Biodiversity and Habitat Mapping for Sainsbury's Suppliers
A Sainsbury's, Land App and UKCEH Partnership
Land App provides unique and essential tools to help land managers to prepare for ecological and financial resilience
Project Objectives
Helping our suppliers become nature-positive at the same time as farming high-quality produce.
- To empower you, the Sainsbury’s Suppliers, to make more informed decisions about biodiversity and habitat enhancements through a data Integration between Land App and UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
- Provide the tools for Sainsbury’s to monitor and track positive influences on biodiversity within supply chains
- Deliver biodiversity enhancement within the targeted supply chains, by digitally suggesting where Suppliers can create and reconnect habitats.
Project Stages
Stage 1:
1) Baseline: Build a nature baseline for your farm
- Sainsbury’s has a commitment to being a Nature Positive retailer. Therefore, they are looking at ways that they can help farmers in their supply chain to balance food production with nature creation. To do this, they are working with their farmers, via Land App to assess the existing habitats in the supply chain.
- Land App’s easy-to-use mapping platform will guide you through the process of creating a clean habitat map of your farm, showing both the food production areas, as well as the locations of habitats around the farm.
2) Collaborate: Share data with Sainsbury’s through Land App’s Nature Reporting features
- Using Land App’s Nature Reporting features, you can share your data directly with Sainsbury’s. This will act as a live connection, meaning this action will only need to be performed once.
- Land App is acting as an independent intermediary between you and Sainsbury’s. The data you share will only be shared as numerical data. Sainsbury’s will not have direct access to your mapping information. Instead, Sainsbury’s will receive a summary of your farm as a “Nature, Risk and Resilience Score”. You will receive an exact copy as the Sainsbury’s Agriculture Team.
- For Dairy and Lamb Suppliers, this is the required step to register your interest in the “Gold Tier” for the Scoring Matrix.
- You can also now provide your required Land Declaration information through the Nature Reporting features.
3) Score: Get the initial Nature, Risk and Resilience Score for your farm
- Once complete you will receive your first Biodiversity Score. This will be emailed to you and will explain more about the scoring system we have used. This score is not final; as you work through the project, and improve your Baseline, you will receive regular updates on how your score is changing.
- Your scores will be calculated on the total hectare and length of habitats that contribute to Biodiversity Net Gain. A full list of these habitats can be found.
- To learn more about the Scoring system, please see “How will my farm be scored” below, including an overview video explaining the Metrics.
4) Plan: Iterate the plan to improve current and future scores
- Once you have completed the first stage, you can improve your existing baseline by adding missing habitats, or begin building a future plan for your farm, identifying where on your farm you would like to increase your biodiversity score.
- By looking at opportunities to increase the coverage of habitats on your farm, you can look to improve your score, thus contributing to Sainsbury’s “Nature Positive” objectives.
Stage 2:
1) Identifying Opportunities
Using UKCEH’s E-Planner data, you will receive data to show where is best to create:
- Water resource protection
- Woodland creation
- Sown winter bird food
- Flower-rich pollinator habitats
- Wet grassland restoration
2) Planning future scenarios
Using the Land App’s drawing tools, UKCEH’s habitat planner and your agricultural knowledge, balance land use for production and nature.
An example of a suitability map for interventions using UKCEH E-Planner data, served through Land App.
How will my farm be scored?
This project is looking to score each farm on the presence and extent of habitats. When you complete a farm map, Sainsbury’s will receive from Land App a “Biodiversity Score” consisting of:
- Biodiversity Score total = the total number of Biodiversity Units for your entire farm.
- Biodiversity Score per hectare = the total Biodiversity Score divided by the total number of hectares your farm covers.
To find out which habitats contribute to the Biodiversity Score, please see this downloadable PDF document here.
This project is looking to score each farm on the presence and extent of habitats. When you complete a farm map, Sainsbury’s will receive from Land App a “Biodiversity Score” consisting of:
- Biodiversity Score total = the total number of Biodiversity Units for your entire farm.
