Peasant Bread & Heritage Grains : A Photo Tour of Torth Y Tir

In 2016, we provided a grant to Torth Y Tir for a new pizza oven as part of the A Team Challenge. Needless to say, they’ve ‘risen’ a bit since then. Recently, a collaboration with Jason Taylor at The Source Image has seen their story beautifully encapsulated in film.

What is Peasant Bread?

Peasant bread is a loaf that is baked with the skill of a craftsman, the love of an artist, and the storytelling of a writer.  

In the past, peasant bread was made with what was available to the farmers who were considered poor. These farmers managed the whole process of growing wheat, milling flour, and baking bread.

Although the modernisation of the food system since developed, in France, baking bread in a similar vein continued and formed the tradition of ‘paysan boulanger’.

Today, the old values - where nutritious food comes directly from harmony with the Earth - makes peasant bread a true symbol of food sovereignty.

Peasant bread makes use of whole flour to produce a rustic and hearty loaf. There is a stiffness to the crust and the texture of the crumb is coarser compared to bread baked from refined flours. These unique and natural inconsistencies remind us that real bread is something authentic, sensual, baked with intention, and a gastronomic delight. The true beauty is in the taste – the notable full-bodied, almost nutty, flavour originates from the health of the soil.

“Whereas bread had become something that is problematic to our health we want to restore it to something that’s actually good for us and good for our communities.”

Image courtesy of Torth Y Tir

WhAT IS Heritage Grain?

The future of farming requires us to farm in accordance to the natural ecosystems. Heritage Grains are a useful tool in the toolbox for feeding the world whilst farming regeneratively.  

Heritage grains were bred, grown, harvested, and milled at a time when artificial inputs and machinery were mere imagination.

For a sustainable future, they already have a head start. They are regionally adapted to our climate. As Rupert says in the video, they out compete natural weeds, whilst the in-field diversity allows for a natural ecosystem where predator pest species can live. Also, through adapting to local regions, they even possess their own natural defences to some native insects.

But above all else, they taste really good.

If you’d like to read more on the future of wheat, this blog post by the Sustainable Food Trust is a good place to begin. So too this Wicked Leeks article ‘Grains to Change’. There is also an annual gathering of the UK Grain Lab, which brings together not just farmers and bakers, but also millers, breeders, scientists and academics, hosted by the Small Food Bakery in Nottingham.

From Field to Loaf

What makes Peasant Bread so important is the journey from field to loaf.

In the soil, live a universe of microorganisms that support the health of the plant, ecosystem, climate, and us! The health of the soil matters greatly to the health of the biosphere, for carbon sequestration, water cycling, and nutrition.

One of the best ways to grow healthy soil is through the diversity of plant species – different root systems use and cycle different nutrients at different times. Therefore, a diversity of available nutrients supports plant health without the need of inputs. Having a mixed population of wheat in the field really is more nutritious. An example of a good ‘field-to-loaf’ flour that is available to buy is the YQ wheat produced by Wakelyns.

Peasant Bakers generally farm their grains at small scale and therefore, require either a sympathetic miller or ownership of the equipment to mill the grain into flour. For Rupert, he owns a unique piece of milling machinery that is designed to produce beautiful flour sensitively (after all, this is an art).

 The allure of the loaf really materialises during the baking process. With ‘the artist’s loving hand’ the dough is fermented, risen into a leaven, mixed, folded and risen again ready to bake.

“This is a moment of alchemy; the final stages of the transformation from the field to your loaf, when raw ingredients become larger than the sum of their parts through the magic of a multitude of microorganisms as they unlock nutrition, develop flavour and cause the dough to rise.”

 Who is Torth Y Tir?

Who knew that locally grown wheat would survive in the very wet, west Wales? Well, according to historical records it has been as natural for as long as people ate bread.

Peasant Bread and heritage grains are farmed, milled, and baked in St Davids, Pembrokeshire by Torth Y Tir (Welsh, meaning Loaf of the Land) - a Community Benefit Society, owned and run by their members, who all hail from the local community.

Their aims are:

To practice and promote community-supported baking and heritage cereal production in a spirit of solidarity and openness.

To widen access to artisan, sourdough bread and the skills needed to produce it.

To demonstrate and teach the benefits of growing, processing, stone milling and baking heritage grains through the principles of agroecology and handmade, naturally leavened, wood-fired bread.

““Your loaf starts in our field. Nourished by the sun, the rain and the soil, our heritage grains are then freshly stone-milled on-site before being naturally leavened and baked entirely by hand in our wood-fired oven. It’s a process of dedication and a dance of time and intention”. Rupert Dunn ”

All photos copyright of Jason Taylor, The Source Image

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England's Fields : Farming the Future

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This is the first of the Farming the Future blog series, written by Jenny Phelps, MBE, from Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG). Their project; England’s FIELDS (Farming and Integrated Environmental Local Delivery Support) is a collaboration between FWAG, Pasture for Life Association, Sustain, and the Real Farming Trust.

Each month, the A Team Foundation will be showcasing a grantee from the fund and how the support is helping to achieve their goals and ambitions.

One of the best things about working in farming and conservation is that you are often surrounded by genuinely lovely people.  Often these people are driven, like me, with a purpose and ambition to make a small difference in the world. I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the Farming for the Future workshop to share ‘bread’ and conversation with some such inspirational people. The FTF hosts seemed unique in their vision, with the idea of bringing people together, good people, who cared about the future of farming and the countryside to see how the support from the Farming the Future initiative could make a difference.  ‘Tell us what you need to make your vision happen’, said Sam Roddick of the Roddick Foundation.

We were inspired and lucky enough to share the time that day with Vandana Shiva, Patrick Holden, Colin Tudge, Ruth West, Vicki Hird, Kath Dalmeny and many more.  The FTF team invited other charitable foundations to come together to see if their combined support might make some of our aspirations for a more sustainable, resilient world happen faster.  At a time when there seemed little hope that politicians might find some sensible direction, it was a lifeline for those of us who have a clear vision of a different world.  A vision where all people are valued, where food communities come together, where farmers are supported to farm the land regeneratively in a way that feeds the people, protects the environment and protect our vital resources of soil, water, and wildlife.  A vision of a future where everyone can eat healthy food and be free from hunger and uncertainty, and how we might all start to heal the planet and in doing so, help ourselves. 

Our collaboration were lucky enough to be successful in winning support. I am hugely grateful to be able to show how our integrated local delivery framework might help build resilient and prepared communities.   It seems very uninspiring to talk about a ‘framework’ for local action, to quote Sam Roddick ‘it’s not very sexy, but vital!’.  In reality, it is a wonderful, dynamic, inclusive process, that is unique in every location but has a structure to inspire and enable people to take action in a complex world.

The process creates the opportunity for all communities (with support from an environmental adviser) to take local action for climate change by being inspired to reconnect to agroecological farming and enabling the benefits of re- localisation.

It is also a process that is desperately needed.  A ‘systems’ approach that can enable everyone to feel that they are valued and can take meaningful action, which also potentially helps with any eco-anxiety.  Understanding how to act locally, but in a global context, will enable us all to play a meaningful part. A process that is internationally transferable to every community around the world, so we can all be part of a collaborative and inclusive approach creating a network of regenerative farming and ecological recovery, by looking after the piece of the world we care about. 

We are faced with a huge challenge to combat climate change, but humanity seems fixed on creating endless strategies and models as to how the world might be saved at a policy level.  Often there is little or no regard for the actual real world, the indigenous people and their knowledge, sense of place and essential contribution to transforming, (with support) their local environment.  What we need is a combination of the two, where local communities and farmers are valued for their knowledge but can understand how to be supported by multiple international opportunities at a local level.  A mechanism as to how partners can co-deliver their objectives together in genuine, meaningful partnerships with local people.  None of this happens without someone to bring it all together, to inspire and enable local action in a strategic context.

The support from Farming the Future will help to fast track awareness of the opportunity to roll out the integrated local delivery framework. To do this, we need to make the case for specially trained advisers to enable communities to understand how to unpick the complexity of governance of their local area.  How they can integrate support from multiple partners and stakeholders and enable people to work together to look after their locality. 

