Informing contemporary UK land use policy through a sustainability assessment of farming systems in the medieval and early modern period

Context Achieving sustainable land use within the farmed environment – defined as enabling a multi-functional landscape producing food security and life supporting ecosystem services – is proving an intractable public policy challenge in the UK. Dialogue between opposing viewpoints has never been more polarised. The premise of our project is that there are valuable lessons available from the verifiable past to inform the debate and help unblock the current impasse. Insight from the UK’s unusually well-preserved records of land-management remains an untapped resource able to sharpen the focus of current scenario planning. Whilst our proposed research localities are within England, the results will have UK wide relevance (and beyond). The challenge Environmental scientists describe achieving sustainable land use as a ‘wicked’ problem, characterised by ill defined and contested aims and objectives. This tension is exemplified by two very different implementation visions: the ‘land sharing’ model (food production and the production of environmental 'goods' coexist on the same land) and the ‘land sparing’ alternative (land parcel allocation for either food or environment). Viewpoints have become entrenched preventing stakeholders from coalescing around an agreed action plan. Aims/objectives The project will provide a systematic sustainability appraisal of land use systems at different historical reference periods providing insights into changes over time. This review will be complemented by an analysis of the geo-physical, socio-economic, technical and political drivers that shaped these systems. By cross referencing the sustainability appraisal with the drivers analysis, it will be possible to better understand the relationship between these variables. A new methodologically sophisticated historical assessment can play a pivotal role in helping to visualise and define what an (un)sustainable land use system looks like in practice. The provision of historical 'reference points' will help to release stakeholders from predetermined positions and consider new ways of thinking in relation to definitions of sustainability. By analysing historical system drivers, both endogenous and exogenous to the farm, it will be possible to use the past to highlight examples of enabling conditions and barriers to sustainability outcomes. Our ultimate goal is to provide insight into how this learning can be applied within a 21st century context. Application/benefits This research has multiple real-world applications - see letters of support. For example, a better understanding of the relationship between historical (un)sustainable land use scenarios and different top-down/bottom-up governance regimes will inform policy makers currently designing institutional arrangements to facilitate land use change. Crucially, our research will provide a new space (new ideas) where government, farmers, conservationists and other voices (e.g. consumer, animal welfare, greenspace interest groups) can constructively (re)engage to design optimal land use trajectories. For farmers and their advisors, the project will provide historical insight into topics such as share farming opportunities, nutrient optimisation, agro-forestry, business diversification and farmer collaboration models; all of which are pertinent to current sustainability pathway discussions. Our analytical architecture will provide landscape historians and archaeologists with a new methodology to better understand the forces that shaped the sustainability of farming systems from the medieval to the early modern period.