National Lottery: Great Fen wet farming experiment awarded £8m in funding

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded £8m to the Peatland Progress project in the Great Fen, Cambridgeshire

The UK's first major experiment in "wet farming" has been awarded £8m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Peatland Progress aims work to safeguard biodiversity across the Great Fen in Cambridgeshire.

Techniques will be used to grow crops without disturbing peat and releasing carbon stored within.

It will provide new jobs, training and community activities including connecting young people with mental health issues with nature.

The project aims to "keep carbon locked up" in the peat soils and "improve water quality".

The charity said the project will "transform the landscape and secure the future for people, peat soils and wildlife in the Fens"

Run by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, the project will receive £8,186,200 from the Heritage Horizon Awards.

Some of the money will be used to purchase land to bring together the north and south areas of the Great Fen.

Peatland Progress would provide a wet landscape "rich in wildlife", the trust said.

The trust has created field scale trials of wet farming to test new crops for food, healthcare and industry on the peat.

While peatlands cover 3% of the world's land surface, they hold 25% of the global soil carbon, "making them the world's most effective carbon stored holding", the trust said.

"However, if drained, they excessively emit carbon rather than storing it due to decomposition of organic matter."

Wet farming will be used to maintain the peat body.

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Kate Carver, Great Fen project manager, said: "Our project tackles some of the biggest challenges of the day ‒ climate change, biodiversity loss and the anxieties of the next generation in our post Covid world.

"We want to bring communities into the heart of the Great Fen, showing people that climate change is being tackled on their doorstep and empowering them to take action."