training in AMP grazing, soil health monitoring, and regenerative farm planning that is difficult to access through conventional education pathways.
Alongside modern regenerative techniques, participants would also learn traditional countryside skills (hedge laying, ditch management, and the maintenance of the ancient boundary features that give the High Weald its character), connecting ecological practice to cultural heritage in a way that is genuinely rare.
For young people from the surrounding communities of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, this offers a meaningful entry point into land-based careers at a moment when the farming sector urgently needs the next generation of practitioners who understand both the science and the stewardship of the land.
Key outputs
This project can be shaped with a funding partner to co-design the outputs measured and delivered.
Here are some of the outputs which would suit this project and enable it to scale:
- Soil health baseline and trajectory: organic matter content, carbon stocks, water infiltration rates, and microbial diversity measured across the demonstrator site at regular intervals, generating verifiable data against established benchmarks.
- Carbon sequestration estimates: annual soil carbon sequestration rates tracked and independently verified, contributing to credible natural capital accounting and potential future Soil Carbon Code eligibility.
- Biodiversity indicators: above and below-ground biodiversity monitored, including plant species richness in grazed paddocks, invertebrate surveys, and soil fauna diversity.
- Farmer engagement and knowledge transfer: number of farmers participating in open days, training events, and peer learning networks; number of farms adopting one or more regenerative practices as a measurable outcome.
- Livestock and farm productivity: animal health indicators, grass yield and quality data, and input cost reduction figures, demonstrating the economic viability of transition for participating farmers.
- Replication and scalability: a documented methodology and farmer guide designed for adaptation across the High Weald and the wider National Landscapes network.