- Biodiversity Score per hectare = the total Biodiversity Score divided by the total number of hectares your farm covers.
To find out which habitats contribute to the Biodiversity Score, please see this downloadable PDF document here.
Stage 1: Guidance for farms in England with a Single Business Identifier (SBI)
Step-by-step guide (English farms with SBI)
Suppliers should complete followings steps to get involved in the project:
- Create a FREE Land App Account through: https://go.thelandapp.com/register
- Create a Field Boundary for your holding by importing your field parcel data using a Single Business Identifier.
- Create a land-use map of your farm using the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) template.
- Translate your BPS project to UKHab using the “Baseline Habitat Assessment” project. If your RPA Data is missing parcels, watch this short tutorial on how to add extra fields.
- Share your plans with Sainsbury’s through Land App’s new Nature Reporting feature.
- Receive confirmation from Land App that your farm has now been registered for Sainsbury’s Nature Positive Scheme, including a summary of your Biodiversity Score.
- Enhance your baseline by adding more detailed features to the map.
Don’t have a SBI, or farming in Wales or Scotland? Click Here
- Create a FREE Land App Account through: https://go.thelandapp.com/register
2. Create Field Parcel Boundaries; Import your field parcel data using a Single Business Identifier or a farm boundary map to a Basic Payment Plan. Hit “New” > Import Data > Import (from Rural Payments Agency (England) or Land Registry (Other) and import to Basic Payment Scheme)
3. Create a land-use map of your farm using the Basic Payment Template. Click on a parcel, choose “change” on the right-hand panel, search for and choose your land-use.
- Example land-use are permanent grassland, temporary grassland, woodland, ponds or various crop types, including barley and oats.
- Complete this for your entire farm, assigning a land-use code for every parcel
- Tip: Once complete, you should no longer be able to see any polygons with a Red outline
4. Translate your BPS project to UKHab using “Duplicate” to the “Baseline Habitat Assessment” project this should then give you a UKHab Baseline map. TIP: you can rename your project at the bottom of the “Duplicate Plan” pop-up.
5. Enhance your baseline by adding more detailed features to the map.
Using the various drawing tools on Land App, you can now add any habitat features that may be missing, including:
- Linear features such as hedgerows or ditches – using the “draw a line” feature
- How to draw a hedgerow: [guidance]
- Field corner or plots such as wildflower patches, scrub or bird cover.
- How to draw field corner options [guidance].
- Margins or buffers such as tussocky grass strips, wildflower strips or beetle banks.
- How to draw buffers or margins [guidance].
6. Rename your Map
- For Maps, please call them; FarmName_Surname_Supplier (e.g. “SpringFarm_Smith_Barfoots“)
7. Rename your Plan
- For your Plans, please call them; TemplateType_FarmName_Supplier
- Your farm should now have a “BPS_Farm Name Plan”, and a “BHA_FarmName_Supplier” layer.
- E.g. “BHA_SpringFarm_Barfoots” for Baseline Habitat Assessment.
8. Share your plans with Sainsbury’s through Land App’s new Nature Reporting section.
- Land App has recently made changes to how you can submit data to Sainsbury’s for Nature Reporting (This replaces the previous approach – sharing with Sainsbury’s as a collaborator. If you have shared via the previous approach, you do not need to make any changes. However, if you wish to make and share changes to your plans, please do this using the new approach outlined here).
- This streamlines the process whilst also giving you greater control over your farm’s data.
- All you need to do is select the new Nature Reporting icon, provide some information about your farm, select the plans you wish to share, and confirm the organisation (Sainsbury’s) that you wish to share data with. The video below provides a more detailed overview of these steps which is also outlined in this guidance page.
- Once your data has been accepted by Sainsbury’s you will receive your farm report providing you with information on your farm’s environmental impacts and risks.
