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Shaping UK land use (Green Alliance)

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https://green-alliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Shaping-UK-land-use.pdf

In this report, we model five land use scenarios that restore nature, achieve net zero carbon emissions and
provide good food, each prioritising different goals:

relying on engineered greenhouse gas removals to offset high residual emissions from farming, instead of restoring habitats that also sequester carbon, would add £100 billion to the cost of net zero to the taxpayer by 2050.

By contrast, funding farmers to manage land for nature and the climate would make most of them better off and cost the taxpayer 1.6 times less overall

Reducing meat and dairy consumption makes achieving other farming goals easier, including raising farm incomes, restoring nature, carbon sequestration, limiting taxpayer costs and increasing self-sufficiency. In our recommended scenario, Meat consumption falls by 45 per cent by 2050, with most processed meat and dairy
(half the UK’s total meat and dairy consumption) replaced with alternative proteins. most processed meat and dairy, which make up half the UK’s consumption, are replaced by alternative proteins. In this scenario, unprocessed meat like a Sunday roast would come from high welfare UK livestock, but most processed meat, like burgers, would be plant-based, but taste like beef.

High yield farming is retained on land best suited to food production, cutting UK dependence on imported produce by half.

Our third insight is that payments for wildlife friendly farming are a cost effective way to increase populations of farm-adapted species and grow food on the same areas of land. In our recommended scenario, wildlife friendly, agroecological farming would expand by a factor of 20 to include most farmed land.

In our recommended balanced priorities scenario, 62 per cent of farmers would receive a greater financial return than they do now, despite farm income support subsidies being replaced by ‘public money for public goods’ transactions. In this scenario, farmers are paid to create enough well managed native woodland, restored peatland and habitats like extensively grazed heath, scrub and acid grassland

Incomes increase for 62 per cent of farms. Taxpayer costs £158 billion to 2050. By 2030, ten per cent of
currently farmed land becomes semi-natural habitat, helping to meet the government’s ‘30x30’ nature goal.20 By 2050, this rises to a third of currently farmed land.

Other Scenarios

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Other notes

They find that its far better to keep high yield farmland as it is, and converting low yield to forest and wildlife habitats is much better than flat application of agro-ecological farming to everywhere.

They use a "3 compartment" framework:

This means the 40% mid-yield farmland produces 30% of food.

A bit of nature goes a long way

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Changing land use on farms in Less Favoured Areas
In 2020-21, a 126 hectare farm in a Less Favoured Area (LFA) lost an average £4,900 a year from farming (not including unpaid labour). With unconditional subsidy, it had a return of £24,400.12 Farms like this could improve their financial returns under reformed policy if they focused on farming carbon and nature, rather than food. we assume the upfront costs of woodland planting continue to be covered by the Woodland Creation Grant Scheme, and that farmers and land managers are paid at a rate that increases their financial return by 20 per cent, even without basic payments. That means this farm would be paid £232 per hectare a year to manage woodland for nature and carbon outcomes. Doing so would increase the farmer’s return by 20 per cent to £29,280 a year and is compatible with low levels of livestock

Their Model