Farming The Future 2020 - The Funded Projects

Photo from CoFarm Foundation

Farming the Future fosters a culture of collaboration through pooled grant making to strengthen the ecosystem of the food and farming movement.

We are addressing our broken food system, with the objective to instil systemic resilience, and fortify the movement.

Farming the Future is funding the following strategic partnerships and innovative projects through its Year 2 Grant-pool.  

The grants recognise the benefits of, and threats to, the regenerative farming movement. They work to safeguard and strengthen agroecology and its principles from practise to policy. 

The 16 projects summarised below span across local and national issues, through initiatives that tackle complex issues, such as connecting economics, education, land access, policy, and social justice.

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Safeguarding agroecology: responding to the risk of genetic modification

Lead organisation: Beyond GM

Project partner: GM Freeze

As post-Brexit farming and food policies make their way through parliament, the government’s position on genetic modification (GM) has become quietly clearer and increasingly concerning. Presenting agroecological practices as tools that could help build on the Net Zero and National Food strategies, the movement as a whole is being undermined by its deconstruction and the proposed role of GM technology. 

Photo from Beyond GM

Appearing in the ‘Health and Harmony’ vision for ‘Future Farming Policy’, GM is widely accepted as incompatible with agroecology’s social and environmental principles. Yet the debate about GM has gradually gone silent over the last decade, whilst support from government and some NGOs has steadily grown. 

This project aims to reignite a dialogue, re-establish common ground, and rebuild a unified, integrated campaign, bringing together a wide coalition of farmers, scientists, civil society groups, and other consumer bodies. A report will be published in order to create awareness and engagement, which will include research on the threats and vulnerabilities posed to the agroecology and community food sectors. A clear and reinvigorated message will aim to influence public, industry and MP’s opinions at a critical moment, as the government consults them on the use of GM.

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Supporting small-scale and agroecological farmers

Lead organisation: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Network UK

Project partners: Landworkers Alliance (LWA), Organic Growers Alliance (OGA), Gaia Foundation (Seed Sovereignty UK and Ireland Programme

A project that was initially supported by Farming the Future’s Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund, this collaborative of small-scale agroecological farming membership organisations, provides support to their members across the industry. The coordinated programme included webinars and other online resources which provided much needed business advice for many producers attempting to adapt to the crisis and keep people well fed.

Proving extremely popular, the initiative also expanded awareness and connections across the regenerative farming movement. Knowledge and resources were made more accessible, whilst opportunities opened up for members from different organisations, regions and sectors to communicate and share knowledge. These conversations gave rise to bigger questions and ideas about how the network could address complex issues around access to food, targeted business support, food sovereignty and social justice .

To address these gaps, a new 2-year programme will support ongoing collaboration between the original partners, with the addition of Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty UK & Ireland network. Free monthly webinars and 12 focus groups will delve deeper into the subjects that will inform further packages of support, whilst the connections this programme creates may last long into the future of farming in the UK.

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Less and better meat for local authorities

Lead organisation: Eating Better

Project Partners: Sustainable Food Trust, Sustain

Eating Better is an alliance of over 60 civil society organisations that are working towards a more sustainable and healthy British food industry and culture. With a target of achieving a 50% reduction and overall improvement of the standard of meat and dairy consumed in the UK by 2030, the alliance has identified public food procurement as a key lever for making this transition.

Public bodies have the potential to provide a broad demographic with well produced food. This could help to increase awareness and understanding of the relationships between health and sustainability. Raising standards here could also set a precedent for wider local food supply chains and economies. With many local authorities trying to address the climate and ecological emergency, food presents an opportunity to do so whilst also addressing other health crises, such as obesity and diabetes.

To aid sustainable meat procurement, the project partners will collaborate on a proposition for local authorities. Pooling their strengths and expertise, the guidance will give insight into sustainability from the farm through to procurement processes. The project may also provide a blueprint for this strategy and shareable resources that can be used in future initiatives from the coalition.

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Scaling Up Community-owned Land for Agroecology

Lead organisation: Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC)

Project Partners: The Scottish Farm Land Trust (SFLT), Community Shares Scotland (CSS)

Since 2009, the Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC) has acquired smallholdings for 15 new farms along with a wealth of knowledge about agroecological growing projects. They receive a constant stream of enquiries from many people wishing to set up their own local growing projects but are only occasionally able to partner with other organisations due to capacity.

