This episode of The FarmED Podcast is recorded on location, at Baddaford, Guy Singh-Watson’s farm in Devon. Guy, founder of Riverford, has been dubbed ‘the most brutally honest farmer in Britain.’
Here, Guy talks to Alex about how he finds regenerative agriculture a ‘difficult subject, because I absolutely welcome the sort of broad church approach that has drawn in farmers who, for whatever reason, felt antagonised by organic’ admitting that ‘we got it wrong somehow. We did alienate a lot of conventional farmers, the farmers who really we should have been getting on board.’
But it’s the ploughing vs glyphosate argument that he wants to see more openly discussed. He explains why he hates the term ‘food poverty’ and why his mission has always been to produce food ‘that's accessible and affordable by all,’ whilst also being fair to producers and the increasing challenges of that. He also talks about his wrangles with the supermarkets, why he is anti-commodity, why we should all eat less meat and how his hopes for the future, for ‘size and specialisation’ replaced by the mixed farming model.
Something a little different for this episode of The FarmED Podcast, which covers computer systems and farming systems and a little agricultural history too. You’ll discover why farmers grow grass as well as what AI and beekeeping have in common.
Alex is joined by Paul Totterdell, who started his career studying IT and is now Director of FarmED’s sister company, Cotswold Seeds, which supplies 20,000 UK farmers with diverse seed mixtures that are good for soil health, animal health and the health of the planet.
Around 75% of UK's land is farmed agriculturally, Paul explains, and a huge proportion of that is grassland. ‘All the grass that you see out there in the fields when you're driving past, that hasn't just grown there by itself. We've had to plant that. A lot of people don't realise that grass needs to be planted.’
Paul tells us how the agricultural upheavals after the end of the Second World War created a reliance on fertiliser and high yielding ryegrass. Shallow-rooted, the plants struggle in the drought conditions we’ve seen this summer. ‘Cotswold Seeds have been looking for many, many years at different novel plants that we can plant alongside the ryegrasses and sometimes without any ryegrass whatsoever,’ Paul explains.
He goes on to talk about a new scientific research project which Cotswold Seeds and FarmED are both involved in, known as CHCx3, which is looking at how plants can capture carbon from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change.
Paul also talks about how all of this relates to bees. Paul’s apiary was the very first project to be introduced at FarmED, long before the other livestock and crops arrived.
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Links:
Cotswold Seeds
https://www.cotswoldseeds.com/
CHCx3
https://www.carboncapturecropping.com/
‘We are a rainforest people, who live in a rainforest nation,’ says conservationist and writer, Merlin Hanbury-Tenison, speaking to Alex Dye on The FarmED Podcast and explaining why these ancient forests are so vital for combating climate change as well as for our own wellbeing.
In his bestselling memoir, ‘OurThe Oaken Bones,’ Merlin talks about how, while serving with the British Army in Afghanistan, his armoured vehicle was hit by a landmine that momentarily blinded and deafened him, leaving him with PTSD. His wife Lizzie suffered several miscarriages and his father was hospitalised with Covid.
‘I felt so extremely lucky and privileged to have the farm at home and to be able to go and hide and retreat and heal within what we knew as the old oak woodland at Cabilla,’ Merlin explains. It was thanks to Guy Shrubsole’s book The Lost Rainforest of Britain and David Attenborough who talked about rainforests in his Wild Isles series, that led to the discovery that the forest at Cabilla was much older than they’d originally realised, part of the Atlantic temperate rainforest, mythologised in stories and legends, which would once have cloaked much of Britain.
When Merlin and Lizzie moved back to Cabilla seven years ago they wondered: ‘How do we make a living from this land? How do we restore the land as well?
Agricultural consultants advised them to cut down the trees but instead they planted another 100,000, tripling the rainforest area, and brought back beavers.
‘The whole point is that it turns into a lower-yield conservation-grazing agroforestry scheme,’ Merlin tells Alex. ‘Atlantic temperate rainforests are a pinnacle habitat in the UK for a number of different ecosystem services. For example, they are one of our most effective carbon sequesterers. So at a time of climate crisis when we need habitats that absorb and sequester CO2 out of the atmosphere, nothing does that more effectively terrestrially in terms of what we can protect and restore than Atlantic temperate rainforests.’
