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Assessing the Mental Health Benefits of Walking the South West Coast Path

Natural England

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Production of comprehensive labour market information for the agricultural and horticultural sectors

TIAH

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Future Farming Resilience Fund Interim Phase Evaluation

DEFRA (via Ipsos MORI)

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Understanding Public Food Procurement in the HotSW region

Devon County Council

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Overcoming the Knowledge to Action Gap

Forest Research

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Farming resilience: civil society's role in supporting vulnerable rural communities through and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic

ESRC UKRI Covid Rapid Response

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Agricultural Wellbeing

Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI)

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A Helping Hand. Alternative sources of agricultural labour for farms in the U.K.

The Worshipful Company of Farmers and the John Oldacre Foundation

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Loneliness, social isolation and mental health in farming communities: An analysis of social and cultural factors

Loneliness and Social Isolation in Mental Health Network (funded by UKRI)

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Rural isolation and COVID-19: Faith, worship and social contact

ARC (Arthur Rank Centre)

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Food System Impacts of COVID-19

UKRI - ESRC

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Collaboration and Incentives Commission – Exploring the effectiveness of collaborative mechanisms, incentives and alternative approaches for delivering environmental outcomes at large spatial scales through ELM

Defra

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The Prince’s Countryside Fund: Livestock Auction Marts Research Project

The Prince's Countryside Fund and the John Oldacre Foundation Endowment

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NFU Mutual Farm and Rural Succession

NFUM

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Systems Change - Towards a Circular Economy SL-07647

EPSRC

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The viability of the UK family farm

Prince's Countryside Fund

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Environmental Effectiveness of the HLS Stewardship Scheme, resurvey SL-07102

Natural England via NERC CEH

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Sustainable Intensification Platform

DEFRA

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Evaluation of the Family Business Growth Programme as part of the Rural Growth Network

DEFRA

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Research to Inform the Farming Help Charities

Farm Crisis Network

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The Impact of Social Purpose Organisations on Skills and Training

South West Forum, Big Lottery Fund

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South West Agricultural Resource Management (SWARM)

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)/SWRDA

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Validation of Fertiliser Manual (RB209) recommendations for grassland

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)

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Economic Impact Assessment of Bovine Tuberculosis in the South West

National Farmers Union

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Processes of Technical Change in British Agriculture: Innovation in the Farming of South West England, 1935 - 1985

ESRC

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Farmcat - Improving the success of agri-environment initiatives

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

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Sustainable Rural Futures (SRF)

Devon County Council (DCC)

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Open Farm Sunday

Linking Environment And Farming

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Farm Incomes in Devon

Devon County Council

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PPRE - Slow Food Events

Duchy College

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Towards a Framework for GHG Emissions Reduction Strategy

Regional Environment Network

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Land - the New Debate - Workshop

Commission for Rural Communities

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Sustainable Food and Farming Strategy: Regional Indicator Analysis

South West Chamber of Rural Enterprise (SWCORE)

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Improving the Success of Agri-Environment Initiatives: the Role of Farmer Learning and Landscape Context

ERSC

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Entry to and exit from farming: implications for the well-being of farm household members in the South West

Griff Davies Legacy

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Profile

Photo of Professor Matt Lobley

Professor Matt Lobley

Professor of Rural Resource Management, Director of the CRPR

4539

01392 724539

Lazenby House G.02

I am a rural social scientist, with over 30 years of research experience, drawing primarily on the disciplines of Rural Sociology and Geography. I have a long-standing track record in the generation of external research income from a range of sources including Research Councils, Government Departments, NGOs, Charities and the private sector.  My research largely focuses on understanding influences on and impacts of farm household behaviour. In particular, my main interests relate to the role of farm households in the management of the countryside, for example, through exploring the impact of policy reform; attitudes towards agri-environmental policy; and the environmental and social impacts of agricultural restructuring. One of my main areas of expertise is in the mental health and well-being of farm households and family life-cycle and succession issues on family farms. I co-direct a collaborative international project (FARMTRANSFERS) exploring farm succession and retirement in a range of different social, economic and political contexts. Beyond agriculture and the environment, other research interests include the design and impact of rural development initiatives and, more broadly, the social sustainability of rural communities.

·       RENEW: Renewing biodiversity through a people-in-nature approach (2022-2027, NERC)

·       Labour market information for the agricultural and horticultural sectors (2021-2022, The Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture)

·       SFI Pilot: monitoring, evaluation and learning (2021-2025, Defra)

·       Farming resilience: civil society's role in supporting vulnerable rural communities through and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic (2021-2022, ESRC)

·       The Role of UK Livestock Auction Markets in Rural Communities (The Prince’s Countryside Fund, 2019-202

·       The well-being of agricultural communities in England and Wales (RABI 2020-21)

·       Loneliness, social isolation and mental health in farming communities: An analysis of social and cultural factors (ESRC 2021)

·       Food System Impacts of COVID-19 (ESRC 2020-21)

·       Collaboration and Incentive for Achieving environmental benefits at large spatial scales through Environmental Land Management (Defra 2020-21)

