Areas of expertise

  • Agrifood Systems
  • Energy and the Environment
  • Natural Capital
  • Soil
  • Sustainable Land Systems

Background

After a BSc (Hons) in Agriculture (University of Reading) and a MSc in Land and Water Management (Cranfield University), Paul completed his PhD research (Cranfield University) on tea agronomy whilst employed by ODA in Tanzania. After working for a consortium of private companies, Paul joined Cranfield University as a Lecturer in 1995. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2008, a Reader in Crop Ecology and Management in 2014, and a Professor in Sustainable Agriculture and Agroforestry in October 2021.

Paul has authored or co-authored 100 peer-reviewed papers. He regularly speaks at conferences and has published eight book chapters, three edited books/conference proceedings, and co-authored more than 110 conference presentations/papers. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2007-present), a member of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers, and was Secretary to the UK Farm Woodland Forum (2002-2020) (www.agroforestry.ac.uk(external)). Outside of Europe, he has undertaken research or consultancy work in China, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Research opportunities

Paul's research is improving the agronomic, environmental, and economic sustainability of agriculture with a focus on agroforestry, perennial crops, greenhouse gas calculations, and the use of bio-economic models. Much of his research encompasses the interface of the forestry and agriculture sectors including agronomic, environmental, socio-economic and policy analysis.

Sustainable agriculture: Paul has led a Defra-funded study on agroecology practices (2022-23), a NERC-funded research translation project on grass growth modelling (2018-2020), and a consultancy to determine the carbon sequestration options for the Ministry of Defence Estate (2020-21). He was a co-lead of an ESRC project on food security and COVID-19 (2020-21).

Agroforestry: Paul led some of the initial research in the UK on silvoarable agroforestry (from 1995), and co-led the develop of the Yield-SAFE and Farm-SAFE agroforestry models in the EU SAFE project (2001-2005). He also led a successful FP7 agroforestry research project called AGFORWARD (www.agforward.eu) (2014-2018) working with 26 organisations across 14 countries involving 800 farmers and other stakeholders, and he contributed to an EU project on agroforestry and mixed farming called AGROMIX (2020-24).

Current activities

Paul's current research activities includes being the co-lead of the UKRI funded Land Use for Net Zero Footprint project (2024-2027) which is working with UK-based greenhouse gas calculator companies and 100 farm businesses. He is a co-lead of the BBSRC supported "Developing a resilient and regenerative tea production" prosperity partnership (2023-2028) with Liptons in East Africa, and a work-package leader for the EU-UKRI supported DigitAF project (2022-2026) that is developing digital tools to support agroforestry.

Clients

Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), UK

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), UK

Department for International Development (DFID), UK

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), UK

Ellen MacArthur Foundation

European Commission

FAL, Switzerland

Food and Agriculture Organisation

Forest Research

Heineken UK

James Finlay Ltd

Ministry of Defence, UK

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

SYSTEMIQ Ltd

Tea Research Association, Tocklai, India

Tea Research Institute of Tanzania

Unilever plc

Woodland Trust

Publications

Articles In Journals