For Farmers
Thanks for checking out LENs – Landscape Enterprise Networks
Hopefully, you’ve chatted to one of our colleagues at an event but in case you’re completely new to what we do, here’s an introduction.
LENs: for farmers
LENs (Landscape Enterprise Networks) brings together businesses, public bodies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), farmers and land managers, to finance and implement initiatives to improve the health and resilience of landscapes they all rely on. It’s been going since 2021 and is active in six regions: East of England, Yorkshire, Leven (Scotland), Western Hungary, Northern Italy and Western Poland.
LENs works on an annual ‘trade cycle’, identifying measures at the start of the year that will be implemented during the following harvest. LENs has facilitated more than EUR 24m of funding direct to farmers and land enterprises. The funding supports farmers to introduce or extend regenerative farming measures that tackle common land management needs, such as: mitigating flood risk; improving soil health; reducing carbon emissions; increasing biodiversity; and improving water quality.
How could you benefit?
LENs supports farmers at all stages of regenerative agriculture. If you’re keen to take the first steps towards a more regenerative agricultural system, LENs funding could get you started. And if you’re well advanced in your approach to regenerative agriculture, LENs can support your ambitions and enable you to share your learnings with other farmers.
Case Study
Philip Raley has been a farmer for 37 years and has a tenanted farm near York. He was one of the first Yorkshire farmers to be involved in LENs and saw it as a chance to ‘dip his toe in’ to regenerative agriculture. LENs funding has enabled him to introduce: cover crops, reduced fertiliser, integrated organic manure, minimal cultivation techniques, bio-stimulants to manage plant health; and biological nitrogen fixation.
His view of LENs is that: “right from the start, it appeared to be more farmer-led than any other funding initiative I’d come across – I bid for what we want to introduce rather than having a prescribed list. It’s more interesting than ticking a box and filling in a form. Farmers need to be interested to be motivated, and LENs involves us in deciding what’s best for the individual farm.”
Read the full interview here.
How does it work?
There are four steps for farmers:
- Submit an application
- Get matched with funding and sign contracts
- Implement your measures and receive funding
- Annual monitoring visits on farm to check on progress
Case Study
Andy Falkingham has been farming his whole life. In the 2024 LENs trade, he received funding from Diageo, Nestlé and PepsiCo for a variety of practices including cover crops, planting wild bird seed mixes, catch crops, subsoiling, companion cropping and two innovation trials – establishing cover crops using a drone, and yield monitoring on combine.
He says: “LENs offers funding that wasn’t available under the Sustainable Farming Incentive for innovations. Trying out new things comes with a big financial risk that most farmers can’t afford. LENs means that we can experiment with a new machine or method that just wouldn’t be a viable risk otherwise.”
Read our interview with Andy here.
Frequently asked questions
What does LENs fund?
LENs funds a range of regenerative agriculture practices. The most popular in 2024 were: reduced/no tillage, to minimise soil disturbance; reduced use of synthetic inputs, including fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides; planting and managing hedgerows; and keeping soils covered/living roots in the soil.
Innovation funding can be used for practices which are not pre-defined, such as trials relevant to a farm business or capital and in-field investments, which last year included direct drills, low disturbance subsoilers and yield monitoring on combine.
In 2024, farmers received between £150-300 per hectare on average for measures implemented.
Am I eligible?
You need to have an existing relationship or be willing to establish a relationship with one of the companies who engage with our network of farmers within each region*. You’ll need to be able to implement actions that are of interest to funders, and that result in the outcomes they are looking for (such as GHG emission reductions, improved water quality or natural flood management).
Are there any eligibility restrictions based on size of farm holding?
No, currently there is no minimum or maximum size.
How do I apply?
If you already work with one of the companies who manage our network of farmers in each region, you can speak to them and apply*. If not, then please use the contact form to get in touch.
Will I be audited?
Yes, you will be visited by a third-party provider once a year to assess the impact of the changes you are making on the farm. The results of this assessment will be shared with you and at an aggregated level with funders.
What results will I get about my farm?
The sustainability results provided in your Farm Report will include things like:
- Soil organic matter content
- Nitrogen use efficiency
- Key biodiversity species score
- The extent to which the farm is practising regenerative land use and sustainable farming
- The amount of soil carbon sequestration from the current cropping year compared with previous year
- A breakdown of the farm practices that emit the most greenhouse gases
You can use these results to compare yourself to other farms in the region, help make business decisions and use this data to apply for additional schemes and funding.
How and when will I be paid?
Typically, after submitting evidence of your investment/practice, you will receive a payment. The timing depends on the details of your contracts, but is around 20 days. Each set of payment evidence is verified by your local LENs Operator and the relevant Funders, but may also be audited by LENs.
