Farmers
Calling all farmers, landowners and land managers
We know that generating income from land is tough, however the RAIN project is offering the opportunity for you to increase the productivity of your land and receive funding, while also helping your local community to reduce the impact of flooding through natural flood management programmes.
Working in partnership with Tristan Baxter-Smith, an experienced Northamptonshire farm manager, business owner and former land advisor for the Nene Rivers Trust, we are working in the Wootton Brook and Harpers Brook catchments to bring together landowners and farmers with the Landscape Enterprise Network (LENs). The aim is to identify pockets of land where funding could be available for nature-based solutions, which creates a joined-up ecosystem and helps towards flood prevention for surrounding communities.
Meet Tris
Tristan Baxter-Smith is an experienced farm manager and business owner. He took on his family’s Northamptonshire farm in 2015, which has been farmed by his ancestors for the past 120 years, and has a wealth of experience in the agricultural and sustainability sectors.
Tris oversees LENs (Landscape Enterprise Networks) and is supporting RAIN to deliver environmental benefits to farmland and communities, while identifying funding opportunities. As part of the project, Tris has been visiting farmers, landowners and land managers to discuss the project and how the LENs funding works. He has also hosted informal Surgery Drop-In sessions to answers questions about the project.
GET INVOLVED
Natural Flood Management
Natural flood management – also known as NFM – is when natural methods are used to help reduce flood risk by slowing the flow of water or capturing and storing water in the land. NFM mimics natural hydrological processes to reduce water ‘run off’, which may impact communities downstream.
Importantly, natural flood management can create a range of other benefits such as soil quality improvement, improved crop resilience, habitat creation, carbon storage, water quality improvement and even wellbeing benefits for local residents. Nature plays a vital role in creating future resilience.
Increase your land’s productivity
“If we can make the ground more healthy through NFM, the soil will become more efficient at storing water, which will help to reduce or prevent flooding downstream in our communities.”
Tristan Baxter-Smith
What is LENs?
Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs) is a unique, farmer-led initiative that identifies and creates viable, long-term nature recovery projects between funders, for example local businesses, and landowners and farmers. It is an innovative approach that helps to fund diverse projects, for example tree planting, cover cropping or direct drilling.
What makes LENs special is that it brokers transactions that benefit the entire community:
1. Local Businesses: identifies environmentally-friendly initiatives for businesses wishing to invest in local initiatives, as part of their carbon reduction or net zero commitments
2. Landowners & Farmers: creates funding for unused or unproductive land to be repurposed or improved for NFM schemes
3. Local Communities: supports the community’s long-term flood management plan.
LENs creates local trading networks where buyers with a common interest in nature-based solutions are linked up and matched with groups of land owners, managers and farmers who can deliver measurable outcomes.
Get Involved
Looking to potentially add value to your land or farming business, as well as deliver environmental benefits to your community – and all while increasing your resilience to climate change? Fill in your details below and one of the team will be in touch.
Working in collaboration with