·       Sustainable Intensification Platform Project 2: Opportunities and risks for farming and the environment at landscape scales (Defra, 2014-2017)

·       Sustainable Intensification Platform Project 1: Integrated farm management for improved economic, environmental and social performance (Defra, 2014-2017)

 

  • Family Business Growth Programme (Defra, 2013-2014)
  • Monitoring the Brue Valley Living Landscape Landowner Advisory Service (Somerset Wildlife Trust, 2013)
  • Validation of fertiliser manual (RB209) recommendations for grasslands (Defra, 2012-2014)
  • Research to inform the farming help charities: agricultural trends in the SW and leaving farming (Farming Help Charities, 2012-13)
  • South West Agricultural Resource Management (Defra/SWRDA, 2012-2013)
  • The Impact of Social Purpose Organisations on skills and training in the Okehampton area (SW Forum/Big Lottery Fund, 2011-2013)
  • Making Land Available for Woodland Creation (Forestry Commission, 2011-2012)
  • A Review of Cornwall's Agri-food Industry (Cornwall Development Company, 2011)
  • Economic Impact Assessment of Bovine Tuberculosis in the South West (National Farmers Union, 2010)
  • Sustainable Rural Futures Research Programme (Devon County Council, 2009-2014)
  • Processes of Technical Change in British Agriculture: Innovation in the farming of South West England, 1935-1985 (ESRC, 2009-2013)
  • Griff Davies Legacy: Entry to and exit from farming: implications for the well-being of farm household members in the South West (2006-2014)
  • ESRC/RELU: Improving the success of agri-environment initiatives: the role of farmer learning and landscape context (with CEH, IGER & Reading, 2006-2011)
  • Food production, processing and distribution in Cornwall (Objective 1/Taste of the West, 2006)
  • Green Futures: Practical environmental enhancements in the South West's improved grasslands (with IGER, 2005-2006). Funded through the SW Regional Food and Farming Strategy
  • Social implications of changes in the structure of agricultural businesses (DEFRA, 2004-05)
  • Rural Stress Review (Rural Stress Information Network, 2003-2004)
  • The contribution of organic farming to the rural economy (DEFRA, 2003-05)
  • Environmental and economic implications of changes in the structure of agricultural business (DEFRA, 2001-02)
  • Family farming on the edge? Adaptability and change in farm households (Co Ag, 2001-02)

Research supervision

I am currently supervising the following PhD researchers:

Jo Furtado: Predicting future cultural and natural heritage scenarios on common land

Skylar Collins: Understanding risk, safety and mental health challenges in UK small-scale fisheries

Jill Lidgey: The place of the traditional market in Dorset: a contemporary study of Bridport and Dorchester

Aoife Maher: Overcoming barriers to increased horticultural production in existing agricultural enterprises: understanding the perspective of Devon’s growers – past, present and future

Hannah Mortimer: Do Not Feed the Animals? Ordering animal feeding from local to global

 

Successfully completed PhDs include:

·       Catherine Broomfield: Towards a social licence to farm: An Aristotelian approach to

farmers’ engagement with nonfarming people

 

  • Jen Clements: Farming, Labour and Landscape
  • Charlotte Chivers: Exploring farmers’ attitudes to on-farm control measures of water pollution
  • Beth Dooley: Policies to Build Resilience in UK agriculture.
  • Ginny Thomas: Thin end of the world / thin end of the wedge: Farmer attitudes to, and engagement with, rewilding projects in south western England
  • Polly Lord: The atypical employment law rights of agricultural workers in small-medium farms: what is reasonably practicable?
  • Caroline Nye: Agricultural Labour in the UK: Change and Challenge in the Transition to Sustainable Intensification. (Funded by the John Oldacre Foundation)
  • Georgina Crossman: The Organisational Landscape of the English Horse Industry: a Contrast with Sweden and the Netherlands.
  • Gordon Morris: People helping people - An assessment of the market towns and related initiatives and the extent to which they addressed rural poverty.
  • Hannah Chiswell: Rising to the Food Security Challenge.  An Investigation into the Impact of the Food Security Agenda on Farmers and their Successors in the South West of England. (Funded by the John Oldacre Foundation)

 

External impact and engagement

I regularly work with a range of businesses and non-academic partners in the funding and delivery of research and am committed to research that makes a difference in the world outside of academia. I am the co-author of two REF impact case studies and am Director of Business Engagement and Innovation in  the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology. I have been a member of Defra advisory panels, board member of rural and environmental charities and my work on small family farms (funded by the Prince’s Countryside Fund) influenced the development of the Prince’s Farm Resilience Programme and subsequently Defra’s Future Farming Resilience programme. I am a member of the Council of The Institute of Agricultural Management.

 

Biography

Matt Lobley BA Hons (CNAA), PG cert (Plym), MSc (Lond) PhD (Lond) is Professor of Rural Resource Management and Co-Director of the Centre for Rural Policy Research at the University of Exeter.  He was appointed in 2002.

 

Between 1998 and 2002 he was Senior Lecturer in Countryside Management at the University of Plymouth (Seale-Hayne campus), and between 1989 and 1998 Research Assistant/Research Fellow at Wye College, University of London.

 

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