The ELC were approached by the Scottish Farm Land Trust (SFLT), who wish to facilitate agroecological farming across Scotland by purchasing land to rent out affordably. With over half a million acres in Scotland in community ownership, very few groups are focused on agriculture. SFLT hopes to launch a community share offer with Community Shares Scotland (CSS), a network of 300 community-led organisations, to fund its first land purchase by the end of 2021.

ELC will act as a consultant to SFLT on land purchase, business models, tenancy agreements, planning permission, site management, recruitment, administration and more. The project hopes to showcase progressive land reform policy and community ownership models. In the process, ELC will consolidate information as the basis of a toolkit for others wishing to secure land for agroecological community projects.

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A national network of agroforestry farms 

Lead organisation: The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust

Project partners: The Organic Research Centre, The Woodland Trust, The National Trust, The Agricology Project, The Woodmeadow Trust, The Farm Woodland Forum

One of the solutions proposed by the government to achieve Net Zero carbon by 2050 is to plant at least 30 000 ha of trees per year. 50% of these are designated for farming land. Yet the UK’s domestic food production has rapidly declined over the last 40 years, threatening food security and sovereignty. Large-scale tree planting has the potential to reduce production even further, and could contribute to the climate and ecological crisis it aims to avert.

photo of Wakelyns by Agricology

As a result of previous agricultural policy putting tree-planting in conflict with subsidies, the UK has one of lowest levels of woodland in Europe. New agricultural policy has the potential to meet multiple objectives for food production and environmental protection. Whilst mixed cropping systems are more complex to manage, they can produce a wider range of food and fuel, greater resilience to climate and market challenges, and rural employment.

This project aims to promote agroforestry as a way of farmers and landowners simultaneously and sustainably growing food, transitioning into the new ELM Scheme and contributing to ‘public goods’. The project will showcase farms and initiatives across the UK successfully balancing these objectives to share knowledge and evidence of the value of agroforestry. Content for educational and promotional resources to be shared with UK growers and potentially influence a national pilot as well as future policy.

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Building the Northern Real Farming Network

Project lead: LESS (Lancaster District) CIC

Project partners: Permaculture Association, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Network, Real Farming Trust

The climate, landscape, hydrology, soils and history of the North of England give it unique habitats, farming traditions and food cultures. These present particular challenges and opportunities for significant contribution to a food system that works for its landscapes and inhabitants. This year, the organisers of the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) produced the first Northern Real Farming Conference (NRFC), through an online programme of events about economic democracy, food sovereignty and agroecology.

This grant will support the development and delivery of NRFC events alongside the ORFC, which is at capacity and much less accessible to farmers in the North. Project partners will connect key stakeholders in the North to expand the reach of NRFC, build the network and understand the community’s needs, practices and models. Following in the footsteps of ORFC as a catalyst for food system change, NRFC aims to bring more people together to share ideas and solutions to environmental, economic and social issues through a growing, national regenerative food movement.

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Jumping Fences: addressing the barriers to agroecological farming for BPOC in Britain

Project lead: Land In Our Names (LION)

Project partners: Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC), Landworkers Alliance (LWA)

Black people and people of colour (BPOC) are widely under-represented in British agricultural, environmental and horticultural sectors; this project seeks to know why. The collaborative are to find and identify the barriers facing BPOC, particularly those who have established or are considering a land-based livelihood in Britain. The research will inform practical and policy solutions that work to increase BPOC’s access to land and land-based enterprises.

photo by Land in Our Names

By mapping existing and aspiring BPOC-led farming businesses and organisations, the project aims to share experiences, skills and information with BPOC who may wish to join a growing community of new entrants. A series of workshops based on the research will also be delivered for the agroecological community so that it might consider ways to better support BPOC in securing land access and enterprise.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, many organisations approached LION in the hope of understanding and tackling a lack of participation from BPOC in the agroecology movement. Dedicated time and resources for the BPOC community to facilitate this are needed. The grant strengthens the capacity of LION - a relatively new organisation, to carry out this work and is supported through the collaboration with LWA and ELC.

