Government has been influential in substantially changing land management in England since WWII and currently aims to help farmers to become more sustainable. A five year project in Norfolk worked with 31 , farmers, 13 communities, and many partner organisations to define and measure the sustainability of land management on each farm holding. Substantial variation in the sustainability of land management was discovered. Farmers themselves defined a number of key factors aff~cting their land management, including social capital. Using a locally adapted World Bank technique (SoCAT) to measure social capital, all 31 farmers engaged with the measurement process showed a rapid, instinctive grasp of the concept. Spearman's Rank Correlation coefficient revealed a strong, positive association between the overall sustainability of land management and all aspects of social capital (r=0.687, p