Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.This is a mixed-methods data collection. The study is part of the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme. Changing land cultivation from conventional to organic practices can have significant impacts on environmental factors such as wildlife, soil and water quality, as well as change the ways in which food is supplied, the economics of farm business and indeed the attitudes of farmers themselves. A factor that is little understood is how these depend on the scale and concentration of alternative farming systems across the landscape, from local up to the national scale. This project addresses two key questions: What causes organic farms to be arranged in clusters at local, regional and national scales, rather than be spread more evenly throughout the landscape? How do the ecological, hydrological, socio-economic and cultural impacts of organic farming vary due to neighbourhood effects at a variety of scales.The project will undertake an intensive study of existing clustered and isolated organic farms, and their surrounding neighbourhoods, to address these questions. It will culminate in mapping out some alternative scenarios for future growth of the organic sector in the UK, and evaluate the potential positive and negative effects that different patterns of organic cultivation might have, at a variety of scales, in the future. In the SCALE project, we are interested in the way in which organic subcultures are developed at the local level, with implications for the future development of organic farming. The research was undertaken in 2006-2007. Qualitative interviews were undertaken in two study sites: one in the English Midlands, and one in southern England. Both are sites in which organic farming has a 'strong' local presence, which we defined as 10 per cent or more organically managed land within a 10 km radius. Potential organic farming respondents were identified through membership...