The funding enables us to carry out an analysis to demonstrate to the treasury (and all government departments) the cost-benefit of integrated local delivery.  It will enable us to promote a transition to regenerative agriculture from existing case studies and align with Neighbourhood Planning for resilience and preparedness planning.  It will help us promote pasture-fed livestock in sustainable land management, and the vital role grass-fed livestock plays in sequestrating carbon and rebuilding soil biology.  It will help us come together to share learning and expertise to create collaborative solutions for climate change mitigation.  The aim is that the government finally sees the benefit of reducing the number of public bodies funded to deliver multiple single issues objectives that create complexity and confusion to farmers and communities, without offering support for their alignment and co-delivery.  We want to be able to highlight the barriers to delivery; whether that is conflicting government policy; planning policy; regulatory baselines or just getting more support out there for people to be enabled to feel contributory to make a difference and act now. 

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Jenny Phelps, MBE. FWAG.

Jenny has over 30 years’ experience in facilitating and delivering complex locally led environmental projects that deliver international objectives. Jenny offers the integrated local delivery framework to help people understand how to take meaningful coordinated local action in order to mitigate against climate change and biodiversity loss. Jenny has a Master’s degree in Advanced Farm Management, from the Royal Agricultural University (where she now teaches two modules; Applied Farmland Ecology and The Farming and Integrated Environmental Local Delivery (FIELD) Module).

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Read more about farming the future 2019

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Our Rare Welsh Oats

Written by Katie Hastings, Seed Sovereignty Network, who tells the story of rejuvenating regional heritage grain in Wales.

On a sharp day on the cliffs of the Pembrokeshire Coast last spring, a small group of farmers and growers met to place rare Welsh oat seeds in the ground. Where usually these seeds would be broadcast across a field or drilled in long rows, each of these rare oats was placed diligently by hand into carefully drawn channels. So momentous was this that the BBC focused their cameras on the sowing, broadcasting it on the 6-o-clock news across Wales. Gerald Miles – organic farmer of Caerhys Farm since the age of 16 – cracked his signature jokes as we picked each seed from their containers against a strong wind coming from the sea.

 Although these oats were kindly donated to us from the seed stores of the IBERS plant research centre, they were already ours. These oats – with names like Hen gardie, Ceirch llwyd, Ceirch du bach – were grown on Welsh soils for hundreds of years. The seed was saved by the communities that grew them and is a collectively owned commons. As different regional seeds were passed through generations they adapted to the soils and climates of the varied lands they grew in. These oats co evolved with Welsh farming communities, being saved for the traits the farmers selected and shaping the lives of those growing them in turn.

In the last 50 – 100 years we have lost these oats from our fields. Mixed farms of animal, crop and forest have been disappearing from under our noses. Where arable crops were once grown for animal feed and human food all over the varied conditions of Cymru, we now declare most of Wales ‘unsuitable’ for arable production. Feeding this fire is the fact that we have moved away from growing our native indigenous seeds, suited to our wet and luscious conditions, in favour of buying seeds bred to offer us better ‘performance’. Failing to see that seeds bred for high yields in industrial farming scenarios don’t work for smaller low input farms, we have forsaken the seeds that worked in our Welsh valleys in the past.

Coming together under the banner of the Llafur Ni (Our Cereals), our Seed Sovereignty Programme has been working with the farmers and growers on the ground who want to reclaim our grain seeds. Looking into the records of only one genebank we found 108 Welsh oat varieties secured against total extinction. But these seeds should not just be filed away in storage, they should be a part of our farms and our diets. These older seeds don’t just hold unknown genetic traits, unknown climatic tolerances, unknown disease resistance. They also hold the stories of the people who grew them and the history of our landscape. To let them disappear is to let a part of ourselves disappear.

Our Llafur Ni group decided to collectively sow Welsh oats on the clifftops of Caerhys Farm as a statement of reclamation. We were unprepared for the diversity these oats would show us, different shapes, sizes, sweetness and strength. Initially not a scientific experiment but a symbolic bringing into being of what should still be there, we started to take advice from experts at IBERS and the Organic Research Centre. We measured basic information about the oats growth, susceptibility to ‘lodging’ (falling over) and ripeness. While at the end of the year we were only able to harvest tiny quantities of seeds from these plants, we felt the weight of that first step on a long journey of resurrecting our indigenous grain seeds.

Our Llafur Ni network met again this autumn in the grand Guildhall in Aberteifi (Cardigan). Our numbers have swelled, our enthusiasm has focused. Smallholders, sheep farmers, market gardeners and seed library volunteers sat side by side to listen to two elder farmers tell us about the ways grains were grown, not too long ago, before industrial arable production.

Iwan Evans still grows the Ceirch du bach oats which were grown on his farm near Llandysul since “forever”. Iwan is now an island in a sea of diversity loss, still saving these Welsh oat seeds on his farm each year and keeping alive what would have once been commonplace. Joining with our group he has now been able to pass these seeds on to other growers in the hope that they will be safer preserved in several locations and slowly passed back to the farms who have lost them. He told us of his extensive vintage machinery collection and pledged machinery to our machinery ring so that others in the group can start to farm grains again.

Gerald Miles told us tales of threshing days when he was young, in which members of the community came together to process grain crops. Showing us pictures of beautiful farm machines which can be pulled by horses and run from small tractors, he made possible in our imaginations a type of low impact grain farming that was still widely practiced only 50 years ago. Giving us a call to action, he told us of the importance of continuing to reclaim and preserve our Welsh grains. “They could be the foods of the future” he said, “we might need them in order to survive”.

Llafur Ni are now planning to increase the varieties of seed reclaimed and spread the planting across 3 different farms to reduce the risk of losing precious crops. Aware that we are at the bottom of a mountain, it will take years to bulk these seeds into significant quantities, we are galvanised to work together and keep these seeds in farmers hands. As well as sharing seeds, we are also putting together lists of equipment that can be shared from farm to farm in order to better increase our Welsh grain production.

We are aware that the 108 Welsh oat varieties we found in one genebank are only the lucky ones that made it into that seed store. There is no record of the quantities of diversity lost across our country that never made it into the seed stores and breeding programmes. Now is the time to take back what genetic material we still have access to and not allow it to slip unnoticed into extinction. There is no better time to get involved in the front line of our indigenous seed preservation.

To join the Llafur Ni network contact the Seed Sovereignty Programme’s Wales Coordinator Katie Hastings on katie@gaianet.org .

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Author: Katie Hastings

Katie Hastings is the Wales Coordinator for the Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty Programme. She is the Director of a community food organisation in Mid Wales called Mach Maethlon, where she runs a farmstart training programme and works with businesses to increase the amount of locally produced food they are buying. Katie also grows wheat and oats as part of the Machynlleth Grain Growers and has produced vegetables for many years.

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Farming the Future 2019 – The Funded Projects

2019 has proven to be the year where a burgeoning groundswell of interest in food and farming is converting to real tangible change.

In the world of policy, terms like ‘agroecology’, ‘regenerative farming’, ‘soil health’, and ‘local food’ are being heard through the halls of Government. Through journalism and social media, a polarised debate around meat ensues along with alarming news on climate change. Groups of farmers up and down the country convene to answer the challenge of how to produce healthy food in line with the environment and with the current economic system. All of this energy is fuelling a buzz, a new zeitgeist.

The A Team Foundation has worked in the area of food and farming for the past ten years. Naturally, we are excited to see the movement blossom. Making full use of this momentum, along with our friends The Roddick Foundation, we launched Farming the Future.

Farming the Future is a project that supports the transition to a regenerative food system through collaborative philanthropy and redirecting institutional agricultural finance.

A workshop was arranged in the spring of 2019, participants from the regenerative food and farming sector could meet and share each other’s work. The outcome of this day was for us to receive collaborative grant proposals, where there were partnerships of three or more organisations.

In October, successful applicants were selected and given the grants. Here, we are able to share with you the ten projects that we are proudly working with.

If you would like to know more about the work, please feel free to email Robert@ateamfoundation.org

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AGROECOLOGICAL MENTORING NETWORK - SUPPORTING THE NEXT GENERATION OF FARMERS

PROJECT LEADER: THE LANDWORKERS’ ALLIANCE
Partners: COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE NETWORK UK & ECOLOGICAL LAND COOPERATIVE

The Landworkers’ Alliance (LWA) is a union of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers. Their mission is to improve the livelihoods of their members and create a better food and land-use system for everyone. Their vision of the future is one where people can work with dignity to earn a decent living and everyone can access local, healthy and affordable food, fuel and fibre. This is achieved through a food and land-use system based on agroecology, food sovereignty and sustainable forestry that furthers social and environmental justice.

