Experiment
Collective Intelligence for Landscapes
Coordinate farmers, evidence and interventions around shared landscape outcomes rather than isolated farm-level actions.
01
Problem to address
Environmental outcomes often operate at catchment or landscape scale while interventions and payments are administered farm by farm. Individual optimisation may not produce a coherent ecological outcome.
02
What the evidence tells us
Schemes are designed around the farm, but outcomes happen at landscape scale. People want coordinated action along a valley, not isolated farm-by-farm choices.
03
The proposition to explore
The idea
Help neighbouring actors coordinate interventions around shared landscape outcomes, using connected evidence to reveal where collective action could create greater value.
04
Hypothesis
If neighbouring actors can see a shared outcome picture and explore coordinated interventions, Defra may achieve more environmental value than through isolated option selection.
05
How it could work
Create a shared landscape view showing outcome needs, existing actions and gaps. Allow farmers and advisers to explore combinations of interventions, with AI helping identify complementarities and likely bottlenecks.
06
Example: bring it to life
Four neighbouring farms each consider modest actions. The system shows that together they could form a continuous habitat corridor and identifies the missing link where one additional intervention has disproportionate value.
07
AI opportunity
Optimisation, scenario generation, evidence synthesis and coordination support. AI can help explore combinations, but collective choices and incentives must remain human and policy-led.
08
Potential value
- Landscape-scale impact
- Better coordination of public investment
- More meaningful local collaboration
- Potential alignment of administrative boundaries with ecological reality
09
Reduce uncertainty without overcommitting
Smallest meaningful experiment
Work with one existing farm cluster. Use a simple shared landscape map and facilitated scenario session before adding AI. Test whether coordinated planning changes intervention choices.
10
Open questions and risks
What we still need to learn
- Collective action and incentives are hard
- Data sharing between farms may be sensitive
- Optimisation must not override local autonomy