Merlin and Lizzie have created a wellness retreat at Cabilla, so that others, including veterans and NHS staff suffering from burnout, can benefit from the psychological and physiological restorative properties of the rainforest.
They have also established The Thousand Year Trust.
The Trust is so named because it aims to pull people out of short-term thinking, ‘You see a lot of articles at the moment saying things like, can we reverse climate change by 2030? We absolutely can't. But could we reverse it by 3020? Well, yes, we could. We can set the conditions and it will be something that the next 20 generations will work on and then we'll get back to a place of climate health. And I think that the ability to think in multi-generational timeframes is really important.’
Hear how The Thousand Year Trust is also crowdfunding to build Europe's first Atlantic temperate rainforest research field station, a place where scientists from across the world, can study these extraordinary habitats.
Discover More:
Cabilla Cornwall: https://www.cabillacornwall.com/
Thousand Year Trust: https://thousandyeartrust.org/
This month on The FarmED Podcast, Alex Dye talks to acclaimed author and producer/presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme, Dan Saladino. Dan explains how his childhood in the citrus and olive groves of Sicily led to his ‘passion for telling stories of food and flavours’ and just why these ‘wonderful stories’ are ‘the richest subject for any journalist’, a lens through which to look at ‘politics, power, science and culture.’
It was The Arc of Taste, a slow food project to save the world’s most endangered foods, that inspired Dan’s celebrated book, Eating to Extinction, and Dan recalls some of his ‘favourite food memories’ created while researching the book. These include time spent with the Hadza people in Tanzania, Africa’s last hunter gatherers whose extraordinary relationship with the honeybird demonstrates the perfect 'collaboration between humans and animals’. He talks about why the drink made from endangered Perry Pears, is ‘the champagne of England.’
Regenerative farming and its focus on increasing biodiversity and thereby increasing resilience, is crucial to our future and the future of food security in an age of conflict and inequality, Dan believes. ‘We’ve enjoyed huge productivity but it’s been at the cost of resilience,’ he says. Our ‘dependence on cultivated plants’ and ‘a few species of food, in an increasingly unstable and fragile world’, makes us dangerously vulnerable to climate change, diseases, and upheavals in world trade. He talks about how ‘shocks to the system’, like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and food price inflation have already had huge social and political impacts. Looking to the future, water shortages could be catastrophic for food production. The answer is to build resilience into our food systems.
Ultimately hopeful, Dan explains why we should all ‘seek out and explore the diversity of foods in our own locality,’ and ‘think like the Hadza’.
He also reveals to Alex his favourite take-away dish!
Find The FarmED Podcast wherever you usually listen to your podcasts. Do please subscribe, like and leave a review. Follow on @thefarmedpodcast
Links
Read more about Dan Saladino and his work:
Read about the Arc of Taste:
https://www.slowfood.com/biodiversity-programs/ark-of-taste/
Following the huge success of her book, Rooted: Stories of Life, Land, and a Farming Revolution, Sarah Langford has become a voice for the regenerative farming movement and she talks to Alex about her writing and career, her belief that regenerative farming can change the world and what’s next for her.
For nearly a decade, Sarah Langford was a criminal and family barrister. While on parental leave to have her two children she wrote her debut narrative non-fiction book, In Your Defence: Stories of Life and Law. Part memoir, part narrative account of cases she was involved in, the book sought to shine a light on the unseen, untold stories behind the world of law. In 2017 she moved with her family from London to the Suffolk countryside, expecting to stay for six months. In the end, they stayed for two years, taking on the running of her husband’s small family farm. Their story is woven around the stories of other farmers she met in her second narrative non-fiction book, Rooted: Stories of Life, Land, and a Farming Revolution. Part-memoir, part narrative account of a selection of farmers from around the country, it seeks to shine a light on the world of farming at a critical point in the future of the countryside. Rooted was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for conservation writing.