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Cultivating Justice

Project lead: Land In Our Names (LION)

Project partners: Landworkers Alliance (LWA), Farmerama

Exploring the intersections of complex, historical, socio-economic and cultural issues that underlie an agricultural sector built on colonialism, patriarchy and neoliberalism, this project will work towards a more diverse movement with a stronger position for marginalised groups in farming. Addressing. the underrepresentation of BPOC, LGBTQIA+ individuals and women in agriculture, land ownership and access, the collaboration aims to deepen agroecology’s roots in social justice.

Each project partner’s wide-reaching relationships and understanding of underrepresented communities will be brought together to produce a series of podcasts, workshops, events and publications. These will cover topics relevant to BPOC, LGBTQIA+ individuals and women. Excavating the farming ancestry of Britain to unearth, uplift and amplify positive stories from the community, this project will form Cultivating Justice’s identity and resources. 

In order to accurately portray social justice issues and their intersectionality, the voices of marginalised groups will contribute towards a changing narrative. By sharing these messages, the project aims to build and strengthen a collective vision for social justice within regenerative food, farming and land systems.

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Agroecology Research Collaboration (ARC)

Project lead: Landworkers Alliance (LWA)

Project partners: Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC), Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Network, Organic Growers Alliance (OGA)

The Agroecology Research Collaboration (ARC) is a co-ordinated coalition that will amplify the voice of agroecology in the UK. A response to the influx of research requests from bodies outside of the movement, the ARC will provide the much needed capacity to meet demand.

Agroecological practitioners and grassroots organisations need to be able to actively develop and steer the research agenda. The ARC will enable key, like-minded organisations to manage relationships with research institutions in a collaborative way that is beneficial to the movement as a whole.

The ARC will take a proactive and strategic approach, employing a research coordinator to produce robust and rigorous research, liaise between organisations, and find sustainable funding streams to become self-sufficient. This collective effort aims to give UK agroecological movement widespread representation externally, whilst making it more effective and transparent internally.

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Preventing trade deals from weakening UK pesticide standard

Project lead: Pesticide Action Network (PAN) UK

Project Partners: Sustain, Dr Emily Lydgate, Sussex University

This project aims to protect human and environmental health by preventing the lowering of pesticide standards that could result from post-Brexit trade deals. The campaign builds on the public and political momentum successfully created by the Toxic Trade report, produced from the groups’ previous Farming The Future funded project. With a huge amount of value brought to the campaign and organisations through this collaboration, the partners will continue working to expose threats posed by pesticides in the next two years of UK trade negotiations.

Bringing together NGOs and academia to research pesticide policy, a trade law expert adds impact to the NGO’s combined experience and expertise across environment, health, trade and policy. A YouGov poll has shown that any weakening of standards would be very unpopular, whilst the project’s research has been referenced in parliament and PAN UK has been invited to become a formal stakeholder of the Department for International Trade.

PR, a public petition and parliamentary lobbying will aim to prevent deregulation of pesticides on imported produce, which would protect UK farmers in maintaining high standards whilst remaining competitive and accessible to lower income households. The campaign will also continue to build on its research into the potential impact of trade with more countries and continue scrutinising the government’s pesticide policy.

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Sharing knowledge on how to work with nature to reduce pesticide use

Project lead: RSPB

Project Partners: Soil Association, Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), Pesticide Action Network (PAN) UK, CoFarm Foundation

Last year, Farming the Future funded a collaboration to reduce pesticide related harms - work which has been building momentum and will now continue with a focus on policy, advocacy and public awareness. The ongoing project will provide knowledge and support needed by farmers in reducing their use of pesticides, and produce evidence of the economic and ecological impacts of doing so.

Reducing pesticides requires new ways of farming with nature, rather than against it. Farming with fewer chemicals produces more resilient yields whilst also protecting essential ecosystems. Many farmers already doing this could become advocates and provide peer-to-peer support.

This phase of the project will investigate natural crop protection practises and the support needed for it. Case studies and webinars will be produced by and for farmers. Stories of substantial transitions to more sustainable land management will help farmers and policy-makers understand how and why nature-friendly solutions are beneficial both now and in the future. 

