Agricultural environmental management

Helping you to protect soil and water quality
Ricardo can provide you with the agricultural and environmental expertise needed to deliver sustainable solutions at local or national level. Our management services will help you ensure long term access to water resources; improve soil quality; encourage species diversity; and develop a sustainable and resilient agricultural industry.

Our team has extensive experience in the development of both UK and European policy impacting agriculture. Our work includes improving the efficiency of nutrient use and optimising pesticide use while minimising the associated negative impacts. We engage and facilitate a broad range of industry stakeholders and apply the most up-to date research from academia, policymakers and business to manage finite resources.

Our resource management services include:

• Economic evaluation of measures to reduce the environmental impacts of pesticides and fertilisers.
• Advisory service on the simultaneous implementation of both UK and EU policy.
• Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping and modelling of risks.
• Flood and drought management.
• River restoration catchment planning.
• Water quality monitoring and evaluation.
• Management of diffuse pollution (e.g. agricultural land, forestry, septic tanks).
• Policy advice on compliance with EU Water Framework Directive.
• Auditing of water consumption, and strategy on the implementation of water efficiency.
• Water abstraction licencing and policy advice.

Understanding soil composition to deliver a sustainable agricultural system
Ricardo’s soil and nutrient experts can provide you with the scientific and economic insight you need to implement sustainable solutions for your agricultural operation.

Soil science
We help clients evaluate the composition of their soil and implement rigorous soil management practices. We can help you improve water retention to mitigate flooding; reduce the impact of wind erosion; and support your fertiliser and nutrient decision-making, providing insights into how these resources will interact with your soil.

Our team draws upon an extensive knowledge of farm systems and agricultural policies. This ensures that we provide you with holistic analysis and advice, enabling you to use resources more efficiently while protecting the natural environment.

Efficient nutrient use
Using nutrients efficiently minimises financial costs and environmental impacts while ensuring optimal agricultural output.

Ricardo can help you understand how different fertilisers and nutrients will interact with your soil, and how this will affect your yield. We will provide you with economic evidence to support your decision-making, highlighting the financial implications of introducing organic and inorganic products to your farm.

Our experts have a comprehensive understanding of the associated environmental quality issues. We can support your planning decisions, delivering environmental impact assessments and provide leading advice on how to protect air and water quality.

Our soil science and nutrient use services include:

• Nutrient management evaluation, review, planning and advisory services.
• Environmental impact assessment of changes to nutrient use.
• Evaluation of the nutrient losses off-farm.
• Cost-benefit analysis of changes to soil management and nutrient use.
• Evaluation of the effectiveness of soil protection measures.
• Soil carbon investigation and evaluation.

Providing expert advice and support
Ricardo can help you provide farmers with up-to-date sustainable information. Our experience delivering agricultural awareness raising campaigns, advice programmes, stakeholder engagement and one to one training, ensures that we facilitate effective knowledge transfer and behaviour change.

We can help you equip farmers with the tools they need to understand and respond to environmental and productivity risks, such as fertiliser availability and its impact on water quality. Clients have benefited from our help delivering educational support on topics such as business management, resource protection, agricultural regulation, land management schemes, agronomy, soil management, nutrient management and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Our agricultural training services include:

• Event facilitation and co-ordination.
• Marketing and stakeholder engagement.
• Preparation of technical training material.
• Data collection, analysis and presentation of statistics.
• Technical helpline management.
• Chairing of workshops.

Delivering sustainability and resilience throughout your supply chain
Ricardo can help you understand the future trends in agriculture, to enable you to take informed decisions that build resilience into your food supply chain. This includes mitigating physical risks such as flooding and drought, as well as building a low-carbon supply chain to meet customers’ expectations for sustainable products.

We work with farmers, growers and other supply chain stakeholders to minimise the amount of food that is lost at the farm stage. We can offer a fully comprehensive package of waste identification and reduction from farm to final outlet, e.g. retailer or hospitality business. Ricardo has a number of agricultural and horticultural production experts who have great insight into the sources of on-farm food losses for different crops.

Clients benefit from our expertise in climate adaptation, policy development, emissions mitigation and resource efficiency that delivers comprehensive risk assessments and cost effective solutions.

Services we provide include:

• Supply chain planning for climate change.
• Independent communication of production issues to stakeholders.
• Carbon and water footprinting.
• Quantification and reduction of on-farm food losses.
• Supply chain waste reduction strategy.
• Emissions mitigation strategies.