Assessment of the land use implications of innovation in agricultural production

In 2024, Work Package 1 – the Agile Policy Centre – commissioned this research report to better understand how innovations in production methods could impact land use over the longer term.

This project built on a previously commissioned foresight study by Vivid Economics, which aimed to improve understanding of agri-food innovation developments. It focused on seven innovation areas (with innovation referring broadly to changes to existing practices, operationally and behaviourally as well as technologically) and considered their likely impact on a range of environmental indicators, of which one was land use.

This current research utilises a similar approach of grouping agri-food innovations into broad themes, and the choice of themes is heavily based on the earlier study, but the current review has a narrower focus on the innovations’ impacts on land use, and specifically how these impacts could occur in the UK context.

Land use change is a key consideration for environmental policy and a better understanding of how environmental and innovation drivers might interact was desired. Read on in the report to understand the land use implications of innovation in agricultural production.

Click here to read the full report.