The latest episode of the FarmED Podcast is all about bugs! Presenter, Alex Dye, FarmED’s resident entomologist, is in conversation with fellow entomologist, Dr Geroge McGavin.George McGavin was an academic zoologist for 30 years before becoming a television presenter. He is widely recognised throughout the UK as a regular contributor to the BBC One Show delighting viewers with his bug-life and ecology reports. He is the author of numerous books and renowned speaker, regularly inspiring and educating audiences about insects, ecology, evolution, conservation and exploration. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and Honorary Life Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society.He also has several insect species named in his honour, all of which he hopes will survive him! George chats to Alex about the links between regenerative agriculture and entomology and the vital role that insects play in the health of our planet.
Guest: Abby Allen, Director of Farming at Pipers Farm
Host: Ian Wilkinson, Founder of FarmED
Abby talks about her role, how the Piper’s Farm model can be upscaled and her views on the future of regenerative farming. There’s a hopeful takehome message too.
The FarmED Podcast seeks to offer ‘hopeful conversations around farming, food, nature and the environment.’ At this crucial moment in time, when biodiversity loss and climate change is at the forefront of everyone’s minds, we hope these entertaining and important exchanges of knowledge with specialists in their field will offer thought-provoking ideas and inspiration.
Please follow us on Instagram @TheFarmEDPodcast
About Pipers Farm: Pipers Farm was founded by Peter and Henri Greig in 1989 as a reaction to the increasing industrialisation of farming. Pipers Farm works directly with a network of 50 small, independent, family-run farms, rearing high-quality meat using nature-friendly practices. At the heart of Pipers Farm is the belief that livestock should be reared ‘in harmony with nature’. It champions pasture-fed, native breeds and passionately campaigns for small-scale abattoirs.
www.pipersfarm.com
@pipersfarm
For more information and a full transcript, visit:
https://www.farm-ed.co.uk/news/57/the-farmed-podcast-episode-2-abby-allen-director-of-farming-at-pipers-farm
About FarmED:
FarmED is a living textbook of regenerative farming, on a 107 acre demonstration farm in the Cotswolds, a place for learning, meeting and eating.
www.farm-ed.co.uk
Guest: Chris Rumming from Lydiard Turkeys
Host: Alex Dye, FarmED’s Public Engagement Coordinator and resident entomologist
Thanks for listening to The FarmED Podcast where you can hear hopeful conversations around farming, food, nature and the environment, brought to you by the FarmED team.
Follow us on Instagram @thefarmedpodcast
In Episode 1 of this brand new series, Chris Rumming talks to Alex about high welfare turkeys, different breeds (White vs Bronze), game hanging, turkey anecdotes and how farming turkeys has helped Chris to make connections with customers and help them to connect with their purchasing of food through selling direct. Plus, you’ll hear how farming turkeys has given Chris the financial freedom to do environmental work. There’s also some tips on how to decipher turkey ‘chatter’, how to entertain a turkey, and of course some recipe tips for a perfect Christmas turkey roast!
About FarmED: FarmED is a living textbook of regenerative farming, on a 107 acre demonstration farm in the Cotswolds, a place for learning, meeting and eating.
About Lydiard Turkeys: Lydiard Turkeys and pop-up farm shop, is run by Chris and Lindsay Rumming on the family farm near Swindon. They are passionate about high animal welfare, great tasting meat and nature friendly farming.
For more information and a full transcript, visit: https://www.farm-ed.co.uk/news/53/the-return-of-the-farmed-podcast (https://www.farm-ed.co.uk/news/53/the-return-of-the-farmed-podcast)
Kate talks to Helen Wade from East Leach Downs Farm who has 45 organic sows with all progeny spending their entire lives outdoors, able to dig, root and graze herbal leys.They talk about Helen's journey into farming, what she has learnt along the way and how she is encouraging members of the public to visit the farm by installing a visitor hut.
Kate talks to Amy Chapple about Redwoods Farm in Devon, where she has laying hens that roost in converted livestock trailers and her parents have broilers that live in 'chicken tractors' or polytunnels. They all get moved around the farm, following the cattle and sheep, scratching up the dung and keeping their active minds busy. Their chickens are fed on a soya-free diet with most of the feed being grown less than 10 miles from the farm.
