A Kent fruit farming family that found a way to protect the future of the business by partnering with a charity that tackles food waste is now putting numbers to that story with an ambitious research programme.
By partnering with The Felix Project, HE Hall & Son have not only found a new way to retain their 50 acres of apple, pear and plum trees, but also eliminated food waste and fed thousands of people in need.
Now they are working with the LUNZ Footprint Project which aims to reveal the climate benefits of low-input, nature-friendly farming while shaping the future of UK carbon policy.
What is the LUNZ Project?
The Cool Farm Alliance is a leading partner on an ambitious new research programme that aims to help scale ghg footprinting while also shaping the future of the UK’s carbon footprint strategy.
The Land Use To Net Zero Greenhouse Gas Accounting Project (LUNZ Footprint) research programme* is a collaborative project led by the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) and Cranfield University, involving 100 farmers, three calculator providers, researchers and land agents across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The project is investigating how greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting tools, like the Cool Farm Platform, can be scaled sustainably and equitably, helping reduce GHG emissions and support a net zero transition.
Ultimately, it’s hoped the programme can help to build capacity and net zero literacy, predict carbon sequestration by hedges and trees, validate methods, and address governance and equity issues.
Cool Farm’s Role
The Cool Farm Alliance is one of the key partners in the programme and has partnered with 28 farmers across England, Scotland, and Wales for the project.
By working side by side with farmers to complete their own GHG assessments using the Cool Farm Tool and Cool Farm Platform over the next two years, the participants will get unique insights into their farming practices, peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and will ensure the farmers’ voice is heard in the shaping of national carbon policy.
Meet one of the LUNZ farmers
Peter Hall, owner of family run business HE Hall & Son Ltd, has been tending orchards in Marden for more than forty years. Today, he manages 170 hectares of land, all in environmental schemes, on the Low Weald floodplain in Kent; over half is certified organic. Some of the apple trees are almost a century old but are still producing fruit and are a reference point for the family’s identity as growers.
For years, their organically grown apples were tree-ripened and sold through multiple retailers, organic box schemes, and wholesale markets. In recent seasons however, unpredictable weather, rising production costs, and falling market prices have rendered this model increasingly fragile. Rather than grub up the orchards, the family looked for an alternative approach that would preserve them whilst at the same time deliver a small but meaningful income.
This came through a partnership with The Felix Project, a London-based food charity. In the autumn of 2023, over a thousand volunteers from more than fifty London based companies came to the farm over just two months to harvest the apples, pears and plums. Everything that was sound was delivered as fresh fruit, everything that was unsuitable for immediate consumption was picked and juiced; 100% of the crop was saved.
The fruit is delivered to Felix depots and distributed, also by volunteers, free of charge, to London’s citizens experiencing food insecurity. By tailoring picking specifications to the crop on the tree, every piece of fruit found a home; there was zero waste and the small Defra payments delivered via The Sustainable Farming Initiative and guaranteed up to harvest 2028 ensure that the orchards continue to thrive as a haven for biodiversity as well as producing healthy nutritious food.
For Peter, joining the LUNZ project was a way to hopefully confirm what he had long believed, that traditional orchards, managed with care, could have a very low – or even negative – greenhouse gas footprint. The orchards are lightly grazed by the farm’s small flock of Kent ewes generating natural fertility, and with no chemical inputs, the system is simple, circular, and resilient.
Peter says: “Whilst the Defra Sustainable Farming Initiative funding has enabled us to retain the orchards so iconic to The Garden of England and deliver food to those most in need, we felt that we wanted empirical evidence as to the extent that these semi-permanent structures deliver on a range of environmental criteria over and above increased bio-diversity, from carbon capture to GHG emissions; the LUNZ project has provided us with that opportunity”
About Cool Farm Platform
The Cool Farm Alliance is a global non-profit membership organisation that brings together farmers, food companies, NGOs, and researchers to support sustainable agriculture.
At its heart is the new Cool Farm Platform, a leading on-farm assessment tool that helps the entire supply chain, from farmers to retailers, to measure greenhouse gas emissions.
By putting data directly into the hands of growers, the Platform empowers them to understand the environmental impact of their practices, identify opportunities for improvement, and share credible results with supply chain partners.
More resilient and scalable, agile and futureproof, the Cool Farm Platform is leading the way in creating a unified, global methodology for measuring sustainability in supply chains.
Stay updated on the LUNZ Footprint Project:
Visit the LUNZ website for the latest programme updates or Follow Cool Farm on LinkedIn to keep up with project news.
* The LUNZ Footprint project (BB/Z516351/1) is part of the ʻTransforming Land Use for Net Zero, Nature and Peopleʼ (LUNZ) programme, co-funded and supported by UKRI, Defra, DESNZ, DAERA, the Scottish Government, and the Welsh Government.
