January 18, 2007

research provides tools to measure farming’s impact on our environment

Speakers:
Prof Ken Norris, Director of the Centre for Agri-Environmental Research, University of Reading
Dr Simon Butler, Research Fellow, University of Reading

The Science Media Centre invited the authors of an important piece of research (published this week in Science) that has developed an entirely new system for measuring the impacts of novel ways of farming on biodiversity. The paper describes what is in effect a ‘crystal ball’ for biodiversity that allows us to predict how farmland biodiversity might look in 20-30 years time in response to decisions about farming taken today.