Tesco invests £1.5m in environmental data baselining to support UK farming
Tesco is making a major investment in support of UK agriculture to help safeguard food security and strengthen supply chains.
Through its new Sustainable Farming Programme, the supermarket will increase its investment in environmental data baselining for UK farming to over £1.5 million.
The initiative will support 360 beef and lamb farmers in collecting soil, water, and biodiversity data at scale for the first time, with the view to using the data to help strengthen supply chain resilience and measure progress on farm sustainability.
Tesco is also calling for the introduction of a national data baselining framework to end the patchwork approach to data collection, and safeguard the country’s food security.
Subscribe to TRBIt follows new research from Tesco with hundreds of UK farmers, which found an overwhelming 91% want the government to do more to support farming resilience.
Ashwin Prasad, UK chief executive of Tesco, said: “British farmers are the backbone of our food system but they face unprecedented pressure, from rising costs and climate shocks to uncertainty over government policy.
“They tell us data is vital to measuring and driving improvements in sustainability and efficiency on farms, but the patchwork approach to data across the UK has resulted in a lack of a unified or standardised framework to track industry-wide progress or share insight and best practice.
“Our new programme will give farmers the data and tools to build resilience and it’s vital farmers are provided with a clear and consistent reporting framework to reduce the burden they face and make it easier for the whole industry to measure and scale progress.
“This is fundamental to creating a stronger future for UK agriculture and protecting the country’s ability to reliably grow high-quality, homegrown food, now and for the future.”
