What’s Living on Your Land?

After a tough summer, we’re inviting farmers, growers and anyone curious about nature to take a closer look at what’s living around them.

It’s been a pretty tough summer for a lot of farmers.

Record heat, very little rain in many places and difficult growing conditions have made this a challenging year. As harvest comes in, it got us thinking about everything else that’s been happening on the land alongside the crops.

What’s growing in the field margins? What’s buzzing around the hedgerows? Which birds, butterflies and other wildlife are making a home there?

And, perhaps most importantly, how do you know if things are changing?

That’s where our Biodiversity Toolkit comes in.

Getting to know what’s on your land

Biodiversity simply means the variety of life around us, from plants and insects to birds, mammals, fungi and all the life in our soils.

We know that biodiversity surveying can sound rather technical. So we’ve tried to make it anything but.

Our free Biodiversity Toolkit is designed for farmers, growers, community groups and anyone with an interest in nature. You don’t need specialist knowledge or lots of equipment. You can simply choose a survey, follow the guidance and see what you find.

The idea is to give you a starting point. Come back and repeat the survey another time and you can begin to build a picture of what’s changing on your land.

That matters because healthy biodiversity can support pollinators, natural pest control, soil health and more resilient farming systems.

After the summer we’ve just had, resilience feels particularly relevant.

This is where we need your help

We’ve spent the past few months developing and testing the Toolkit and we’ve already had some really useful feedback.

Farmers have told us how important it is that it stays practical and easy to use alongside the realities of running a farm. Other testers have told us that having everything in one place has given them the confidence to get outside and have a go themselves.

But now we’d really like to hear from more of you.

Have a read. Try a survey if you can. Then tell us what you think.

Was it easy to follow? Is there anything that didn’t make sense? Would you actually use it? Is there something we’ve missed?

Please be honest. This is exactly the kind of feedback we need to make the Toolkit genuinely useful.

A little thank you from us

As a thank you, everyone who completes our feedback form and leaves their address will receive a bee-friendly seed mix from Vital Seeds.

You’ll also be entered into our prize draw to win two tickets to Groundswell 2027.

And if you fancy getting outside and trying one of the surveys, send us a photo of you doing it and you’ll get an extra entry into the draw.

Entries close on the 31st October 2026.

Whether you farm hundreds of acres, grow on a smaller patch, help with a community project or are simply curious about the wildlife around you, we’d love you to take a look.

Read the Biodiversity Toolkit, give it a go and tell us what you think.

Your feedback really will help us make it better.