The evidence required for each measure varies, and is set out in both the Technical Guidance for each Trade year, and clearly stated in your contracts too.
Who provides the funding?
The range of funders is determined by a region’s key crops and supply chains. Global food and drink companies are the main funders, including Diageo, Cereal Partners UK, Nestlé Purina, and PepsiCo. We also receive increasing investment from non-supply chain funders including water companies and local councils, who are interested in reducing the vulnerability of landscapes and their costs of operation.
How does it fit with state support?
LENs sets out to complement whatever government support there is to farming in your region. Accessing LENs funding does not prevent you from receiving public funding, but you cannot be paid twice to deliver the same thing.
*Supply Aggregators currently active in the East of England are Frontier Agriculture, Openfield Agriculture Ltd, Cetefra UK, Chilton Grain Ltd, Charles Jackson & Co. In Yorkshire, Openfield and Frontier Agriculture are active. In Leven (Scotland) they are Frontier Agriculture and GrainCo.
Get in touch
If you’re not already in touch with our supply aggregators and want to find out more about LENs, please email the team at lens@3keel.com or use the contact form here.
Find out more about LENs
Reporting Impact
Reporting Impact
Our impact reports help organisations report progress against their specific sustainability targets and climate commitments. This is often referred to as Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV). We generate our reports and data for multiple audiences:
Measurement
We measure impact across key environmental impact areas: soil health, biodiversity, water, and emissions reductions. Our measurement programme helps track changes year on year across these impact areas, with a view to understand how they interact to support and accelerate wider landscape resilience.
What makes us unique?
We are the first multi-stakeholder landscape initiative to have produced data and reports that:
What our reports include
LENs produces impact reports containing claimable carbon data that organisations can use in their reporting and disclosure requirements. We released our first MRV reports to Nestlé Purina, Cereal Partners and PepsiCo in 2024, covering LENs activities in England, Italy, Poland and Hungary.
LENs does not issue carbon or biodiversity credits or certificates – intentionally. This is because we believe this is not in the interests of farmers – either from a financial or business management perspective. Carbon credits are also unlikely to benefit contract farmers with time-limited certainty on their access to land. A significant proportion of farms participating in LENs are contract and tenant farmers.
Secondly, we know that a transition to resilient landscapes requires much deeper and layered collaboration involving multiple stakeholders engaged in various supply chains. Carbon credits schemes are limited in scope, as they require a clear separation from other initiatives to ensure additionality criteria can be met. In LENs our focus is on systemic change, and helping all stakeholders in the network to build resilience and reduce risk.
Methodology
We started to collect data and measure outcomes on every single participating farm in 2023, trialling multiple different carbon calculators and soil organic carbon models. With support from 3Keel, LENs also developed the first carbon outcomes allocation methodology – which allows the reporting of emissions reductions to multiple LENs funders in a way that all parties can confidently report data that tallies with their operational boundaries, does not double count benefits, or result in misleading claims.
LENs needs to provide farmers and funders with a high degree of confidence on the environmental benefits reported to them. Using the lessons from this first pilot, we produced in 2024 our very first MRV protocol. This document details the technical basis and methodologies used for measuring our impact.
The protocol has been externally reviewed by independent experts specialised in environmental measurement and carbon accounting. Our 2025 methodology is being developed and will be available from spring 2025, in time for the 2025 data collection campaign.
Metrics
Below is the full list of metrics that LENs will be reporting for every participating farm in 2025. Additional soil health metrics such as soil nutrients, pH, soil texture, VESS and earthworm counts are offered to new farms joining LENs.
How is data collected?
Data collection is carried out by independent surveyors who visit each farm at a time compatible with busy farming schedules.
These survey organisations have been selected for their appropriate expertise, are familiar with the region, are trusted by farmers, and have gone through the detailed LENs training and onboarding programme.
To remain pragmatic and accessible in multiple countries, our measurement systems use a combination of Cool Farm Tool/Platform, xFarm data technologies and additional models and calculators. Our team of data analysts collate this information centrally for quality assurance and processing into custom-made reports.
Each year, we use feedback from farmers and supply aggregators from the data campaign to improve the next campaign, ensuring we remain adaptive and responsive to the needs of our network and to emerging trends and technologies.
Reporting leadership and innovation
Data and Impact Team
LENs has a dedicated central team, who have developed the measurement, reporting and verification methodologies, from an initial pilot in 2023, to a fully scaled up and established system.
LENs also works closely with 3Keel who advise on latest evolutions in global carbon, biodiversity accounting and reporting frameworks.