The Sustainable Arable Farming For an Improved Environment (SAFFIE) project started in 2002 and experimental work continued until the end of 2006. 

When the project was conceived, arable farmers needed to optimise inputs and improve efficiency, and the UK was committed to increase biodiversity, especially for farmland birds.  The SAFFIE project aimed to reconcile these pressures by developing new crop and margin management techniques for winter cereals and quantifying the associated costs and environmental benefits.

The SAFFIE project developed Skylark Plots, confirmed the benefits of adding wildflowers to grass margins, evaluated a range of in crop weed control programmes and tested two margin management techniques (graminicides and scarification) that had potential to create new habitats. The studies quantified: (a) the impact of these techniques on key species of grasses and flowering plants, beetles, bugs, flies, grasshoppers, soil invertebrates, spiders, bees, butterflies and birds; and (b) the costs of the techniques.