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Reforming Red Tractor to drive pesticide reduction

Project lead: Pesticide Action Network (PAN) UK

Project Partners: Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), RSPB

Red Tractor is the UK’s largest food standards scheme, with 46,000 British farmer as members. Red Tractor will review its standards next year, which presents an opportunity to influence this widely adopted certification framework. Setting out to reduce UK farmers’ use of pesticides and Integrated Pest Management (IPM), this project will encourage nature-based IPM practises that protect the health of people, wildlife and the environment.

Photo by PAN UK

According to research by the Soil Association, consumers are increasingly concerned about the impact of pesticides on their health, farmers and the environment. The UK’s top supermarkets are trying to reduce pesticides in their supply chains - many of them working with PAN UK to strengthen their policies. Red Tractor certification is often used to prove they’re doing all they can to ensure suppliers are using pesticides responsibly.

An analysis of the Red Tractor’s pesticide and IPM standards will involve consultations with the Nature Friendly Farming Network and UK supermarkets. A set of recommendations will then be presented to Red Tractor before being published. By bringing together key stakeholders in the discussion on reductions of pesticide use, the cooperation and coverage of such a high profile negotiation hopes to achieve a widespread improvement on baseline pesticide standards. 

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Measuring and communicating on-farm sustainability

Lead organisation: Sustainable Food Trust

Project Partners: Royal Agricultural University, Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group South West (FWAG SW), Eating Better

The ability to measure sustainability is vital for upholding policy and market frameworks that support a fair, harmonious food system by rewarding farmers for producing food sustainably and regeneratively. However, it is challenging to capture and communicate these complex, interconnected measures.

These organisations are currently working on different ways of measuring sustainability and natural capital. They will work together on this project to harmonise their frameworks and develop communication resources. They will look at the ways in which their frameworks align and complement one another, to create a clear, joined-up process for collecting data on farms. This aims to accelerate and increase their combined impact.

Trials of this new framework will produce case studies which will be presented to government and food businesses as evidence of industry and public needs for an international measure of sustainability. This data can be used for many purposes, from reporting on delivery of ‘public goods’, to helping companies and consumers make informed choices. COP26 and the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021 are opportune moments to make the case for a global standard for on-farm sustainability, which aims to be achieved by this broad coalition and its unified message.

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Influencing policy to support farm woodland and agroforestry from the ground-up

Project lead: Soil Association

Project partners: The Organic Research Centre, Landworkers Alliance (LWA), The Farm Woodland Forum

Photo by Soil Association

The ongoing development of the UK’s agricultural policies involves reshaping farming subsidies to reward ‘public goods’ rather than the amount of land that’s farmed. Yet the barriers to agroforestry posed by the outgoing Common Agricultural Policy need dismantling urgently in oder to to get it incorporated into new policies including the ELM Scheme. 

These organisations are involved in various ELMS tests and trials, which have revealed the lack of awareness and understanding of agroforestry across the board. This project will proactively share the findings on the benefits of agroforestry for climate, nature and health, and share them effectively with policy makers. 

Combining research, coordinating advisory workshops and creating resources, the partnership will support stakeholders to deliver compelling evidence to policy makers, media and the public. A collaborative effort hopes to engage a diverse network of stakeholders in order to form a focused and united voice that will utlimately influence policy decisions on agroforestry.

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Fringe Farming: increasing access to public land for peri-urban farming

Project lead: Sustain

Project Partners*: Shared Assets, Landworkers Alliance (LWA), Sheffood, Bristol Food Producers (with support from Bristol Food Network), Glasgow Community Food Network, Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE)

*There will also be additional support for this work from OrganicLea, Better Food Traders, The Orchard Project, and Ecological Land Cooperative.

A new wave of market gardens on the edges of towns and cities could cultivate more regenerative food, green jobs, natural capital, shorter supply chains, resilient local economies and sustainable livelihoods. These outcomes would address the climate and nature emergency, improve access to nature and provide opportunities for diverse groups who may face barriers to accessing land.

Forty Hall Farm, photo by Sustain

A series of pilot projects will demonstrate how peri-urban food production can meet multiple political objectives. Engaging with local councils, landowners and influencers, the partners will work to unlock peri-urban land for agroecological food growing. Stakeholders in 4 areas will collect data to support the position of peri-urban farming on local and national Climate Change policy agendas. The project will test the actions councils can take and help local groups take the practical steps to grow food.

