By Lucinda Langton, M&S Head of Technology - Sustainability

At M&S, we know that the best food comes from the best farmers – the men and women dedicated to quality who take good care of their land and their animals.

M&S Select Farmers work hard to consistently deliver the best possible quality at the best possible price for our customers. This has been brilliantly showcased in our Farm to Foodhall campaign this summer with top chef Tom Kerridge unveiling the lengths they go to, to deliver food which doesn’t just taste good but is good for the planet as well. At M&S our Plan A target is to become a net zero business by 2040 and over 70% of M&S Food’s emissions comes directly from agriculture. Sustainable farming is not just a nice to have but a necessity for our business.

One of Tom’s latest visits was to an M&S Select Farm which produces some of our finest Collection Select Farm Single Apiary British Honey. Honeybees at over 30 different M&S Select Farms forage on everything from cherry trees to courgettes, resulting in Collection honey which comes in different colours and flavours unique to the farm - which is pretty special. But while honeybees support these farms and make our delicious Collection honey, it’s the wild pollinators and a thriving natural environment which are vital to stocking our shelves with a wide range of quality produce.

However this population is under significant threat with a 60% reduction in wild insects throughout the UK in the last 20 years, posing a major risk to biodiversity and the crops our farmers are able to produce. That’s why last year M&S launched an in-field sensor trial with Agrisound to help farmers better support pollinators like bumblebees and increase crop yields. The technology allows them to track the number of pollinators visiting their farm in real-time and target specific interventions like differing wildflower densities for improving numbers and improving yields and quality of crops and benefitting the wider environment.

Today we’ve made the exciting announcement that this technology is being scaled to a further 18 M&S Select Farms making up 8% of our growers. This will cover 120 habitats and over 1000 hectares and provide growers access to real-time data and insights to help set their farms up to be more nature friendly.

The extension of Agrisound is one example of the collective and innovative action we are taking as part of our Farming with Nature programme, launched in 2021 across 100% of our British Produce Select Farms, to help farmers address environmental challenges and protect biodiversity. Three years into the programme we are making good progress but have a lot still to do. Trialling new technologies to measure biodiversity and soil carbon is one of the key initiatives of the programme.

So far we have established five “Indicator and Innovation Farms” in our M&S UK fresh produce supply chain which are running science-based trials with partners the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and Fera Science, such as remote sensing through drone mapping, acoustic recording devices and environmental DNA.AH Worth in Lincolnshire, is a longstanding M&S potato supplier who is implementing regenerative agriculture practices at scale, such as reducing ploughing and tillage and integrating cover crops.

The project is measuring the impact of these changes to soil biodiversity and carbon increases, assessing the benefits of adopting regenerative agriculture approach. We are helping to scale learnings and support to more potato growers, funding cover crop trials and soil monitoring services.

This project informed a wider enquiry, led by Forum for the Future, into ways M&S can support the uptake of regenerative farming practices in our supply base. The programme also aims equip all our growers with expert sustainability advice and tools for their operations. This is crucial because biodiversity and encouraging nature is highly location-specific with each need plans unique to their farm and the landscape they are in.

To tackle this we established M&S grower groups in different regions across the UK led by 20 advisors from our partner organisations: The Wildlife Trusts and Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group.

To date our advisors have reached over 66% of our growers, delivering 140 individual remote sessions, 32 farm visits and 16 group events, investing and upskilling each of our M&S Select Farms in sustainable farming practices for them to implement. This is a good start and our aim is to reach as many of our Select Farms as possible. Arguably the most important element of the programme is to support biodiversity on-farm and protect and enhance 10,000 hectares of quality wildlife habitat across the UK.

M&S UK growers are already LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) Marque certified. Building on this strong programme of work, through our LEAF partnership we have introduced an improvement framework to boost biodiversity and reduce reliance on pesticides, with growers setting aside between 5-10% of habitat for wildlife and monitoring numbers of farmland birds and pollinators.

Through our Farming with Nature programme  9,500 hectares of habitats are being protected and enhanced across the UK, with the growers on average setting aside 7% of their farms to wildlife, delivering the biodiversity badly needed across our supply chain. But this is only the start of what’s to come under our Farming with Nature programme. Setting our farmers and production up to be more resilient to climate change is a crucial part of how we reduce our Scope 3 emissions and stay on track for our net zero goal.

The hard work they put in day in and day out to deliver food which is both delicious and good for the planet is remarkable. The Farm to Foodhall campaign lifts the lid on this and gives growers the recognition they deserve. Seeing them show their passion farming and nature gives me a real boost because I know the lengths they go to behind the scenes, and hopefully now you do too.