The LWA are collaborating with the Community Supported Agriculture Network UK (who addresses increasing concerns about the lack of transparency, sustainability and resilience of our food system through reconnecting the community to food production) and the Ecological Land Cooperative (who provide affordable opportunities for ecological land-based businesses in England and Wales) to establish a formal mentoring network.

It is stated that we are on the edge of a very serious crisis in farming with regards to succession, and how the next generation of farmers can get into the field. Farming is tough, and new entrant farmers face multiple challenges including, but not limited to, access to land, access to capital, access to resources, access to markets and access to training, mentoring and support. Organisations are working hard on multiple fronts to support the next generation of farmers and the Land Workers Alliance believe it is essential that one way we do this is by creating a community and a movement of well-connected farmers and land-based workers across the UK through developing training, exchange and mentoring programs.

The grant is to create an Agroecological Mentoring Network for new entrant farmers and farmers who have been operating for less than 5 years. Currently in the UK there are hardly any programmes to support and train new entrant and starter farmers to get into the field of small-scale farming and land-based work, and of the handful that exist none focus on agroecological farming practices. Across the UK, the average age of a farmer is now over 60 and less than 5% of the farming labour force is under 35 years old, so it is urgent we support more people to get into regenerative, agroecological farming as part of building the food and farming systems’ resilience in the face of climate chaos.

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AN EVALUATION OF THE VALUE CREATED BY GROWING COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE

PROJECT LEADER: GROWING COMMUNITIES
Partners: SOIL ASSOCIATION & NEW ECONOMICS FOUNDATION

GC is a community-led organisation that has operated in Hackney, North London, for the last 20 years, providing an alternative to the current damaging food system. They harness the collective buying power of their local community and direct it towards those farmers who are producing food in a sustainable way. This allows small-scale farmers and producers, whom they believe are the basis of a sustainable agriculture system, to thrive. GC champion ecological locally based farmers, whose food they bring to consumers through a veg box scheme and a weekly farmers’ market. They have helped to set up 11 other enterprises who operate according to the GC model and principles, who are now collectively known as the Better food Traders.

Using the economic and supply chain expertise of the New Economics Foundation and the Soil Association, the collaboration will monetise the economic, environmental and social value of GC’s work so that they and the wider movement are better able to articulate to consumers and policymakers the worth of locally produced food sold in local supply chains. In addition, by creating a valuation toolkit that GC will roll out to their Better Food Traders network they will enable distributors operating along similar lines to GC to do the same. The output of the collective efforts will be a report that analyses the findings of the research, and a valuation toolkit to help similar organisations to monetise their impact.

GC anticipate that they will be able to use the research to drive up consumer demand for local food, both from individuals and government. Additionally, the report will provide great impetus for those replicating GC’s model other cities across the UK. It will also enable them to better engage with local and national authorities and provide convincing real-life evidence of the benefits to public life of organic local supply chains, which may ultimately culminate in policy change.

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ENGLAND’S FIELDS (FARMING & INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENTAL LOCAL DELIVERY SUPPORT)

PROJECT LEADER: FARMLAND WILDLIFE ADVISORY GROUP SOUTH WEST
Partners: PASTURE FOR LIFE, SUSTAIN & REAL FARMING TRUST

Farmland Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) was first established as a charity in the 1960s by a group of forward-thinking farmers who saw that that the environment was an important part of a successful farming business. FWAG provides trusted, independent environmental advice to the farming community, building a reputation for its ethical ethos and high standards of service. The organisation helps farmers understand the environmental value of their land and make the most of the agri-environment options available.

Their partners are Pasture for Life (who successfully champion the virtues of grass-based farming and meat production), Sustain (advocates for food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals) and the Real Farming Trust (a charity concerned with food sovereignty and sustainable farming (in particular, the practice of agroecology).

The aim of the project is to roll out their integrated local delivery framework. The process creates the opportunity for all communities (with support from an environmental adviser) to take local action for climate change by being inspired to reconnect to agroecological farming and enabling the benefits of re- localisation. To do this, specially trained advisers will enable communities to understand how to unpick the complexity of governance of their local area and apply it at human scale.

The objective is to provide an analysis that demonstrates to Treasury and all Government departments the cost benefits of integrating a localised framework and regenerative agriculture.  The aim is for Government to finally see the benefit of reducing the number of public bodies funded to deliver multiple single issues objectives (which create added complexity and confusion to farmers and communities).  Instead it will promote the cost benefit for the Government to invest in training and accrediting advisers that are available to every farmer and community to take local action. In turn, enabling co-delivery, release social capital, improve the environment and with additional socio-economic benefits. 

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HARMONISED FRAMEWORK FOR MEASURING AND VALUING ON-FARM SUSTAINABILITY         

PROJECT LEADER: SUSTAINABLE FOOD TRUST & THEIR Wide NETWORK OF COLLABORATORS

The Sustainable Food Trust is a registered charity that was founded by Patrick Holden in response to the worsening human and environmental crises that are associated with the vast majority of today’s food and farming systems. Their mission is to accelerate the transition to food and farming systems which nourish the health of the planet and its people.

There is growing evidence that the agriculture and food industry is one of the most significant contributors to the transgression of ‘planetary boundaries’, especially in the areas of greenhouse gas emissions, resources use, biodiversity loss, soil degradation and water pollution. To avoid irreversible climate change and continued natural capital degradation, we are now at a point where a global transition to more sustainable production systems is urgently needed. However, this transition is being preventing by a number of barriers to change, two of the most significant being:  the failure to account for the hidden costs of food production systems and the lack of a unified means way of measuring food system sustainability. 

As a direct consequence of these barriers, producers are locked into a cycle of dependency on growing commodity crops/products which have a negative impact on the environment and public health, and consumers have no real way of making more informed buying choices.

Such a framework as this, analogous to the existence of the international profit and loss accounting standards, has the potential to provide a common communication platform for every food producer in the world, as well as informing governments about the impact of their farming policies and providing consumers with accurate information about the relative sustainability of the products they buy.

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MAKING VOICES HEARD: ENSURING THAT ‘FARMING THE FUTURE’ CONCERNS ARE EMBEDDED IN IMMINENT POLICY, LEGISLATION AND FUTURE FARM FUNDING

PROJECT LEADER: SUSTAIN
PARTNERS: LWA, PANUK, SUSTAINABLE SOILS ALLIANCE & FARMING WORKING PARTY OF THE SUSTAIN ALLIANCE

Sustain - The alliance for better food and farming - advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture, and promote equity. They represent around 100 national public interest organisations working at international, national, regional and local level.

The grant ensures that the voices and expertise of agroecological farming and sustainable land use are brought to the fore at key moments to be properly reflected in public policy and legislation. As well as ensuring that the voices of the wider movement gain opportunities to shape the funding systems, policy and governance structures. 

The Sustain alliance has already consulted and lobbied widely on key priorities for sustainable food and farming policy in relation to the Agriculture Bill, ELMS and the National Food Strategy, and are collecting evidence on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (not yet established).

Sustain’s collaboration will continue to be vocal about priorities for high environmental, farming, animal welfare and food standards, and expose the threats from low standards facilitated by ill-considered trade deals. Climate emergency and nature restoration, agroecology, animal welfare, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers, are specifically are to be properly reflected in each of the key pieces of legislation, policies, government funding and processes, reflecting the priorities championed by our movement.

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PESTICIDES: CATALYSING CIVIL SOCIETY TO REDUCE FARMING CHEMICALS

PROJECT LEADER: RSPB
PARTNERS: PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK UK, SOIL ASSOCIATION & FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

The RSPB’s mission statement is ‘Passionate about nature, dedicated to saving it’. They’re now the largest nature conservation charity in the country, consistently delivering successful conservation, forging powerful new partnerships with other organisations, and inspiring others to stand up and give nature the home it deserves.

