TASKSCAPE ASSOCIATES LIMITED

Their core work

Taskscape Associates is a UK-based private consultancy specialising in applied agroecology and sustainable farming systems, with a particular focus on crop diversification and farmer-led agrobiodiversity management. Their work bridges academic research and on-the-ground agricultural practice — they bring practical expertise in intercropping system design and farmer engagement to large EU research consortia. In DIVERSify they contributed to designing diversified plant teams for ecosystem resilience, and in FRAMEwork they are involved in building farmer clusters to coordinate agrobiodiversity management at landscape scale. Their value proposition is translating agroecological science into workable approaches for farming communities across Europe.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first project (DIVERSify, starting 2017), Taskscape's focus was clearly at the crop and field scale — intercropping systems, plant team design, and the agronomic basis of ecosystem resilience. Their second project (FRAMEwork, starting 2020) marks a shift upward in scale: from what grows in the field to how farmers are organised across landscapes to manage biodiversity collectively. This progression — from crop-level diversity to landscape-level governance and farmer network coordination — suggests a deliberate move toward applied policy and community practice, not just agronomic research.

Taskscape appears to be moving from crop-level agroecological design toward farmer network coordination and landscape-scale biodiversity governance — a trajectory that positions them well for future projects at the intersection of agroecology, rural policy, and multi-actor farm management.

How they like to work

Taskscape has participated exclusively as a consortium partner — never as coordinator — across both projects, suggesting they contribute specialist expertise rather than driving research programmes. Despite only two projects, they have accumulated 40 unique consortium partners across 18 countries, which implies involvement in large, multi-partner RIA consortia typical of EU-wide agroecology research. This profile points to an organisation that is sought out for a specific, well-defined contribution rather than one that shapes overall project strategy.

With 40 unique consortium partners across 18 countries from just two projects, Taskscape has a surprisingly broad European network relative to their portfolio size — averaging roughly 20 partner organisations per project. This suggests participation in genuinely pan-European RIA consortia, with exposure to partners from a wide range of agricultural and research contexts.

What sets them apart

Taskscape is an unusual animal in EU agroecology research: a private company (not a university or institute) based in rural northern England, working on farmer-centred and landscape-scale approaches to crop diversification. For consortium builders, they likely offer a practitioner or practice-transfer perspective that academic partners cannot provide — grounding research outputs in what is actually workable for farmers. Their Carlisle base in an agricultural region may also give them direct access to farming communities for case studies or pilot activities.

Highlights from their portfolio

• FRAMEwork
  Their largest project by far (EUR 398,506, running to 2025), focused on scaling agrobiodiversity through farmer cluster networks — an ambitious landscape-governance approach that reflects the leading edge of EU agroecology policy.
• DIVERSify
  Their entry project into EU research, establishing credentials in intercropping science and diversified plant team design — the technical foundation from which their later farmer-facing work developed.