How might we move small farms towards sustainability?

Future Roots

Loughborough University| UX & Service Design MA | 2024

When first addressing this question, it seemed farmers needed clearer and more practical information. Instead, I discovered that for small farms, “practical” was also emotional, a starting point that felt safe, social, and true to their identity.

(Images taken from the video prototype of the final service design I made and presented in a final presentation to communicate the central user experience.)

The Scenario

Despite strong policy pushes such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), small UK farmers (defined by land size, turnover, and labour) had shown lower uptake of sustainable practices than larger farmers. On paper, support existed for sustainability. In practice, farmers weren’t engaging.

The key question became:
What’s stopping small UK farms from taking the first step toward sustainability, and how might a service help them start?

(I made this representation of the opportunity context using the three horizons framework (Baghi, Coley and White, 1999) to frame the long-term opportunity context.)

Challenge

To move past farmers’ surface‑level answers and uncover the key barriers to change, and design an effective but low‑effort starting point for “Wait and See” farmers who weren’t actively engaging with existing support.

Solution

Uncovering the emotional drivers behind farmers’ resistance and developing the Future Roots service as a specific onboarding event for sustainable farming and existing services that are manageable and emotionally approachable.

My Role

As the final project of my MA coursework, I led the full research and design process end‑to‑end. This included research strategy, behavioural framing (COM‑B), ethnographic research, co‑design facilitation, service backend development, iterative prototyping, and the production of a high‑fidelity video prototype and presentation to communicate the final concept.

The Process

Data Collection

(Graphic made for final presentation depicting top findings from initial secondary research that helped to set the wider context with questions generated.)

1. Untangling the Context

I began with secondary research and interviews with agricultural professionals, mapping the ecosystem around small farms to untangle the broader context and identify strategic threads to guide enquiry. This highlighted pressures, incentives, and surface‑level barriers like being "unsure what to do", lack of practical information, and lack of awareness of their farm’s impact.

(Slides from project presentation, showing initial ecosystem map I made and key quotes from farming professionals)

What this changed

Initial research suggested an information/communication problem, with a sense that there was no "practical" or "farm-level" information. But mapping data like this also highlighted the first signal that barriers might go deeper. The ecosystem was crowded with information, pressures and options, with the suggestion that farmers were being overwhelmed and potentially resentful of the pressure on them.

2. Using COM-B to explore the deeper 'why'

To explore the deeper behavioural drivers, I used the COM‑B behavioural change model (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation) to structure the investigation.

Why this mattered 

COM‑B helped me avoid designing for surface symptoms, systematically uncovering the real barriers to action and reducing the risk of getting off track with such a broad and complex topic.

Ensuring I asked: 
• Are farmers capable (have knowledge/skill) of acting?
• Do they have opportunities (time/resources) to act?
• Are they motivated to act?

(Illustration of the COM-B model as shown in my final project presentation.)

3. Finding the Human Why

Guided by COM‑B, I used varied ethnographic methods to directly explore farmers' perspectives and uncover their motivations, capabilities and opportunities.

Research Method

6 x semi-structured interviews with farmers.

5 x sorting activity, placing sustainable acts on a scale of appeal and understanding.

1 x on-farm observation to see daily pressures and unconscious routines.

1 x farmer focus group generating aspirational “What if…” scenarios around sustainability.

Aim
Investigating barriers and enablers.

Make them consider capability and motivation distinctly & articulate their reasoning.

See lived experience beyond what was said.

Use imagination and social setting to get them to express more emotively.

(Images from and finding summary from interview sorting task, from the project presentation I gave.)

Challenge: Get farmers to open up
Farmer participants were not prone to reflect on dimensions beyond the practical, focusing on surface-level points like time, money, and understanding. Though important between the lines, more emotive motivations were hinted at.

How I Adapted

Methods were adapted reflectively, using tactics like sorting tasks and "what if" focus groups to help get to the heart of their thinking, giving an avenue for expression without being overt.

(Some key quotes about defining sustainable farming from the interviews I conducted with farmers.)

Initial Findings: Farmers spoke about time, money, and uncertainty, but there was something beneath the surface. Many described sustainability as something outside their farming identity, even when they cared about the environment.

This emotional disconnect and defensiveness to change became a critical thread.

Data Analysis

4. Internal or External

To make sense of the wide range of findings, I used synthesis techniques including affinity diagramming, behavioural mapping (COM‑B), proto‑personas, and an importance/difficulty matrix.

Challenge: Overwhelmed by directions
Affinity diagramming surfaced recurring emotional and behavioural themes, but the sheer breadth of influences quickly became overwhelming. The insights felt scattered, and it wasn’t clear which barriers mattered most or what direction to take.

