School of Sustainable Food and Farming's Net Zero competition winners share latest on-farm innovations

Posted 3 April 2023

The four winners of the School of Sustainable Food and Farming’s Net Zero competition have each posted new vlogs documenting their project progress to date.

The competition, run in partnership with Farmers Guardian and supported by Morrisons, McDonalds, Trinity Ag Tech, Trinity Global Farm Pioneers and Bradford Estates, invited entrants to pitch – Dragon’s Den-style – for a share of a £50,000 prize fund to develop a new commercially viable, scalable and sustainable farming system or process.

Winning entrants were selected from a shortlist of eight, from an application pool of more than 60, at an event held at Harper Adams University in December.

Each of the four winners succeeded by persuading the judging panel they had the best plan for implementing a positive and measurable impact on how they farm. The winners were:

• Ben Adams

• Climate Spheres

• Mandy Stoker 

• Megan Wetherall 

Professor Michael Lee, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Harper Adams University, was among the competition’s judges.

He said: “Tackling the challenges of Net Zero requires fresh ideas and new approaches – that is both the driving force behind both the School of Sustainable Food and Farming and this competition.”

And Simon Thelwell, School of Sustainable Food and Farming Director, added: “We are excited to see the progress our winners are making with their innovations.

“We hope their example will benefit the whole of the food and farming sector, in terms of the learnings they take from these projects.

“Innovation of on-farm resource efficiency, critical review of farming practice and technological development will assure the food and farming sector now and for future generations.”

There will be further vlog updates recorded in May and June, when the winners begin to conclude their work.

Watch the winners' vlogs - and more - on the School's YouTube channel here.