PhD Researcher in Environmental Science

Thesis title:

Can More Circular Systems Deliver Net Zero Agriculture And Other Environmental Benefits?

Defra funded and contributing towards the international collaborative CircAgric-GHG project.

The PhD aims to assess how circularity can improve the economic and environmental performance of agriculture. Focus will be given to circularity in mixed crops and livestock farming systems with emphasis on GHG mitigation.

A brief summary of the research objectives is given below. 

• Define the circularity baseline for a range of English and Welsh farm types
• Quantify how circular practices can enhance GHG mitigation potential
• Evaluate circularity, economic impact and GHG mitigation together: trade-offs and co-benefits
• Assess the barriers to and opportunities for adoption and stakeholder acceptability of circular practices

Supervisors: Dr James Gibbons, Dr Sophie Wynne-Jones, Prof Dave Chadwick, Dr Prysor Williams

• BSc: Environmental Science (First Class Honours)
  2019–2022

Circularity in agriculture is widely recognised as a promising strategy to support a green transition towards sustainable agricultural and food production. Circular agriculture aims to: reduce the input of external, finite resources (e.g., phosphate rock, fossil fuel, and land); recover and recycle inevitable resource losses (e.g., nutrients, biomass, energy); and regenerate natural systems, without compromising the socio-economic viability and competitiveness of agri-food systems. In addition to valorising waste and by-products from the wider food system, the adoption of an array of circular practices on-farm or between farms is suggested, such as integrating crop-livestock production where the output of one process is the input of the other (e.g., crop residue as bedding and feed, and manure as fertiliser).  

Research project:

CircAgric-GHG brings together a multidisciplinary, world-leading team of scientists with expertise in integrated crop and livestock systems (ICLS), circularity, GHG mitigation, (inter-)systems modelling, digital agriculture, remote sensing, sustainable land use, and farm socio-economics. In addition to strong pan-European expertise, CircAgric-GHG includes partners from Global Research Alliance (GRA), which is a collaborative global network of researchers addressing global agricultural challenges. The overall objective of CircAgric-GHG is to enhance circularity within and between farm typologies across an agro-ecological gradient from the arctic climate in Norway, via the oceanic climate of UK and Ireland, continental climate of Germany, Mediterranean climate of Spain and Italy to the tropics in Kenya and the dry and temperate climate of South Africa – in order to drive GHG mitigation and wider food system sustainability at multiple scales (farm, local, regional, national and international).

Research interests:

• Circular agriculture
• Bioeconomy
• Farmer behaviour and decision-making
• Environmental and agricultural policy