Improved sustainability and ecosystem services from seaweed additions to an old agricultural production system

Throughout the UK, and in other areas of the northern hemisphere, where there has been human settlement from the 17th century onwards, evidence of parallel ridges can still be seen today. These ridges, sometimes called lazy beds, are a remnant of a production system that offered small, often remote communities cropping potential on land that would be considered today as less favourable or unsuitable for production. With a move away from this type of small-scale, labour-intensive production system, over the last century, communities in these areas have generally undergone a shift from self-sustainability to a reliance on the importation of human and animal feed. This has led to abandonment of these cultivation systems. As modern communities become increasingly dis-associated from historic cultural practices, living memory of the management of these systems is also now being lost.