How I Adapted
The first real clarity came when I mapped all findings back onto the COM‑B model, using its structure to refocus on what truly blocks behaviour change.

This highlights the split between:
• External barriers (resources, time, access)
• Internal barriers (identity, defensiveness, understanding)

(Images from analysis process with key distinction of findings, between internal and external barriers beginning to develop.)

Why this mattered: 

Seeing the data through this lens reframed the problem from a mess of data to a solvable choice through the key design questions: Should the solution target internal or external barriers, and which ones is primarily preventing farmers from starting?

This tension between respecting external limitations and overcoming internal resistance became central to the design process, and pointed toward the need for a practical starting point that also felt emotionally safe.

5. Personas become a journey

Initially, personas felt disconnected and too static to guide decisions. The breakthrough came when I reframed them as proto‑personas along a readiness‑to‑act scale (inspired by Morris, Mills and Crawford’s Innovation-Decision Process for farming, 2000):

(My representation of the cognitive behavioural factors I found affecting farmers’ move to sustainable farming aligned with my personas aligned to a scale of adoption readiness)

How this changed thinking
This shift turned a demographic snapshot into a behavioural journey, making patterns suddenly clear. It also aligned with the internal/external barrier split. “Wait and See” farmers were primarily stuck inactive behind internal barriers: uncertainty, defensiveness, and lack of direction.

How this shaped the opportunity
Using the readiness scale alongside an importance/difficulty matrix helped prioritise a design opportunity focused on mindset shift: How do we help a Wait and See farmer become a Plan and Try farmer?

This clarified that the first hurdle wasn’t simply knowledge or resources; it was creating a starting point that felt manageable, meaningful, and safe enough to try. What farmers saw as a "practical starting point".

Selected Opportunity

There is an opportunity for a service to support small UK farmers with limited resources, who want to profitably move their farms into a sustainable future. But can't see a practical starting point, and feel defensive of change.

Concept Discovery

6. Finding the Gap

Returning to the ecosystem map with this new behavioural lens to research what needs existing agro-environmental services fulfilled in line with the COM-B model, something important became visible:

“Wait and See” farmers weren’t actively seeking support. The internal barriers identified, uncertainty, defensiveness, identity conflict, combined with external factors like limited time and money, meant they weren’t entering this part of the system.

How this shaped the direction

This insight made it clear that the service needed to function as an onboarding experience. Supplementing existing services by supplying a guided way into sustainable agriculture that met farmers where they were. Providing an emotionally approachable, manageable and 'practical' starting point.

(Final presentation slide showing new farmer ecosystem diagram with agro-environmental service review and COM-B annotation.)

7. What should onboarding look like?

I ran co‑design sessions and spoke with stakeholders to explore what an effective onboarding experience should look like. Using Brain Bank and collage tasks, farmers surfaced past service experiences and confirmed the emotional drivers behind their decisions.

(Slides from my final presentation depicting images and annotations from 2 co-design activities.)

Co‑design helped clarify what a practical starting point really meant to them:
• Seeing other farmers like them taking action
• No large or disruptive changes
• Visible, meaningful environmental benefit
• Alignment with their identity as farmers (custodians of nature, family legacy)

For farmers, 'practicality' was understood emotionally. Internal and external barriers were intertwined.
From this, four principles emerged to guide the service:

Design Principles

8. Uniting Ideas

Throughout ideation, feedback from ongoing co‑design sessions using how might we questions helped me refine and combine these strands into an early concept, unifying the functional educational needs of onboarding with the emotional drivers of action, supporting a mindset shift.

(Slides from my final presentation depicting key stages of the design iteration process, highlighting the interplay of ideas addressing emotional or functional barriers.)

Initual Idea

• A month-long annual campaign (a confined time commitment, gives a 'time to act').
• Introductory Education Events (keep the information farm-level and actionable).
• Community tree planting action (can see others acting, visible, simple value aligned to their identity).

Concept Development

As I moved into iterative prototyping I zoomed in and out on service details, to refine both user touch points and the wider service structure.

9. Iterative Prototyping & Refinement

Development Method

User Journey Co-design session: Farmers walked through a rough user journey storyboard, making it their own through annotation.

Iterative Prototyping: I used storyboarding, serious play, and lo‑fi video prototyping to refine the service blueprint.

Stakeholder Feedback: The video prototype was shared with experts.

Aim
Testing if the initial concept was understandable & appealing quickly, and what format & features farmers expected/wanted.

To work through thinking physically, grow empathy and communicate the value and premise to stakeholders for feedback.

To validate feasibility and backstage processes.