The project is a feasibility scheme run in collaboration with PAN UK, Soil Association, and Friends of the Earth, which sets out to learn how a new programme of work could unite a civil society movement around chemicals. An essential phase of work that has the potential to kickstart a wide variety of civil society actors to target a national reduction in pesticide use and related harms in the UK.

Pesticides play a huge role in today’s farming but have significant negative impact through their direct (and indirect) effects on nature and people, and as a symbol of highly intensive agriculture which is fundamentally unsustainable. Cutting the use of chemical inputs requires a significant change in mind-set to find ways to farm with nature instead of against it. Farming with fewer chemicals leads to a more resilient form of food production that maintains essential ecosystem services.

The RSPB notes that there is a need to set a genuine strategic process which asks what civil society can do to change the UK’s approach to pesticides and, in tandem, push for a major reduction in pesticide use. This collaboration will also identify who would be best placed to tackle this action through the development of a shared ‘Theory of Change’.

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 PROTECTING UK PESTICIDE STANDARDS FROM POST-BREXIT TRADE DEALS

PROJECT LEADER: PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK UK
PARTNERS: SUSTAIN & SUSSEX UNIVERSITY

Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK) are the only UK charity focused solely on tackling the problems caused by pesticides and promoting safe and sustainable alternatives in agriculture, urban areas, homes and gardens. They work tirelessly to apply pressure to governments, regulators, policy makers, industry and retailers to reduce the impacts of harmful pesticides to both human health and the environment.

PAN UK are partnering with the lobbying ability of Sustain and the academic expertise of Sussex University to protect UK pesticide standards post-Brexit. The UK government is touting trade deals with countries outside of the EU as a key opportunity arising from Brexit.  The EU has by far the strongest pesticide regime in the world in terms of protecting human health and the environment. This restricts not only the range of pesticides permitted to be used in UK agriculture, but also the residues that are permissible on food imports. Therefore, trade deals with non-European countries come with huge potential for undermining UK food quality and pesticide standards. As well as this being a major problem for public health, it also risks driving a ‘race to the bottom’ as UK farmers are forced to increase their pesticide use in order to compete with the influx of cheap chemical-laden food from non-EU countries.

The overall purpose of this project is to expose the dangers posed by post-Brexit trade deals to UK pesticide standards. This is achieved through the use of media stories and persuading and scrutinising Government. In addition, this project will generate proposed language for future UK trade agreements which, if adopted, would uphold existing UK pesticide standards.

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SAVING COUNTY FARMS

PROJECT LEADER: CAMPAIGN FOR THE PROTECTION OF RURAL ENGLAND
PARTNERS: NEW ECONOMICS Foundation & SHARED ASSETS 

For over 90 years, Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) work locally and nationally to stand up for the countryside: to protect it from the threats it faces, and to shape its future for the better. In that time, they’ve helped win protection as National Parks for some of our most remarkable landscapes, from the Lake District to the South Downs. They’ve helped to influence and apply planning laws that have, against the odds, preserved the special beauty and character of the English countryside. Their vision is of the future is a beautiful and thriving countryside that’s valued and enjoyed by everyone.

Currently, a significant area of farmland - around 90,000 hectares of land in England – remains in public ownership as County Farm estates, but the role and opportunity they offer have been largely overlooked. County Farms are a valuable public asset owned by local authorities, enabling entry into the farming industry to young or first-time farmers through affordable, below-market rates.

However, they are a public asset under threat. Austerity has put immense pressure on local authorities, leading to a rapid sell-off of public land, as part of local authorities’ asset portfolios to fill budgetary gaps. The extent of County Farms has halved in 40 years. If they remain undervalued and poorly understood by politicians, officials, as well as the general public, their sell-off is likely to continue.

The project explores new models and approaches to how publicly owned farmland (County Farms) can be managed under public ownership, to set out their potential to deliver a range of public benefits and to develop a new vision for them. Using the economic analysis by the New Economics Foundation and sector knowledge of Shared Assets, CPRE will advocate this vision with key decision makers and the wider sector to build consensus and commitment to secure the future of County Farms for the common good.

The coming years will see significant changes to the way we farm, and the way we manage land more generally. County Farms have real potential to pioneer new forms of farming and land management that can help national and local government to address the multiple challenges society faces: not least the climate crisis, dietary and mental health and well-being, but also falling biodiversity and the disconnection from nature and food production.

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SAVE OUR SEED: CULTIVATING RESILIENCE IN OUR FARMING SYSTEM – EUROPEAN EXCHANGES FOR INSPIRATION, COLLABORATION AND EMERGENCE

PROJECT LEADER: GAIA FOUNDATION
PARTNERS: LANDWORKERS’ ALLIANCE & UKGRAIN LAB 

The Gaia Foundation have over 30 years’ experience accompanying partners, communities and movements in Africa, South America, Asia and Europe. Together they work to revive bio-cultural diversity, to regenerate healthy ecosystems and to strengthen community self-governance for climate change resilience. Gaia established the UK and Ireland Seed Sovereignty Network in 2017 to support a biodiverse and ecologically sustainable seed system; “because a food revolution starts with seed”.

This project coordinates a series of European exchanges to support the re-emergence of seed and grain sovereignty in the UK and Ireland. European counterparts have developed inspiring and resilient seed movements, communities of practice, and exchange networks, and Gaia would like the opportunity to exchange and learn from some of the leading examples of food and seed sovereignty in practice.

While the seed sovereignty movement in many parts of Europe is vibrant and thriving, here in the UK and Ireland it was, until recently, all but lost. Since 1900, we have lost 75% of our plant genetic diversity (source: FAO) and in the UK 80% of organic vegetable seed is imported from continental Europe and beyond. It has been the work of the Seed Sovereignty UK & Ireland Programme and its key partners over the past two years, to strengthen the network of seed savers, empower growers to save seed, and train a new generation of local open-pollinated seed producers.

Seed sovereignty and the propagation of open-pollinated, locally sourced seed is vital not only for food diversity and a fair seed system, but also for future food security - as weather conditions become increasingly unpredictable and extreme, the need for genetically rich seed grown, produced and maintained in the UK has never been more important - in diversity lies resilience.

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WORKING GROUP ON INTEGRATION OF AGROECOLOGY INTO THE WORK STREAMS OF AGRICULTURE AND LAND-USE PLANNING MINISTRIES IN ENGLAND, WALES AND SCOTLAND

PROJECT LEADER: LANDWORKERS ALLIANCE
PARTNERS: ECOLOGICAL LAND CO-OPERATIVE, COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE NETWORK, GROWING COMMUNITIES, CAMPAIGN FOR THE PROTECTION OF RURAL ENGLAND, REAL FARMING TRUST & SUSTAIN

The Landworkers’ Alliance (LWA) carries the voices of active land workers forward to advocate for agroecology and local food.  Through the collaboration they’ll increase the capacity of engaging with the wider network of public interest groups to research, frame, and deliver, a well-researched collective message to Government.

In regards to working with agricultural ministries, The LWA has a unique position because they are a union of farmers and foresters and are therefore, recognised as stakeholders and statutory consultees. They already work on providing evidence and case studies to increase the uptake of concrete proposals to scale out agroecology and have had measurable success. This project ensures a constant presence and develops a capacity to deep-dive and affect real change. The aim of the project is to provide compelling evidence for agriculture and planning ministries in order to deliver schemes that scale up agroecological farming across the UK.

The LWA notes that potential wins could be a new entrant’s scheme and a small farms productivity scheme. Additional possibilities are a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme in the future, or one which focuses on integrating communities into farms. It is also reasonable to assist DEFRA to adopt horticulture, green belt and urban agriculture Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) over the next 3 years. With more pressure they should be able to get additional agroecological objectives into the ELMS and, with hope, some social outcomes. Climate objectives are also a political priority , the LWA urges Government to adopt a Climate Action Plan as part of the climate emergency.

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READ MORE:

FARMING THE FUTURE - A COLLABORATIVE AND FUNDED VISION

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Supporting the next generation of farmers: developing an agroecology training network

Written by Dee Butterly. Farmer at Southern Roots Organics CSA and Project Development and Outreach Coordinator with the Landworkers’ Alliance.

The article was originally published in print in the Organic Growers Alliance membership magazine.

