Organic Research Centre joins ADAS

Organic Research Centre (ORC), the UK’s foremost research authority on organic farming and low-input farming practices, has become part of RSK ADAS Limited, effective from 1 September 2025.

Retaining the ORC brand, ORC is a stand-alone business within the ADAS group of companies and will continue to be managed by current CEO Lucy MacLennan. The move of ORC research staff and ongoing ORC projects to ADAS will allow both organisations to benefit from shared resources and complementary applied research expertise.

Lucy continues: “The ORC has a long and accomplished history, and we want to reassure our supporters that our strategic research aims remain the same as when we were founded – to protect the environment and to enhance biodiversity by means of independent applied organic research and to communicate our research findings widely so as to encourage change throughout the British agricultural sector.”

Prior to the move, ORC formed part of the Progressive Farming Trust charity, which also maintains the Agricology knowledge platform. The Progressive Farming Trust and Agricology will remain separate entities, and their activities will continue unchanged.

“With ORC’s agroecological expertise now in-house, we can pool our knowledge to deliver complex, multifaceted agricultural projects and ensure we continue to deliver the best possible environmental outcomes. Our aim is to add to our portfolio of research and advice, and create a centre of excellence for organic agricultural research.”

“We are delighted to welcome ORC and its staff to ADAS, and we look forward to working together to drive research and innovation in organic, agroecological, and regenerative farming systems.”

ORC’s chair, Donald Peck, added:

“In ADAS, we are very pleased to have found a partner which both respects our history and shares our values. We are excited about the future of independent organic research and the opportunities this partnership will bring to continue this work while Progressive Farming Trust makes its own separate impact.”

Lawrence Woodward OBE, who co-founded ORC as the Elm Farm Research Centre in 1980:

“The need for organic farming research is as pressing now, as it was when we started. Our vision was to change agriculture, and through the work of the organisation over the years many of our radical concepts, such as intercropping, agroforestry, evolutionary plant breeding and participatory research have come more into the mainstream. However, challenges remain, and I am hopeful that the move to ADAS will strengthen the capacity and impact of UK organic research to change farming for the better.”

Helen Browning OBE, Chief Executive of the Soil Association:

“The Soil Association welcomes the news that ORC’s future has been assured through joining ADAS. We have a long history of working together and acknowledge the huge contribution that ORC has made to the organic farming movement over the last 45 years. We need a strong organic research capacity to support the sector going forward to give farmers and growers the confidence to transition to better farming systems, backed up by robust science and reliable advice.”

Roger Kerr, former CEO of Organic Farmers & Growers CIC (OF&G):

“I believe that one of the key challenges faced by farmers seeking to transition to an organic and agroecological approach has been the opportunity to access real world, research led advice, combined with wider business and financial support. The link up between ORC and ADAS fulfils that pressing lack of expertise and brings agroecological and low input farming practises into the mainstream farm advisory sector. With this new partnership ORC, with its huge depth knowledge and experience, will now be able to make the outputs of their historic and on-going research far more accessible, relevant and transferrable to the much wider farming community directly.

The fact that the Progressive Farming Trust retains its independence and charitable aims is also invaluable. This will allow it to continue to facilitate knowledge exchange for agroecological food production and the resultant wider positive societal and community outcomes. Their continued role as a key non-partisan and independent organisation in communicating the value and opportunity of these approaches will be vital in the face of the current human health, climate and biodiversity crisis.”