Fiona talks to bestselling author, Rosamund Young, in advance of the Farm & Food Literature Festival at FarmED next month. Rosamund talks about her life at Kite’s Nest Farm, on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment, where she has been an organic farmer for over forty years. Peek into the surprising private lives of some of our most familiar animals.
Danielle talks to Pete Russell, Founder of Ooooby, an online platform for small farms and local food producers to sell and deliver directly to homes. Ooooby’s mission is to put ‘small-scale’ back at the heart of our food system. More than 80 UK farms and food hubs are now using Ooooby every week to deliver local food to over 10,000 local households.
Danielle talks to soil scientist, Jed Soleiman, who is currently working at FarmED as part of the Centre for High Carbon Capture Cropping (CHCx3) Project. Jed is passionate about regenerative agriculture and rewilding, particularly in understanding the responses of soils to these, and other land uses that could help build the physical basis to bring about nature recovery. Focusing mainly on the UK, Jed has previously worked on understanding mycorrhizal responses to rewilding at the Knepp Wildland, and is now working at FarmED under CHCx3 to investigate changes to soil carbon and energetics under arable regenerative agriculture regimes. It is hoped that this knowledge can help contribute to and inform the diverse land-use matrix we need to achieve successful landscape scale conservation in the UK.
Jed holds an MA in Geography from the University of Cambridge, an MPhil in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Management from the University of Oxford, and is currently studying for his DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford with the Ecosystems Lab and Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery. In his spare time, Jed is also a keen gardener, wilder, and forager who loves to share his passions with anyone who’s keen to listen!
Kate talks to Flavian Obiero, a Hampshire County Farms tenant at Tynefield Farm in Titchfield. He manages 61 acres of permanent pasture & woodland with his partner Nikki and son, Noah. They have Tamworth pigs, ex-dairy goats and a mixed-breed sheep flock. All the animals are destined for meat. They currently sell through their catering business and a few markets. Future plans include selling more locally and also setting up a butchery facility on the farm, processing fresh pork and cured meats.
Fiona talks to FarmED’s beekeeper, Tony Yarrow, in advance of his two day course at FarmED - Honey Bees & their World (18th April). Tony began keeping bees in Wales in 1975. He has worked as a bee expert with two beehive manufacturing companies and has known and worked with some of the UK’s largest commercial beekeepers. Tony keeps 15-20 colonies in four sites in North Oxfordshire, including here at FarmED, producing around half a ton of surplus honey a year for the FarmED Cafe and kitchen.
Kate talks to Tim Field, sustainable food, farming and land management consultant and Facilitator of the North East Cotswold Farmer Cluster, a group of local farmers and landowners interested in landscape-scale regeneration of the farmed environment and local food networks in the North East Cotswolds.
In a special episode of the FarmED Podcast, recorded at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, earlier this month, Ian interviews Patrick Holden, and Patrick interviews Ian, looking back over nearly fifty years of organic, regenerative and epigenetic farming! Patrick is the founder & CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, whose mission is to work internationally to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable food and farming systems. He was Director of the Soil Association from 1995-2010 and has a mixed organic dairy holding in Wales. In 2005 he received a CBE for services to organic farming and in 2022 was awarded an honorary doctorate for international work in sustainable agriculture from the University of Wales Trinity St David.
Hallam Duckworth talks to Kate about setting up the cow-calf Dairyy at Honeydale. They discuss the challenges and the highs and lows - from getting weaning times right to retaining customers, developing a business plan and fulfilling his dream of making ice cream and selling it to customers at festivals.
Ian talks to Cotswold Seeds Technical Manager, Sam Lane, about what’s in a herbal ley and how they can be tailored for different soils and uses. They discuss the benefits they bring above and below ground, improving soil fertility and encouraging earthworms, while reducing parasitic worms in livestock. Sam also talks about the new, more flexible, herbal ley options with SFI.
Jim Pearse reminisces about farming Honeydale from the 1950s until 2013, when he and his wife Wendy retired and passed the baton to Ian and Celene Wilkinson.