Whenever I meet a fellow farmer, be if the first time, or countless times – I feel an immediate curiosity, connection and respect. I feel a shared sense of excitement, and an implicit knowing, seldom expressed through words, that we both love what we do, and take a huge amount of passion in it. For me, it is in the welcoming of the growing season, marked by the arrival of the swallows over head in springtime and the chattering of the goldfinches in the hedgerows, that I feel I am truly home. It is in the morning sunlight that pierces through a carpet of clover playing in the breeze that I remember to take a moment of gratitude for being able to do what I do. It is in the power of seeds and the social stories they carry with them that the true magic of farming comes alive for me. And it is in the deep, dense smell of the soil on the first planting, or the arrival of the first lambs, that I feel a harmonious resonance with the earth and my place within it. This sense of knowing landscapes and their ecologies, the seasons and the soils beneath my feet has evolved as an experiential and embodied knowledge over my years in farming, and despite my efforts, was something I could never truly or fully learn from a book.

Reflecting on this to a friend and farmer one summer on a golden sunny evening as we rested our bodies and our minds after a long days work in the field, she shared with me a beautiful and poignant saying ‘I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand’. As we sat together, older generation and younger, she spoke with me about the power of embodied knowledge and the crucial importance of the wise elders of the farming community, the custodians of land based knowledge, to support and guide the next generation of farmers.

Barbara Damrosch who farms with her partner Eliot Coleman at Four Seasons Farm in Maine, USA also spoke about the importance of this intergenerational knowledge exchange in a book of letters that came out recently Letters to a Young Farmer, saying ‘fewer people are born into farming now than they once were, and even if there is arable land in the family, it doesn’t always come with parents or grandparents who can guide you. In that sense, we have a generation of orphan farmers’. (www.letterstoayoungfarmer.org)

As part of a growing movement of young and new entrant farmers (or the ‘returning generation of farmers’ as a Canadian farmer friend in La Via Campesina likes to call us) trying to find ways to go back to land based work and make a meaningful and dignified livelihood from it, these two encounters in the past year have stayed with me deeply, and a reminder that we are not alone. The path can so often seem long, lonely and uncertain and the obstacles immense. New entrants looking to make a start in farming are facing huge costs, low financial returns, social isolation and little in the way of policy support.

Dee Butterly @ Southern Roots Organics, photographed by Sian Davey for We Feed The World.

We know the grim facts and figures of the state of food and farming in the UK today and the multiple crises we are facing from climate breakdown to the highest levels of food insecurity the UK has experienced in decades, with an estimated over eight million people across Scotland, Wales and England living in food poverty and struggling to eat even one meal a day. We hear that over the past 20 years over 33 500 small scale farms have been either closed down or consolidated, the average age of a farmer is 58 years and over 30% of farmers are over 65. Less than 3% of farmers are under 35 years and there is little public support for anyone farming on less than 5 hectares or seeking to make a start in agriculture. There is a chronic lack of holistic agroecological programmes supporting and training new entrant farmers to get into the field of small scale, ecological farming and land based work -  this widespread lack of opportunities and training effects both new entrants and established farmers looking to transition into more sustainable agroecological production techniques.

However despite this, and increasingly in response to it, there is this rising tide of new entrant farmers finding ways to transform our food systems, returning to both rural and urban land to produce good nutritious food on a small scale for their local communities. In recent years we have seen thousands of people trying to make a start in farming, focusing on agroecological production and direct sales models. And grassroots organisations such as the Landworkers’ Alliance, the Organic Growers Alliance, the Community Supported Agriculture Network, the Soil Association, The Biodynamic Agriculture College, The Community Food Growers Network, The Kindling Trust, Organiclea, Nourish Scotland, the Scottish Crofters Association and many others are working hard to facilitate, organise and support this growing movement to thrive against the odds to ensure the next generation of farmers get into farming.

Rita @ Southern Roots Organics

In addition to the tireless campaigning for an Agriculture Bill that supports local food and agroecology, these grassroots organisations mentioned and many more have been working increasingly to address this education deficit by developing concrete and practical solutions. Within the memberships of our organisations we have an incredible pool of resources, knowledge and skills that land based workers are very keen and willing to share, offer and exchange; and we have many new entrant farmers in our memberships looking for support, training and mentoring. In order to develop a coherent learning pathway for prospective and new entrant farmers that offers a holistic agroecological pedagogy and embodied experiential learning processes various programmes and initiatives have emerged the last couple of years or are currently getting started include:

(1) Farmer to Farmer exchange groups

Such as the Growers Group in South West England where farmers in the area meet once a month for an evening on each others farms. Hosts lead a farm tour and discussion on a certain seasonal topic ranging from propagation and seed saving, field scale growing, hand tools and mechanical weeding, to crop planning to bookkeeping. This model is very similar to the campesino a campesino model that has been used by La Via Campesina in Latin and Central America for years based on the traditions and experiences of popular education. A group in Scotland called ‘Market Gardeners of Scotland’ have also set up under a similar structure, and groups in Wales and various parts of England are also getting going. The Landworkers’ Alliance is currently writing a handbook for guidelines on establishing and running a ‘farmer-to-farmer’ group.

(2) Traineeship network

Farms in the South West England and South West Wales running various traineeship programmes are currently working to develop a traineeship network where trainers and trainees can be supported throughout the season. There are currently plans to develop training hubs, a best practice guidelines and a traineeship curriculum, and a programme of specialised training days shared out and delivered by the trainers available to all trainees in the network.

(3) Mentoring programmes

The average age of a farmer in the UK is almost 60 years old - and while this is often cited in a problematic way it also means there are loads of farmers in the UK with an incredible experience, wealth and history of farming! As more and more people try to get into the field of farming there is a higher demand for mentoring and intergenerational knowledge exchanges between farmers of all ages. These programmes pair up experienced farmers with new-entrant farmers in their first five years of establishing a business to offer guidance and support. Nourish Scotland has already been running a mentoring programme with great results for over three years now, the Community Supported Agriculture developed a program last year and both the Landworkers’ Alliance and the Organic Growers Alliance are in the process of developing mentoring schemes for members to connect new entrant and more experienced farmers together both sectorally and regionally.

(4) Farm start network

One has been established this year to bring together organisations that are working to support new entrants farmers by setting up ‘incubator’ sites where people can trial land based enterprises with a degree of support in accessing land, training, markets and equipment.  This initiative is being developed in response to the needs and obstacles that many new entrant farmers face when trying to set up a new farm business and looking at what role existing and established farms with additional land and infrastructure can offer to support them.

(5) Accredited on farm training

There are hardly any recognised on farm accrediting training programs for new entrant small scale farmers in the UK. Initiatives such as Organiclea and Biodynamic Agriculture College have designed and developed accredited training schemes for on farm learning programmes. Other organisations and initiatives are currently also trying to look into how to develop accreditation for on farm training and develop a farmer led model for appropriate accredited training that can support the development of the agroecological sector.

(6) Farm hacks, teaching days and skill shares

A lot of tools, tech and machinery these days are no longer appropriate for small-scale farming methods, and it’s harder and harder to find the right kind of farm kit. A Farm Hack is where a community of farmers and growers who are developing DIY appropriate tools and technology for small scale farming get together to share ideas, ‘hacks’, innovative designs and tools they have made and how. Several farm hacks have been run in the past few years and more are being organised this year across England, Scotland and Wales. Teaching days and skill shares are also being regularly organised covering a wide range of sectoral topics.

(7) Seed sovereignty

With more and more F1s and derogated non-organic seeds replacing open pollinated heritage seeds and an ever increasing decline in seed diversity and seed production knowledge The Gaia Foundation have been developing a seed sovereignty programme over the past two years in England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. One of the projects main emphasis is to train farmers to become seed producers (a lost art in farming today) so as to ensure the resilience of our farming systems.  To name a few Real Seeds in Wales along with Vital Seeds, Trill Farm and the Seed Co-operative in England have been collaborating with the Gaia Foundation regional coordinators on the project and are continuing to host and deliver training for seed growers.

(8) Political training, facilitation training and movement buildinG

In order to support this kind of grassroots organising to evolve, the Landworkers’ Alliance is in the process of developing a ‘facilitating training and movement building’ course for farmers that are working to self organise collectively and develop farmer led education, training and exchange programmes as well as political organising at the local level.  