Stage 1: Guidance for farms in Wales or Scotland, or farms without a Single Business Identifier (SBI)
Step-by-step guide (Farm without an SBI, including Welsh and Scottish Farms)
Suppliers should use the following step-by-step guide to get involved in the project:
- Create a FREE Land App Account through: https://go.thelandapp.com/register
2. Create a boundary of your holding by:
- Hit “New” > “Draw freehand” – and name your plan “Boundary_FarmName_Surname”
- Locate your farm on the interactive map either using the “Search” bar with a postcode, or by scrolling manually.
- Hit “draw” and choose “Area” – this will then allow you to click on the map to start creating a farm boundary.
- Each time you click, it will drop a new point.
- Once complete, you can “double-click” to finish.
- The boundary can be edited by either moving existing points or by dragging lines.
- For any additional boundary, please repeat the “draw” steps so all the farm boundaries are contained within the same boundary plan.
3. Request data from our “Data Widget”
- Export your boundary file by using the “export” function, that is found at the top right of your screen, downloading the file as “GeoJSON”.
- Find this file on your computer and “unzip it”
- For guidance, please see here: https://help.thelandapp.com/en/articles/5797329-how-to-unzip-files
- Open up our “Data Widget” by clicking here or on the image below
- Follow the steps; Enter your farm name, upload your unzipped Boundary file, and enter your email.
- This process when triggered can take up to 5 minutes and will email you a “Habitat File”.
- Hitting “new” > “import data” > “import file” > “uploading the file” (this can either be “dragged” onto Land App, or click the “browse” button” > the choose template “Baseline Habitat Assessment_v2” and then hitting “done”.
Please see the video above if you need clarity on this process.
4. Enhance your baseline
Using the various drawing tools on Land App, you can now add any habitat features that may be missing, including:
- Linear features such as hedgerows or ditches – using the “draw a line” feature
- How to draw a hedgerow: [guidance]
- Field corner or plots such as wildflower patches, scrub or bird cover.
- How to draw field corner options [guidance].
- Margins or buffers such as tussocky grass strips, wildflower strips or beetle banks.
- How to draw buffers or margins [guidance].
5. Ensure your map is correctly named
- For Maps, please call them; FarmName_Surname_Supplier (e.g. “SpringFarm_Smith_Barfoots“) Guidance on changing map name:
- How to rename a map | The Land App Help Center
6. Share your plans with Sainsbury’s through Land App’s new Nature Reporting section.
- Land App has recently made changes to how you can submit data to Sainsbury’s for Nature Reporting (This replaces the previous approach – sharing with Sainsbury’s as a collaborator. If you have shared via the previous approach, you do not need to make any changes. However, if you wish to make and share changes to your plans, please do this using the new approach outlined here).
- This streamlines the process whilst also giving you greater control over your farm’s data.
- All you need to do is select the new Nature Reporting icon, provide some information about your farm, select the plans you wish to share, and confirm the organisation (Sainsbury’s) that you wish to share data with. The video below provides a more detailed overview of these steps which is also outlined in this guidance page.
- Once your data has been accepted by Sainsbury’s you will receive your farm report providing you with information on your farm’s environmental impacts and risks.
Case Studies
Site area: 19.62 hectares
Production type: Horticulture (growers, manufacturers and distributors)
Key actions chosen:
Creation of species-rich grassland
Woodland and scrub management for biodiversity Secure reed bed water supply and manage for wildlife Improve and increase nectar and pollen habitat Transition to 100% peat-free compost
Total Area in Land Management Plan: 2.40 ha
Biodiversity Unit Impact: 13.76 Biodiversity Units
Case Study 2: New Home Farm
Site area: 101.01 hectares
Production type: Mixed livestock and arable
Key actions chosen:
Widen arable margins with wildflowers to improve and increase nectar & pollen habitat
Trial agroforestry scheme in arable field (silva arable), with design along contours for flow trapping.
Protect water supply via rough grassland creation
Total Area of new habitat: 9.09 ha
Biodiversity Unit Impact: 29.28 Biodiversity Units
Contact Us:
Land App:
UKCEH
Sainsbury’s