HGCA’s newest Nuffield Scholar is to research the potential of companion cropping in UK arable systems.

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For the next 18 months Andrew Howard, a farmer from Kent, will study examples of farms across the world which use companion cropping, both arable and non-arable.

Companion cropping is the practice of growing two or more plant species in the same field at the same time, and includes intercropping, undersowing, relay cropping and pasture cropping. This includes cases where only one of the plant species is harvested, as well as where both crops are harvested.

Andrew Howard farms 345ha in a family partnership near Ashford, Kent, growing winter and spring wheat, winter and spring oilseed rape, spring oats, spring barley, winter barley, and field beans. His soils range from heavy weald clay to light sand. Andrew is a committee member of BASE UK, and member of LEAF and the Institute of Agricultural Management.

Andrew said, "I chose this topic because we’re already doing a lot of work on our farm to try and improve our soils, from no-till to cover cropping. We’ve got mixed species in our cover crops, and I want to see whether this will work in our cash crops. Companion cropping is a natural progression from what we’re doing so far.

"Another reason for choosing this subject is that we’re also facing increased input costs. There is evidence that companion cropping could reduce a farm’s fertiliser and herbicide usage, and so it could also be a way of reducing our cost of growing crops."

The research comes at an appropriate time; 2015 has been designated by the UN as International Year of Soils, in a bid to increase awareness and understanding of the importance of soil for food security and essential ecosystem functions.

Andrew has run small-scale trials of companion cropping for the last three years, after hearing French farmer Frédéric Thomas from Conservation Agriculture in Brittany speak on his experiments with companion cropping in 2012.

"The trials worked quite well," he said. "I’ve grown small areas of oilseed rape with vetches or a vetch and buckwheat mix, primarily on medium soils, and found the rape was better established, had better rooting, and we were able to reduce our herbicide usage, compared with our normal cropping. When I tried growing Peola (spring oilseed rape and spring peas together), for that trial, it gave us a better gross margin than the spring rape by itself. I've also tried undersowing spring cereals with clover, which hasn’t been successful yet."

"With a Nuffield Scholarship I get to meet the best people around the world working on this and get more ideas on best practices. I want to find out what can and can’t work, and why."

Andrew hopes in the long term to have a farm system which is self-sustaining, with healthy soils and minimum fertiliser and herbicide inputs.

"I want to keep improving the soils on my own farm and help other UK farmers to do likewise. Around the world during the last 60 years soils have been degraded, and I'd like to think that in the next 60 years I can help us to improve them again."

Andrew's work follows two previous HGCA-sponsored Nuffield Scholars, Tom Sewell (2013) and Russell McKenzie (2014), who researched different aspects of no-till.

On what he hopes to gain from being a Nuffield Scholar, Andrew said, "A lot of it is the experience of meeting amazing people around the world. Being a Nuffield Scholar opens doors to see things I wouldn’t usually see and to meet with the global leaders in this field. Also, to bring back to the farm ideas on how to improve our cropping and costs, and even adding value to the crops at the same time. In the future it’ll give me a network of other Nuffield Scholars to keep in contact with and learn from."

During the 18 months of his scholarship, Andrew will write regular blogs for hgca.com, and can be found tweeting @farmerandyh.