It’s an exciting time to be getting into farming as these self-organised and autonomos plethora of initiatives, programmes, exchanges and training opportunities are being developed and made more widely available. What is so empowering about this training network being developed is the rich biodiversity of knowledge and experience it embodies and the huge potential for transformative learning processes - which is one the key principles of agroecology. In the Agroecology Declaration written by farmers from all over the world at the Nyeleni Forum in Mali in 2015, one of the key principles is ‘knowledge sharing’. It advocates for ‘horizontal exchanges and intergenerational exchanges between generations and across different traditions’. This philosophical and pedagogical approach to agroecological training is that rather than valuing  and emphasizing top-down ‘expert’ knowledge, it puts the community of practitioners - farmers, growers and land based workers organising for a better food system - at its heart.

Raising Seedlings

In agroecology there is a strong emphasis on diálogo de saberes (wisdom dialogues or dialogue between ways of knowing), and is one of the key organising principles of La Via Campesina in building alliances between farming networks and social movements across the world. It holds the biosphere of ways of knowing and learning approaches that peasants, indigenous communities and farmers have developed and passed down throughout history in a dialogue that promotes mutual understanding, collective learning and joint action rather than one approach dominating another.  

Adam @ Southern Roots Organics

As young and new entrant farmers we are all facing a huge struggle and a deeply unknown future ahead. We cannot build the alternative we desperately need alone. There are generations of our elders before us who have been and are still farming and we seek their friendship, council and wisdom. It is in the power of listening to each other’s stories and sharing our lived experiences on the land that enables us to have far more than just solidarity with each other, it is a way of connecting that lays common foundations from which to take seriously the need to galvanise the energy and momentum that we all have into building alliances and a strong coordinated food and farming movement together over this coming year. It is in these grassroots networks we are all part of, our intergenerational farming communities, and our experiences and intimate knowledge of working that land that gives us strength and power in our actions, organising, learning and campaigning. It is through this embodied knowing that we strengthen our support and solidarity with each other as a movement that, in these times of political chaos and climate breakdown. It is through this that we are more than just sowing the seeds of resistance, but in our everyday actions already producing the solution we need - a food system based on community, solidarity, agroecology, food sovereignty, and environmental and social justice.

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Author : DEE BUTTERLY

Dee Butterly is Farmer at Southern Roots Organics CSA in Dorset and Project Development and Outreach Coordinator with the Landworkers’ Alliance. In 2018, Dee was a key figure in the creation of A People’s Food Policy. Prior to working with the LWA, Dee co-ordinated The Hermitage Community Vegetable Garden and was a founding member of The New Leaf Co-operative. She holds an MA in Social Anthropology with Sustainable Development from the University of Edinburgh.

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THE ABSOLUTE IMPORTANCE OF ENLIGHTENED AGRICULTURE

Written by Colin Tudge, Real Farming Trust, who calls for an Agrarian Renaissance.

Almost a billion people go to bed hungry; more than a billion eat too much of the wrong things  (the world population of diet-related diabetics far exceeds the total population of the United States); everywhere there is unrest; we’re in the throes of a mass extinction;  and climate change threatens to make nonsense of all our aspirations. Everybody knows all this (don’t they?) although many feel there’s nothing they can do about it and many alas in high places are in denial – or at least, if they do acknowledge the facts, they assure us that they are on the case, and we should put our trust in their good offices. 

And yet: if only we, humanity, did simple things well, then even at this late hour, much of the pending disaster could be averted. Right now, as Pope Francis, several archbishops, a great many scientists, and writers and activists of all kinds line up to warn us, we are heading for Armageddon – perhaps in 30 years or less; certainly, within the lifetimes of our grandchildren. Yet we could and should be looking forward, with reasonable optimism, to at least another million years on this Earth, and our far distant descendants could be living far more contentedly than most of us do now, with real, personal fulfilment, and in harmony with the creatures that we are now destroying. The difference between what is, and what could be, is that stark.

To make the necessary changes, however, we need truly to be radical; to get right down to the roots of the world’s problems and, in effect, start again. We need transformation; metamorphosis; metanoia – nothing short of Renaissance, meaning re-birth, at least as deep-rooted and far-reaching as the “Italian” Renaissance that began in the 15th century and (more or less) brought the European Middle Ages to a close. 

The key, though, to all the world’s problems, human and inhuman, lies with agriculture; and so too therefore does the key to their solution. Agriculture is, very obviously, by far the greatest source of human food: 99 per cent of us would not be here without it. Less obviously, it is also the world’s biggest employer – by far. It occupies a third of all land – including most of the world’s most fertile land. Other terrestrial creatures have mostly been pushed to the margins. But in its modern industrial form agriculture is also the greatest of all polluters of the land, the oceans, and the atmosphere – source of a hundred toxins, and a major and critical contributor to global warming. It destroys soils (a third of all land is now degraded according to the FAO); it is the main drain (by far) on the world’s fresh water. Taken all in all, “modern” high-tech farming is very obviously the prime cause of mass extinction. Indeed, unless we develop wildlife-friendly farming then the cause of wildlife conservation is more or less dead in the water, or at least severely holed below the water-line.

In short, the grand Renaissance, the great re-think that the world now needs, should begin with an Agrarian Renaissance: a complete re-think and re-structuring of the world’s farming – together with a new, complementary food culture. One more thing: the Italian Renaissance was driven by bankers and led by artists and intellectuals but the Renaissance we need now, beginning with the Agrarian Renaissance, must be driven by us: people at large. It must be a giant exercise in democracy. 

Prolific and traditional food cultures, like the diets of the Mediterranean (example pictured above), use meat but sparingly and celebrate local diversity.

The task may seem daunting – not least because the world’s food network seems sewn up: every stage from plant breeding and seed production through the agrochemical industry to processing and retail is controlled by a handful of corporates, all supported by big governments like those of Britain and the US for whom the corporates are their natural partners.

Yet there is serendipity. Most (by far) of the world’s farmers are still small-scale and craft-based (artisanal); many millions of people worldwide and many thousands (literally) of non-government organizations (NGOs) are working on projects that are leading the world in the right directions; and various communities in Britain and the world at large are acquiring farmland or at least the use of it and are beginning to do things differently. Indeed, despite appearances, the giant, globalized, integrated food and farming industry may be the most amenable or vulnerable of all to a people’s takeover.

So what’s gone wrong and what do we need to do?

What we have and what we need

The kind of agriculture that is now promoted by the nexus of big governments, big finance, and corporates, with their chosen expert and intellectual advisers, is anomalously called “conventional”. This, though, is yet another example of language hi-jacked – for it should, rather, be called “Neoliberal-Industrial” or NI agriculture. It is driven, after all, by the (neoliberal) conceit that we, human beings, need above all to maximize wealth. Agriculture is now conceived as “a business like any other” (a chill phrase I first heard in the 1970s) and “business” these past few decades has been re-conceived not as the natural underpinning of democratic society as it was at its best until the 1970s but simply as another way of making money – for personal enrichment and to contribute to GDP.

The way to maximize wealth, so the neoliberal doctrine has it, is to compete in the maximally-competitive global market with other enterprises of all kinds to maximize profit and grab the biggest market share. Profit in turn is maximized in three ways. First: by producing as much as possible. The more there is to sell, the greater the potential returns. Productionism still rules. Second: by cutting costs to the bone and then cutting a bit more. This generally means replacing labour with machines and industrial chemistry, although if all real costs are taken into account then labour emerges as a minor contributor, and machines and chemistry are cheaper only so long as oil is still available and is made affordable. The third route to profit is by “adding value” – which of course is good when it means turning grain into bread and pastries, or dead animals into highly nutritious delicacies, but it also means extravagant packaging and out-of-season strawberries and all the rest.

A bird’s eye view of the neo-liberal monoculture that prioritises the maximisation of yield.

Indeed the whole industrial food chain is immensely profligate. Modern arable farming, which is the chief agricultural enterprise, is in effect an offshoot of the agrochemical industry -- the agrochemical industry al fresco. Modern livestock farming especially in vast modern CAFOs (“concentrated animal feeding operations”) is an offshoot of arable farming -- designed, primarily, not to meet (spurious) public need or “demand” in the spirit of democracy, but to mop up arable surpluses. Supermarkets in general sell only the prime cuts, and what cannot reasonably be made into sausages and pies (and a lot that can), the rest supports the petfood industry. The profligacy is not an accident. The food chain is designed to be profligate. It is more profitable that way.

