Game Changers: Rob Shepherd, the ecosystems innovator

Rob Shepherd, chairman of the Environmental Farmers Group (EFG), has been nominated for our special Game Changers Award, which will be announced at Farmers Weekly Awards on 3 October 2024.

In an age when society demands ever more from farmers, Rob Shepherd believes growers and livestock producers must be fairly rewarded for looking after the environment – as well as producing food.

The Environmental Farmers Group (EFG), which brings farmers together in groups or clusters to secure the best environmental results and financial returns by providing ecosystem services on a ­landscape scale.

See also: Game Changers – Amy Jackson, farming media campaigner

Working closely with Teresa Dent of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, in 2013 Rob became the lead farmer of the UK’s first cluster group.

The group brought farmers together across 2,500ha of the Avon catchment in Hampshire and Wiltshire.

“We all agreed that we wanted to determine our own destiny,” he says.

“We had all been involved in farm conservation schemes since the 1990s, and although we were being paid, we felt we were being told to conserve by numbers.

Farmer-led

“Our experience was that diktats from on high don’t really work in the same way across a different variety of landscapes. So we wanted a less prescriptive type of approach to conservation – something more farmer-led.”

Rather than being told what to do, the group opted to decide its own priorities, set its own parameters, and choose which species to encourage.

More like-minded farmers joined, and the initial cluster has since grown to encompass 7,500ha. Similar groups have followed.

The farmer-owned EFG was then launched to help other farmers set up their own clusters by targeting a mix of private and public funding – including Environmental Land Management.

So far, more than 560 farmers have joined the EFG, working in regional groups to reverse biodiversity loss, deliver clean water and sequester carbon across more than 267,000ha – equivalent to 3% of England’s farmland.

Many benefits

Rob says: “We all share the same philosophy, which is that the farmers know what is best for their land.

“They decide what species they want to encourage and work out the conservation accordingly. Rather than top down, it’s bottom up.”

Working in groups has other benefits, too. It means each cluster can tailor the ecosystem services it provides and the environmental benefit it delivers to the local area it serves – in the way best suited to the farmers involved.

With the Basic Payment Scheme being phased out, natural capital will become an increasingly important revenue stream for farmers, says Rob.

So too will be attracting corporate investment – which is easier when farmers work together.

“What better vision can there be for farmers than unlocking private money to pay for conservation, get guaranteed conservation outcomes in return, and not bother the taxpayer?”