About the LEAF Sustainable Farming Review

The LEAF Sustainable Farming Review (The Review) is a self-assessment farm management tool to help you to take stock of your current farming practices, set targets for action and work towards continuous improvement. The Review is organised into 9 sections (reflecting the 9 element of Integrated Farm Management) as follows:

  • Organisation and Planning
  • Soil Management and Fertility
  • Crop Health and Protection
  • Pollution Control and By-Product Management
  • Animal Husbandry
  • Energy Efficiency
  • Water Management
  • Landscape and Nature Conservation
  • Community Engagement

 

Why should I complete the LEAF Sustainable Farming Review?

It will help you to record, evaluate and improve your farming practices by allowing you to ‘step back’ from your everyday farming practices, take an objective look at what you are doing and the reasons why.  It will help you:

  • Demonstrate performance annually and over time
  • Benchmark your performance against other Review users
  • Keep ahead of legislative requirements
  • Demonstrate your commitment to sustainable farming

 

Features of The Review

Action Plan – this provides a summary of all the actions you have identified in each of the 9 sections, together with personnel responsible, completion dates and actual completion dates.

Benchmark – indicating the percentage of farmers fully achieving a given statement in the previous year.  This will help you monitor your performance and progress against other Review users. [available in year 2].

Record of Completion – providing evidence that you have completed The LEAF Sustainable Farming Review, date completed and farm name.  The record is not proof of LEAF Marque certification.

Reports – various reports are available for you to download to show your responses to the LEAF Sustainable Farming Review from the 'Downloads' page.

 

How to complete The LEAF Sustainable Farming Review:

  • For help on how to complete The Review, click here http://my.leafuk.org/review/1QQUSGMWSS.0LGSZEXQT7QAB5/home.eb [link to ‘how to’ video]
  • Each of the 9 sections contains a set of statements. For each statement you are asked to state to what extent you have achieved a given statement – from 'fully achieved' through to ‘not started’.
  • Each statement is given an IFM Reference Code to uniquely identify it.
  • Where a statement is important for LEAF Marque certification and mitigation of greenhouse gases, this is also indicated on the top right hand side of the page.
  • You are asked to state which ‘supporting practices’ you carry out, which support a given principle.
  • If you wish to upload any supporting information (documents, photographs, spreadsheets etc.) for a particular statement, you are able to do this in the ‘Supporting Information’ area. You can view all your Supporting Information you have uploaded within each section, by using the ‘My Supporting Information’ tab.
  • For each statement, you are asked to enter any actions to be taken, personnel responsible, completion date and actual completion date.  These will form an essential part of your Action Plan.
  • Use the green tabs at the bottom of each page to go back to the previous question, progress to the next or to save progress.
  • Your progress within each section is indicated by bar at the bottom of each page. Grey indicates that the statement is still to be completed. Orange indicates that the statement has been partially completed. Green indicates that the statements has been completed.
  • If you wish to partly complete a section, then return to it at a later date, just remember to use the ‘Save Progress’ button.
  • Please have a look at our ‘How To’ tutorial here [insert link to on-line tutorial]

 

What do I do after I’ve completed the LEAF Sustainable Farming Review?

When you have completed all the sections of the LEAF Sustainable Farming Review relevant to your farming business, you can download a Record of Completion on the 'Download' tab. The Record of Completion is a PDF file which you can save to your computer and print out. In some countries, you are able to claim CPD points through completion of the LEAF Sustainable Farming Review, the details of how to do this can be found on your Record of Completion.

You may also like to print out a report of the responses you gave in the LEAF Sustainable Farming Review for your records. To do this, please go to the 'Download' tab.

You are also able to print off an Action Plan which sets out all the Actions you have identified in each of the sections, personnel responsible, proposed completion date and actual completion date. This will act as a useful reminder of what you set out to do and when you achieve it!