At the same time, FAO tells us that at least a third of all food is simply wasted. In the poor world, a third is lost to pests and predators in the field or in storage. In the rich world, a third is thrown away after it has reached the kitchen. In addition – and worse! -- about half the world’s cereal and most of the soya is grown for and fed to livestock. Yet all the world’s greatest cuisines, like those of Italy and China, use meat sparingly. We could produce enough to support the world’s best cooking just by feeding animals on pasture and/or swill, as is of course traditional. 

Enlightened Agriculture

What we really need, in absolute contrast to all of the above, is what I for the past 15 years or so have been calling Enlightened Agriculture, also known as Real Farming as in the Oxford Real Farming Conference – and our new College for Real Farming and Food Culture, of which more on that later.

Behind Enlightened Agriculture lies the big idea that if we really want to solve the world’s problems, and establish the Renaissance on firm foundations, then in everything we do must be guided by the principles of –

Morality, which tells us what it is right to do; and of

Ecology, which aspires to tell us what it is necessary and possible to do.

These two – Morality and Ecology – must provide the guidelines. They alone deserve to be called principles. “Political principles” are just ideologies, which is not the same thing at all.

Many, though, suggest that a universal morality is not possible. Different individuals and different societies set their own standards.  True – but contrary to the fashionable, post-modern belief, some moral codes are better than others. Thus, moral codes in practice have been set since the beginning of history mainly by religions; and although the different religions differ in their trappings, liturgies, and customs, the moral codes that lie at their heart are all remarkably similar – in essence almost identical. All in particular emphasise the core virtues of –

Compassion

Humility

Reverence for Nature

These, then, are the guidelines of Enlightened Agriculture – which is informally but adequately defined as:

“Agriculture that is expressly designed to provide everyone, everywhere, with food of the highest quality, both nutritionally and gastronomically, without cruelty or injustice and without wrecking the rest of the world”.

Local and regeneratively grown, socially just, and economically sound are key principles to agroecology.

Despite present appearances, and despite a sequence of somewhat panicky reports from governments and commerce, this should be eminently possible. But we can do what needs doing only if we farm as if we really intended to provide good food for everyone – as opposed to becoming rich and powerful – and if we treat nature with true respect, and not, as now, as raw material, to be turned into commodities, to be sold on the global market.

In practice, although the term “Enlightened Agriculture” is novel, it is based on four ideas – moral and ecological -- that are now becoming well established. They are:

Agroecology

Food Sovereignty

Green Economic Democracy

Respect for Traditional Knowledge

All are the precise opposite of the Neoliberal-Industrial approaches that now receive such zealous support from the government-corporate oligarchy. Thus: 

Agroecology requires us to treat all farms as ecosystems – diverse, low-input, synergistic, and cyclic. Accordingly, agroecological farms in general aspire to be mixed and organic; they are therefore complex; therefore they must be skills-intensive – plenty of farmers; and therefore in general they tend to be small to medium-sized. 

But NI agriculture depends on machines and industrial chemistry with minimum to zero labour – and machines prefer simplicity, so complexity gives way to monoculture; and machinery is most economical when it is big. Big machines need big fields to operate in so NI farms are as big as possible. Farmers these days are encouraged to swallow up the farms next door.  

Food Sovereignty is the idea that all societies should be in charge of their own food supply. This again pushes us towards the small-to-medium sized mixed farm that is designed primarily to serve local communities and, is ideally, community owned: or to towards cooperatives of such farms.

Again in starkest contrast, NI agriculture is designed not only to maximize wealth but also to concentrate wealth – into the hands of an irreducibly small coterie of corporates and financiers which governments like ours, faute de mieux, depend upon. This is the precise antithesis of food sovereignty.

Green Economic Democracy among other things requires a “tripartite mixed economy”: a synergy of public, private, and – the one that has been too little emphasized – community ownership, especially of land. The whole is designed to operate for the wellbeing of society and the biosphere as a whole. Again, that is not the prime motivation of the neoliberal economy.

Respect for Traditional Knowledge means just that. It is absurd to suppose that the latest wheeze dreamed up in some think tank or commercial laboratory is always innately superior to and must replace the crafts and wisdom evolved by billions of farmers in millions of locations over thousands of years.  It is absurd – yet seems to be the assumption nonetheless.

Agroecological, small-holder farmers are the torch bearers of traditional knowledge built on millions of years of experience. (Photo by We Feed The World)

But could agroecological, small to medium-sized, mixed, low-input (organic) farms really support the present population and the 10 billion who will be with us by the end of the century? Of course. Study after study has shown that small units, preferably mixed and of course well run, are more productive per unit area than all but the most intensive high-tech kinds – and of course are far less damaging and profligate and indeed are sustainable, which the high-tech industrial kind emphatically are not. 

The powers-that-be, however, though they speak in endless reports and rhetoric of the need for change, seek in essence to perpetuate the status quo: high-tech designed to maximize and concentrate wealth, controlled by an elite. It won’t do. We have to take matters into our own hands. In Six Steps Back to the Land I try to show how people at large can get stuck in to farming; in Why Genes Are Not Selfish and People Are Nice, I sketch in some of the main ideas behind the Renaissance; and in our new College for Real Farming and Food Culture (http://collegeforrealfarming.org/ – though the website is now being re-constructed (May 2019) we are seeking to develop and promulgate the necessary ideas and to translate them into action. Our efforts are only part of what is rapidly becoming a global movement. Here and there in a thousand different ways the Agrarian Renaissance is already happening. All it needs now is a little more collaboration. Please do join in!

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Author: Colin Tudge

Colin Tudge is a biologist by education, a writer by trade, and co-founder of the Oxford Real Farming Conference and the College for Real Farming and Food Culture.

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From single crops to species rich mosaic — how Agroecology helps biodiversity

Written by Lauren Simpson & Phil Moore, Ecological Land Cooperative 

Steepholding’s meadow at ELC’s Greenham Reach site, Devon.

Greenham Reach, the Ecological Land Cooperative’s first cluster of small farms, in mid Devon, is a prime example of Agroecology in action. What was once made of pasture and arable fields is now a mosaic of biodiversity and interlocking crops.

If ‘Big Ag’ can be caricatured as the big thrusting spear possessed by Goliath then allow us to think of Agroecology as made up of the David’s of the world — small in scale and generally in the position of the underdog. 

Perhaps a little crude, and like many concepts there’s more to it than a simplistic either/or binary, I think there’s much to be made of positioning Agroecology in contrast to ‘Big Ag’ (by which I mean large-scale farms designed solely for the pursuit of profit above all else). 

Agriculture is central to human society. It plays a role in our well being, the management of the land and country(side) and informs our culture. And there are many forms of agriculture. From the broad industrial scale cattle ranches to the family farms selling duck eggs at the end of the track. 

Regardless of scale, these agricultures operate in the material world. We are living in a time where we see more clearly than previous generations the interlocking threads between the use (and abuse) of natural resources and biodiversity crashes; hunger and the (mis)distribution of food; population growth and pollution all of which are entwined within the wider arc of climate breakdown. 

Ah my little lambs - April is lambing season, the species rich meadow provides a perfect nursery and lunch.

What this has come to mean is that agriculture — its very definition and articulation — has been contested. The post world wars narrative of hyper production is being challenged. This is partly through political choice, that is, the approach taken by farmers in the first place, but also prompted by the challenges mentioned above and the search for solutions.

Agroecology, simply put, is about reconnecting these threads in an ecological way. By restoring relationships between farming and food, ecology and the environment, and the source (e.g. the water we all share and the soil we all use) and society, Agroecology seeks to create a more sustainable foundation for agriculture.

By replacing chemical inputs with natural sources of fertility, employing natural techniques over intensive production methods; celebrating and welcoming biodiversity and stimulating interactions between plants, animals and the land — as well as taking into account human culture and sensitivity to place — Agroecology encompasses a wider view of agriculture that can mutually support long-term soil fertility, furnish healthy ecosystems and provide worthy livelihoods. Agroecology then is the application of ecology in agriculture

Any small, human-scale system such as Agroecology is by definition more supple than a lumbering Goliath. As a methodology and a practise, Agroecology is responsive to context-specific design and the needs of place. 

