Dr Alfy Gathorne-Hardy and PhD student Daisy Martinez worked with Earth Fellow Beth Pottle to explore the evidence for an alternative approach to growing food.
Credit: Ayooluwa Kolawole
Data for a new approach to agriculture
Edinburgh Earth Initiative’s Earth Fellows programme enables University of Edinburgh researchers to further their climate and environment research aims with the support of a postgraduate student intern. In 2025, Dr Alfy Gathorne-Hardy and PhD student Daisy Martinez worked with Earth Fellow Beth Pottle to explore the evidence for an alternative approach to growing food.
Food growing dominates the world’s land area and is responsible for significant biodiversity loss. The research team believes there is a false dichotomy in current debates about agriculture. It is often framed as a choice between intensive farming in one area to spare land for biodiversity elsewhere, or more extensive farming that supports biodiversity within farmland but leaves less land set aside exclusively for nature. The group are exploring a third option that could simultaneously provide abundant nutritious food while protecting biodiversity both locally and in protected areas.
Collaborative efforts on a systematic map
Earth Fellow, Beth, worked in a team with PhD student Daisy Martinez and undergraduate helpers to trawl through existing research papers and find data relevant to their research question. She brought a lot of time, effort and elbow-grease to what is an enormous project and managed to make significant progress.
The project will produce a systematic map showing what data on agriculture and biodiversity is available and where. It is expected to conclude within the next year and will provide an amazing foundation for the research team and others to generate further data and insights.
Beth also did a fantastic job sustaining the research group’s initial excitement about the project, helping keep spirits and motivation high. By managing Beth through the Fellowship, PhD student Daisy also had the chance to gain valuable management experience.
EEI support keeps the hiring process smooth
Edinburgh Earth Initiative (EEI) provided useful advice and support throughout the Earth Fellow hiring process. EEI offered guidance on drafting the job advert and selecting candidates, and assisted with screening applications, helping to ensure a smooth and efficient process. As a result, Alfy was able to get an engaged and motivated research fellow with significantly less effort than had he approached the process independently.
Why get involved?
“Beth not only did enormous amounts of work during the fellowship, which helped us enormously in our work, but she has brought in additional ideas through her research dissertation, which she’s hoping to publish, and is likely to become a long-term research collaborator.“ – Dr Alfy Gathorne-Hardy
Alfy has now hosted two Earth Fellows and stresses that in both cases they have given even more to the project than he expected.
Interested in hosting an Earth Fellow?
Get in touch with Earth Fellows programme manager Chloe Francis (chloe.francis@ed.ac.uk) to discuss your project. Or look out for our annual call for project proposals in April 2026.
Explore our Earth Fellows pages
Get the lowdown on the role and impact of Earth Fellows – hear from our research partners across a range of interdisciplinary projects and meet the latest cohort of talented student collaborators.
