As land use pressures intensify and the farming sector embraces significant advances in technology, location data is becoming an essential enabler of more efficient, sustainable land management. As the sector continues to evolve, OS data and expertise remain central to driving innovation, improving productivity and delivering long-term resilience across agriculture.
As pressures continue to rise on land use, food production and environmental resilience, accurate and trusted geospatial data has become essential to modern agriculture. Ordnance Survey (OS), the national mapping service and one of the largest holders of geospatial intelligence on land use in Great Britain, plays an integral role in supporting farmers, whether for farm management, environmental reporting or automated machinery. OS also has a role to play in encouraging innovation in the sector and supporting the roll-out of effective telecoms.
Recently, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched the Land Use Framework policy paper on how England can best coordinate multiple demands on the use of land to develop more resilient landscapes and deliver a more prosperous future. OS, as providers of foundational national geospatial data, along with other partners, will work with Defra over the next 12 months to understand user needs when increasing access to richer land data, and to test options for improving data accessibility and interoperability for decision-making.