UK crop producers have crowned their first Climate Change Champion. Tom Allen-Stevens reports.

Al Brooks has been awarded the accolade of CPM Climate Change Champion 2020, the first time such an award has been made to a UK arable farmer.

Estate director of the Faccombe Estate in Hants, he was selected by CPM readers from nine growers whose progress on their journey to net zero has been profiled in the magazine.

The estate follows an “edge-to-edge asset approach”, notes Al, with all aspects of its farming, forestry and other enterprises dovetailing together to build a truly sustainable community. Full details were featured in CPM March 2020 issue.


Al was announced as the overall carbon-friendly arable farmer of 2020 by Defra farming minister Victoria Prentis at a round table event, organised by CPM, on Thursday 29 October.

The event was hosted by NFU, which supports CPM’s Climate Change Champions initiative, and brought together the experiences of eight of the progressive champion farmers as well as views from across the arable sector on priorities for 2021 and beyond.

“This is our time,” noted NFU president Minette Batters who introduced the event.

“It’s a landmark moment with the Agriculture Bill coming through Parliament which will set the path for a new future. I’m really optimistic about our ambition to achieve net zero – to show that farmers are the solution to climate change is the key.”

Victoria added that the NFU target of zero emissions from agriculture by 2040 is “ambitious, but if others do as these [Climate Change Champion] farmers have done it is possible.”

The two-hour webinar event can be viewed in full below. Following brief introductions from Minette and Victoria, the eight Climate Change Champions summarise their priorities for their own farming systems.

After the presentation of the award to Al, Minette joins in discussion with the eight farmers. This opens to wider conversation with representatives from Climate Change Champion sponsors BASF, BKT, CF Fertilisers, Fendt, KWS, Interagro, Pöttinger and Small Robot Company. Matt Culley, NFU combinable crops chairman, joins the discussion and brings an update on the NFU net zero initiative.

Full coverage of the event will be published in the December 2020 issue of CPM. Climate Change Champions will continue into 2021, and CPM readers who feel they’ve made a pioneering change in how they run their farms will be invited to step forward.