I research the best ways of farming for people, the planet, and the animals we farm. My research interests were sparked by concerns about tradeoffs in our farming systems – it is commonly perceived that systems that use less land (and so are better for biodiversity) perform worse in other ways. E.g. they have higher carbon footprints, use more antimicrobials, and have poorer animal welfare. I found that these tradeoffs were largely assumed – very few systems and externalities had been empirically and systematically tested. My work aims to fill these gaps; to identify if and where tradeoffs among externalities exist.
My work applies interdisciplinary methods to enable and facilitate informed decision-making about the types of farm we should be promoting. I lead the HESTIA farm trials, which aim to find ways to reduce the impacts of farms at scale. I am running the first robust tests of the effects of giving farmers information on their impacts, which are currently focused on European pigs, dairy, and crops, Brazilian beef, Kenyan maize, and Vietnamese shrimp. I specialise in making empirical and systematic comparisons of outcomes for the climate, biodiversity, animal welfare, and emerging infectious disease risks.
I am an interdisciplinary scientist working on figuring out and incentivising the best ways to farm for people, the planet, and the animals we farm. My background is in preclinical veterinary medicine, which I studied at the University of Cambridge. I then worked at CSIRO, Brisbane on climate mitigation in red meat systems. My PhD focused on comparing the carbon footprint, biodiversity impacts, antimicrobial use, and animal welfare of a broad range of UK and Brazilian pig production systems - from intensive through to organic systems. I identified the types of farms that best limit negative externalities. My work has been featured in the Guardian, BBC Farming today, and I presented it at New Scientist Live. During my PhD, I was selected to take part in the Homeward Bound program, a global leadership initiative for Women in STEMM, which culminated in the world’s largest expedition of women to Antarctica.