Building on a previous initiative run in Enfield, many of the organisations involved are actively engaged with food policy. The collaboration will take a localised approach to create national impact. Combining expertise in campaigns, research, forums, and local action, the partners have a track record of working together and the efforts of this collaboration will contribute to their shared vision of a green renaissance.

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Rootz into Food Growing

Project lead: The Ubele Initiative

Project Partners: Black Rootz, OrganicLea, Land In Our Names (LION)

The Rootz into Food Growing (RiFG) project aims to identify and disrupt some of the structural inequalities and barriers to food justice faced by Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities in the UK. A dearth of opportunities exist across the UK for BAME growers, despite a legacy of allotment growing since the 1950s. People from BAME communities in London have been found to be 4 times as likely to experience food insecurity under Covid-19.

Photo by Ubele

This project will build a network of new and experienced BAME growers from across London to exchange skills. Successful participants will be offered further learning opportunities and support to establish and develop a social enterprise. A research study by LION will identify and capture data and stories from the growers in order to identify gaps and opportunities. It will also seek out at least two new boroughs with land for RiFG to expand to.

Ubele is well placed to influence policy as a BAME infrastructure group appointed by the Mayor of London, and a national partner of ‘Power to Change’ - a community enterprise strategy. Working to build and promote a more culturally diverse food sector, the project aims to generate more awareness and understanding of the challenges and contributions of BAME growers. It exists to encourage and help people from the community to create sustainable livelihoods from commercial food production in light of these challenges.

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A New Cycle of Growth: Farming The Future 2020

Written by Tiger Lily Raphael

Farming The Future feeds the movement towards a healthier food system by supporting an ecosystem of change-makers, who work hard on the ground with a growing community. Together, we prove that it is possible to produce plenty of nutritious food for ourselves in ways that are fair, compassionate, and harmonious to our planet.

Illustration by Mahla Bess

The world woke up to an emergency that had been a-long-time-emerging when Covid-19 cast a light over the fragility of our food supply and shone through the cracks of a system held together by too few bolts, on which many lives depend. Lockdown forced us to look at our food security, as those with it found solace in cooking and cultivating any small plots or pots of land, and communities came together to support the already, newly and soon-to-be vulnerable.

Illustration by Mahla Bess

Our 2020 grant pool sets out to nurture the connective and collective health of a regenerative food movement, by facilitating and funding collaboration. Projects will strengthen links between all lengths of the supply chain; from farmers, distributors, and retailers, to community gardeners, campaigners and economists, to investors, philanthropists and politicians. Reinforcing relationships from the ground up nourishes the soil from which a new cycle of growth can begin. 

Illustration by Mahla Bess

The fund provides a platform from which the movement of organisations and individuals can be assessed; the areas and components needed for growth and symbiosis. Focus areas include policy and deregulation, food justice, education, land and economics - making up the landscape of the food ecosystem.

The 2020 collaborative process began with an online convening of the community, to assess the environment, and explore how we might be able to collaboratively create the components needed in the current landscape. The event began with introductions from Rob Reed of The A Team Foundation and Sam Roddick of The Roddick Foundation, followed by keynote speakers who inspired both hope and urgency: Professor and hill farmer - Tim Lang from the Centre of Food Policy, and scholar, environmental activist and author - Vandana Shiva.

Professor Lang described the convening as an opportunity to reach beyond the usual perimeters, commanding us to “be realistic, demand the impossible”. We’re seeing food banks, which were supposed to be an emergency response, buckling under growing demand as 8 million people could face food poverty in the UK. 50% of us own only £400, as inequality frays our social fabric, and, despite our overall wealth, we slip down the EIU Global Food Security and Sustainability Index.

Britain’s import tradition has caused issues of equality, sustainability and health for growers, eaters, animals, and the elements. Our food supply has shown itself to be vulnerable and a national strategy is needed; yet, whilst defence receives a budget of £39.5 billion, food and environment gets £1.9 billion. But we have an opportunity for change, as we create new policies, from a pandemic perspective, looking towards a post-carbon future. 

