GWCT’s Alastair Leake receives Farmers Weekly lifetime award

Dr Alastair Leake, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s (GWCT) director of policy and of the Allerton Project’s research, has received the Farmers Weekly Lifetime Achievement Award. The honour recognises 25 years of work developing practical ways of combining productive farming with better environmental outcomes, and sharing those findings with farmers, policymakers and students through the trust’s demonstration farm at Loddington in Leicestershire.

What has the Allerton Project shown under his leadership?

Farmers Weekly credited his technical and practical knowledge, intellectual curiosity and rigour, and passion for the subject as instrumental in making Loddington a pioneering blueprint. His work has ranged across agri-environment schemes, natural capital accounting, soil, water, woodland and habitat management, and the project’s many thousands of visitors have included businesses, policymakers, regulators, farmers, advisors, students and schools. For Shooting Times readers, Loddington is best known for three decades of evidence that game management and productive farming can thrive together.

Who paid tribute to him?

Ted Beale, partner in awards sponsor Carter Jonas, said: “Throughout his career, he has made an outstanding contribution to farming and the countryside, not least in showing how productive agriculture and a thriving natural environment can go hand in hand. Having personally visited the Allerton Project I’ve seen first-hand the impact and influence of his work.”

GWCT chairman Jeremy Finnis said the trust had been “fortunate indeed” to benefit from his expertise, “not only in pioneering such innovations as flower-rich field margins and the Hedgerow Carbon Code, but also in his work on countryside policy, explaining to those in positions of influence how practical land management can benefit wildlife while producing food efficiently”.

Dr Leake said: “This Award is recognition of the importance of the work that we do at Allerton. Collectively we have created solutions which others have taken up. To be recognised in such a way from within the farming community is very gratifying.”

What happens next?

The award caps a strong autumn for the Allerton Project, which also took a special commendation in the inaugural Water Quality Farmer of the Year category at this year’s Royal Agricultural Society of England Awards. The project’s work continues at Loddington, and its findings feed directly into the GWCT’s evidence to Defra’s current gamebird review.