And the restorative potential of Agroecology can be evidenced in our first project, Greenham Reach, a cluster of three smallholdings in mid-Devon. A five year temporary planning permission was granted for the project in 2013, with permanent permission given in 2018, allowing the 22-acre greenfield site to develop shared infrastructure and three new farm businesses (each tied to an agricultural dwelling). 

An ELC tenant in their market garden at Greenham Reach, Devon.

The Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC) works to create affordable ecological smallholdings for new entrants to farming – those who would ordinarily be unable to afford a house in the countryside yet who wish to earn a living through farming. And a large part of our ethos is informed by ecological agriculture, or, Agroecology. 

ELC tenants are legally tied to a Management Plan and an annual monitoring process which we carry out for ourselves and report back to the local authority on the site’s progress.

The monitoring report is one of the key aspects of our work in demonstrating that taking marginal agricultural land (in the context of the UK we take this to mean land that has formerly been used for single cropping or single live-stocking) and creating an ecologically oriented system which is diverse and sustainable and that directs solutions toward environmental and social benefits as well as economic ones.

Pollinators are vital for an ecosystem to thrive.

Greenham Reach has been transformed from an area of farmland typical for south-west England (moderate but not exceptional richness for wildlife) into a cluster of diverse horticultural holdings with great potential value for biodiversity according to our ecology reports.   

In 2009 the site was composed of two intensively managed arable fields and two fields of permanent flood plain pasture with a small area of species-rich, agriculturally unimproved grassland and mature hedges. Between 2013, when the first smallholders moved in, and 2017, the diversity of habitats increased— particularly on the former arable fields. 

These fields were conventionally farmed with a single crop and the typical inputs of fertilisers and agrochemicals. Transformed in a very short space of time into a mixture of perennial herb beds, shrubs, vegetable growing areas, tussocky grassland and mixed pasture this mosaic of habitat now offers a great source of nectar and pollen for flower-feeding invertebrates such as bees, butterflies, moths and hover flies. What was once a single crop field has now become a tapestry of life. This is Agroecology in action no matter how small or grand in scope. 

With the planting of more trees, the maintenance and enhancement of hedges have been of value to breeding and wintering birds. Although not proven to be present, these hedges also provide ideal habitat for dormice. The small area of species-rich grassland is of great importance locally and nationally. Very little of this rare habitat is recorded in the DEFRA Priority Habitat inventory within a 10km radius. The juxtaposition of agriculturally unimproved grassland and mature hedgerow is also likely to offer good feeding habitat to bats.  

According to our ecologists these improvements are based entirely on the site management and hard work of the smallholders. Committed to ecological agriculture the occupants have been informed by permaculture and inspired by Agroecology. In the very seed of the design, where diversity is valued, natural approaches favoured and wildlife celebrated, the three small farms demonstrate that environmental, economic and social benefits can sit side by side.

ELC tenants amongst the herbs.

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Small Farm Profits

by the Ecological Land Cooperative

The Ecological Land Cooperative’s short publication, ‘Small Farm Profits’, demonstrates that small farms are successful.

‘Small Farm Profits’, a short booklet made up of small farm case studies, demonstrates that small-scale, ecological farms in the UK can, and do, make a profit.

 In light of the proposed Agriculture Bill which recommends supporting public goods and improving agricultural activity, it is essential that new policies support small farms which produce healthy food. These kinds of farms are exactly what this booklet showcases.

 Small Farm Profits provides proof that small-scale doesn’t mean uncompetitive and that ecological agriculture can create economically viable, highly productive and sustainable enterprises on small acreages.

 The proposed Agriculture Bill, which will enforce UK policy post-Brexit, does not refer to small-scale, ecological farming or local food. This needs to change.

Vegboxes of the CSA, Cae Tan, at the ELC’s site in Wales .

Oli Rodker, Executive Director of ELC, says: “Our booklet shows what can be done on small acreages even in today’s challenging economic climate. The new Agriculture Bill is a chance to put policy behind Michael Gove’s words and provide the financial and technical support to ensure we see thousands more of these types of businesses in the coming years.”

 Agroecological Small Farms should be supported because:

·       They produce fresh, local & healthy food free from pesticides and other chemicals

·       They have high employment figures per land area

·       More farmers means more innovation

·       Of their environmental stewardship: small farms promote biodiversity, good soil care and low carbon emissions.

·       They can adapt more easily to local conditions.

·       Of their positive Social Impact: focused on local economies and local people, small farms provide opportunities for community engagement

Busy harvest for workers and helpers at the CSA Cae Tan on the ELC’s site in Gower, Wales.

·       They make profitable businesses!

 The Ecological Land Cooperative works to create new opportunities for small ecological farms. For small farms to remain competitive and viable in today’s markets they need to be long-lasting and sustainable — financially as well as ecologically. Small Farm Profits illustrates that such farms are financially sound and that ecological and economic objectives can sit side by side productively.

 The Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC) is a social enterprise, co-operative in structure, established to address the lack of affordable sites for ecological land-based livelihoods in England and Wales. Set up in 2009, the ELC purchases land, obtains planning permission, and installs the infrastructure to create clusters of three or more affordable smallholdings for future farmers. The ELC’s first project, Greenham Reach, in mid-Devon, was granted permanent planning permission in 2018 after five years temporary permission. Home to three thriving smallholdings, each operating as independent businesses but working co-operatively to manage the whole site. Greenham Reach is a living example of ecologically managed land providing truly sustainable land-based livelihoods. The ELC’s second site in Arlington, East Sussex has secured temporary planning permission and is the process of recruiting tenants to join the cooperative and start farming.

The ELC has also purchased land on the Gower in Wales and in Sparkford, South Somerset, both have planning applications in process.

The Booklet can be read here: https://ecologicalland.coop/small-farm-profits and for more info about the ELC please visit: http://ecologicalland.coop

Read More: CREATING CHANGE WITH THE ECOLOGICAL LAND COOPERATIVE

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The Launch of LEAP: Loans for Enlightened Agriculture Programme

The Real Farming Trust have launched LEAP (Loans for Enlightened Agriculture Programme). The A Team Foundation are proud investors of this programme, along with the Esmeé Fairbairn Foundation, and CIVA. Together, we understand the inherent challenges that agroecological food and farming enterprises face in raising finance.

LEAP is designed to create a way of filling that gap between grant and commercial funding by:

• working closely with businesses to understand the situation

• looking at both financial performance and social impact

• working together through every step of the application process

• helping organisations to build long-term sustainability.

The Loans for Enlightened Agriculture Programme (LEAP) offers a mix of affordable loans and grants, side by side with a comprehensive mentoring programme and hands on approach.

LEAP is a new model for financing and supporting food and farming enterprises that puts people and the biosphere at the heart of our food system. LEAP will provide a critical next step for community based agroecological enterprises that have relied on grant funding to date and who have had nowhere to go to finance their onward development.

What does leap offer?

affordable loans:

• Unsecured loans for a 5-year term

• For amounts of between £25,000 and £100,000

• Can be used for capital or revenue costs

LEAP offers one of the lowest interest rates in the social investment marketplace. This is currently set at 5%, and is calculated on a declining balance, equal instalments basis.

To help cover the costs of running the programme, there is a one-off chargeable fee, which will be taken from the loan when drawn down. This is currently set at 2% of the loan amount.

Grants:

Side by side with the loan, recipients will be offered a grant at 18% of the loan amount. So, for a £50,000 loan, the recipient will be awarded a grant of £9,000. By providing a grant with the loan LEAP hopes to alleviate the administrative burden on the individuals and free them up to concentrate on impact delivery and long-term sustainability. The grants have been kindly supplied by The Halleria Trust.

Business advice and support:

A key component of the LEAP is a tailored and structured mentoring package to ensure that they are ready take on a loan. This is termed ‘investment readiness’. The structure and focus of this support will vary from one organisation to another, but could be in areas such as business planning, financial modelling, governance, social impact delivery, community finance or marketing. The business mentorship is kindly funded by Power to Change.

NEXT STEPS

If this sounds like something that could help you and your business, then please head to the website using the link below. On their site, you can find out more about this game-changing programme and how to apply.

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