Vandana Shiva explained a measure of yield per acre that counts crop diversity, true cost accounting, and feeds twice the population of India. Yet globalised agri-business, which receives subsidies - from our money - to produce biofuel and animal food with resource-intensive methods. Exploitation and pollution by industrialised food production causes disease, social inequality and ecological destruction. The cost of cheap food is high. Yet when food is grown organically, by people on a small scale, more food can be produced in more sustainable ways. 

Lockdown shut down 1.1 billion peoples’ livelihoods; farmers became refugees as 1 billion joined the hungry. 150 million people could starve in the next 3 months. Yes, people are being more compassionate, but that won’t last unless the system is fixed. The crises are both consequences of and responses to war, and can be combated with non-violent agriculture, locally and globally, by all justice movements uniting. By redesigning the food system around people and our planet, rather than money, we can redefine economics and restore health. 

So, how can we help us help ourselves? The convening’s breakout sessions toyed with ideas and suggested ways to brainstorm. Like in any ecosystem, we depend on each other, and to find answers, we have to ask the questions..

Planting the seeds of knowledge and understanding…

Could we map the enormous and complex relationships, policies and projects, to find the paths and gaps between them?... What do ‘sustainable’, ‘regenerative’ and ‘resilient’ actually mean?... How do we learn about farming?... What is the supply chain and how are we a part of it?... How does the land lie? Who owns it?... How do financial decisions affect the food system and our lives, and how could they change them?... Why does only 7-8% of the £1.25 trillion spent on food in the UK reach farmers?... 

Diversifying soil with nutrients…

Who’s growing food and who’s receiving it?... Why are young, disabled and BAME people twice as likely to be hungry?... Could a crisis response fix the broken links in the supply chain, so millions aren’t left hungry whilst billions of tonnes of food is wasted?... How can we make healthy, nutritious and sustainably grown food, available and affordable?... Could finance, land and food policies diversify enough to support a diverse economy and ecology?...

Building relationships in and above the soil...

How do we balance food, finance and nature?... How do we work together on a common ground?... How do growers, land owners, local authorities, economists, scientists and NGOs collaborate on regenerative innovation, investment and best practice?... How do communities cultivate resilient local food systems with social, economic and environmental benefits?... How can we narrow the gaps between fields, markets, and people?... 

Time and space to grow... 

If we used more than 168,000 of 6 million hectares of farmable land, gardens and green spaces, to grow food, could we feed ourselves?... How do we make access to land fair?... Will the pandemic prevent opportunities for community gardening?... How can farmers get support through the transition period to sustainability?… How can financiers cultivate expectations from investors of longer-term benefits?... Will we invest in our future?...

Measuring rainfall...

Could financial incentives replace subsidies, and encourage responsible, long-term investment?... Can we find new measures of ‘growth’, and use them to develop our countries in healthier, more equitable ways?... How do we measure sustainability, resilience and the social, environmental and economic value of land and food?... Why isn’t soil health counted in the way that air and water is?... What labels would help us make healthier choices?...

Reaching towards the light...

How do we capture the lockdown spirit of citizenship, learning and community, and demand for space, seeds, and soil?... How do we bridge conversations about health, ecology, social justice and economics, to draw clear lines between food and inequality?... How do we reveal the many drops that make up the ocean, ignite emotions, spark imaginations, and celebrate food with everyone?... What part will food play in the story of the Climate and Ecological Crisis, and the race to zero carbon?... How do we create, rather than follow the same rules?...

We’re asking, how can we restore an ecosystem through growing food that is fairly, harmoniously, and compassionately, grown, accessed, and enjoyed. Because without food, there is no life, and food is what makes life worth living. Food and farming is the future.

Be part of the answer. If you think we could support each other’s work, please get in touch with Rob Reed - robert@ateamfoundation.org

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THE PROJECTS FROM year 1 of FARMING THE FUTURE

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Fitting Sustainable Farming Into a Policy Straightjacket

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Written by Vicki Hird, from Sustain, this is the third blog of the Farming the Future series. Their project; Making Voices Heard is a collaboration between Sustain, The Landworkers Alliance, Pesticide Action Network UK, Sustainable Soils Alliance, and Farming Working Party of the Sustain Alliance.

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.

We’ve had a wild two years and it is not calming down. That’s a strange sentence to write as policy work should be calm and logical and evidence-based and so on. But if you combine the challenges of working under an endless Brexit political storm, with reshuffles, a new set of laws and evolving policies, alongside the urgent challenges of a climate and nature emergency and a food system that remains largely wedded to the cheap and nasty – you get wild.