(Photos from User Journey co-design session with quotes for farmers and experts from the development stage, depicting the conflicting desires for connection and conveneants.)

Across development, I found I was continually balanced two compeating needs that became central in shapeing design decisions:

1.Bolster not Burden: simple onboarding and low‑effort participation
2.United not Isolated: the emotional driver that actually motivates change

Challenge: The main challenge was making the experience manageable for farmers while keeping the meaningful, identity‑based action at its core. Testing and co‑design focused on clarity, appeal, and why this format would motivate action.  

Key Iterations:  

Iteration:  

1. Packaging events into recommended ‘routes’ across the month, instead of presenting farmers with an overwhelming list of events.

Reasoning:

Curated routes removed decision‑load, reduced overwhelm, and helped farmers quickly find a starting point relevant to their farm. Sequencing the events kept the journey manageable and ensured continuity that supported real action afterwards

2. Offering main route meetings online with optional in‑person events alongside

Putting the core route events online made learning accessible and flexible around farm routines. While optional on‑farm events offered deeper interaction and peer examples without making extra attendance a barrier.

3. Ending with a shared meet‑up to reinforce community momentum.

A final in‑person gathering built community, created space for shared reflection, and helped farmers consolidate learning together.

10. Zooming Out

I worked on the broder back‑stage service level eliments. Using feedback from stakeholders to refined the service blueprint, tested feasibility, and shaped an onboarding experience that fit into the changing context.

(Photo of me working on the service blueprint)

Iteration:  

1. Trust: Integrated the service with existing trusted organisations like the NFU.

Reasoning:

An exiting trusted organisation as an entry point was highlighted as key to trust building for farmers, (defensiveness)- therefore the service being transparent to existing services became more central to the concept and the exchange of valuews in these relationships were maped out.

2. Scalability: Thoue service was planned to start in one region before expanding, but still keeping a reganal framework for manigment. Balancing national resources in main education routes with local experts in in-person events.

Starting in one area before expanding allows for development of the service befor committing to expansion, it also can help tailor events to farm needs for that region (low land, hill farming etc) and give space for local experts and community development while allowing delivery to grow sustainably.

3. Long‑term development. The service was conceived to be adaptable over time, with the route topics and education level changing over the years.

As this service is targeted at a time of change and aims to be part of that change, thinking in the long term the event needs to adapt to farmers needs as they learn more and policy circumstances change. Working to a place where farmers outgrow it use.

(Refined service blueprint with annotations of key developments and related participant quotes)

11. Zooming In

With the broader service designs taking shape the final stage of design development focused in on the details of refining user interactions elements and key touchpoints, through low‑ and high‑fi prototype testing.

(Images from user testing, depicting paper prototyping of tree planting element and higher fidelity ui prototypes of booking process)

The Solution

(Image from video prototype, deploying tree planting and tree registration UI)

Future Roots

Future Roots is a not-for-profit service for small U.K farmers, working as an on boarding to farming’s sustainable future. It meets farmers where they are, using collective action as an emotional hook and educational events to provide practical aid.

Partnering with agri-environmental organisations, it delivers a month-long campaign of collective environmental activities alongside practical learning sessions. Fostering unity, respects farming values, and provides a manageable first step toward sustainability suited to real-world constraints.

Two Core Elements:

Collective Action: A free tree planting campaign with connective digital recording to see collective action of community.
Educational Events: A practical route of relevant of flexible online and in person events over the month to build capability and confidence.

Alignment with the Four Design Principles

Bolster, not Burden: Offers a tailored, schedule of local and online events, providing a low-commitment entry point that fits farmers’ busy lives and avoiding overwhelming choices.
Positive, not Pressuring: Uses collective tree planting as an emotional hook, tapping into farmers’ connection to nature to encourage participation with pride, not guilt.
United, not Isolated: Fosters peer support through a month-long campaign and collective tree-planting through a live map showing collective impact, turning sustainability into a shared journey.
Identity-empowering, not Endangering: Partner with trusted agri-organisations to present sustainability in familiar terms, respecting farmers’ experience and helping them see sustainable practices as an extension of their role

Designed for growth: Conceived as an on boarding experience, the services aim is to help farmers eventually outgrow it, adapting as attitudes and needs change and sustainability is normalised as part of everyday farming.

(Consideration of long term service impacts and plans for the future, as shown in project presonataion )

Outcome & Reflection

Future Roots demonstrates how behavioural insight and co-design can unlock change in complex systems. By grounding the service in farmers’ lived experiences and emotional realities, the design supports meaningful, lasting transformation.
This project strengthened my expertise in behavioural design, systems thinking, and strategic UX research skills I can apply to real-world challenges with confidence.

(UI prototype of event route selection with user quote examples)