The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has gone out to tender with a contract for soil sampling and analysis at 170 farms across the UK for an Environmental Baselining Pilot (including analysis to inform the risk of runoff) worth an estimated £2 million.

The contract is being tendered via the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which acts as AHDB’s ‘sponsor’ Government department. AHDB is a statutory levy board, funded by farmers, growers and others in the supply chain.

AHDB is undertaking environmental baselining work on a network of farms comprising approximately 170 farms where it aims to establish a net carbon balance, taking account of GHG emissions and carbon sequestration (above and below ground) and capture a range of metrics of relevance to evaluating natural capital and monitoring the environmental impact of different land management approaches.

AHDB is seeking a partner to provide soil sampling and analysis services to inform the assessment of:

a) soil carbon stocks

b) soil nutrients, texture and biological indicators

Soil nutrients are included not only to inform nutrient status in terms of soil health and in relation to carbon stocks but also to inform the risk of runoff when combined with LIDAR generated run-off risk maps.

The suite of data collection being undertaken includes LIDAR scanning to estimate above ground carbon stocks and provide run-off risk maps, soil sampling to indicate soil carbon stocks and soil health, carbon footprinting to understand the GHG emissions for the farm, and work will also explore the potential for remote sensing technology to provide more frequent and lower cost carbon stock assessments.

For this tender, AHDB are seeking a partner to provide soil sampling and analysis services to inform the assessment of:

a) soil carbon stocks

b) soil nutrients, texture and biological indicators

AHDB are looking for the following two deliverables, which will need different approaches, particularly in relation to sampling intensity and sampling depth:

a. Assessing soil organic carbon stocks on mixed farms in Great Britain

b. Assessing soil nutrients, texture and biological indicators

Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate is 20 September 2024 – click here to access the tender documentation.