Research aims to promote environmentally sensitive farming and resource use practices in which environmental objectives are fully integrated with those of production. It also seeks to provide a scientific basis for government policy concerning agriculture and the environment, to understand environmental processes relevant to agriculture and to provide options for industry to address significant environmental problems such as pollution by silage effluent.

Staff are also actively involved in eutrophication research and, in particular, the impact of agriculture on phosphorus loadings to Lough Neagh.