 Our project funded by the Farming the Future programme was called Making Voices Heard and was aimed at ‘Ensuring that ‘Farming the Future’ concerns are embedded in imminent policy, legislation and future farm funding’. It started in the midst of the chaos last year and was an essential resource so we could support those championing better farm policies. We did help make voices heard in the corridors of power and continue to do so. A few thoughts on what’s been achieved so far:

Setting farm policy in the right direction

The Agriculture Bill - the legislation on farm payments and standards to replace the European Common Agriculture Policy - will be the first UK Agriculture Act since 1947. As such it is central to our story. 

When the first iteration of this Bill was published in late 2018 after months of feverish consultation, it was hailed as potential game changer; laying out a new financial support system based on the public paying for specific public goods, like nature and access, plus support for productivity, marketing and even a nod to making supply chains fairer. There were many serious concerns about how the Bill will deliver - particularly as it’s largely powers without accountability, and the lack of a decent budget. 

But it was innovative and held potential in delivering land based carbon savings and other key environment targets. We worked with partners including Landworkers Alliance, Soil Association, CPRE and many others to lobby for changes needed including getting agro-ecology recognised as a key target for support, as well as on public health, soil, ensuring supply chain fairness, worker conditions, strong budgets and many other amendments. We were part of a huge and unprecedented alliance of stakeholders demanding new legal protection from unsustainably produced agri-food imports. It was a fevered time of lobbying where I wished I had a flat next door to Westminster. I lost track of how many oral evidence MPs sessions I’d done and became a serious Ag Bill geek. 

But then it all faded as the Bill stalled and finally fell for a second time at the December Election. The loss of momentum was damaging and also scary for anyone working on the land.

Like a phoenix, a new Bill has been presented and we start again. But this time we were thrilled to see several of our’s and other’s amendments inserted – such as:

•                  inclusion of financial support for soil health, and a mention for agro-ecology, Yay!

•                  significant changes to the Fair Dealing clause to ensure all the supply chain can be covered under the new statutory codes and a few other useful clarifications. A real win.

•                  new requirement on the Secretary of State to deliver multi-annual funding plans and report on progress.

•                  a new requirement to undertake a regular Food security review (though this needs work).

We remain, with all other stakeholders, very concerned at the lack of legal tools to stop the threat of new trade deals undermining our standards and ability to enhance farming and food standards. And it is concerning how much of the Bill still gives the Secretary of State powers not duties so they could, in theory do little. We have given yet more MP evidence sessions and briefings and we are asking them again to table amendments as the Bills moves (faster) through parliament.

Meanwhile, a new farm support scheme is being created

The Environmental Land Management System (ELMS) is the UK’s replacement for the EU farm payment system. It has had 3 years in gestation and is still far from finalised. I have been on stakeholder groups and helped others to inform the design of this vital new scheme – day long ‘deep dives’  into payments methodologies for instance; what should be paid for and how the guidance will work. ELMS has had a hard gestation but given the complexities of creating a whole new scheme to replace the CAP, plus 3 Secretaries of State and numerous Ministerial shifts, it is not surprising.

 We are working to ensure whole farm agro-environmental approaches are not disadvantaged in the new scheme. A new ELMS discussion document was finally, after much delay, launched in February and outlines (some of the detail) of the proposed Scheme for England. The paper is also a discussion document aimed at getting the farm and wider stakeholder community to respond to the current design. There are also several years of tests and trials of the design ideas. We are pleased to work with Landworkers Alliance on a successful bid to undertake one on horticulture farms, agro-ecological issues, and community engagement. 

 At the same time, Defra published a wider farm policy paper which touched on wider policy objectives and proposals including an animal health and welfare pathway, support for productivity, and the new National food Strategy.

National Food Strategy work 

This cross-departmental initiative (commissioned by Michael Gove when at Defra) will be covering the ‘entire food chain from farm to fork’. So we are lobbying hard on agro-ecology and new routes to market alongside other key areas.  Henry Dimbleby, heading this up, has managed to keep the NFS alive through all of the political upheavals and has secured cross-party and cross-sector support. After public engagement this year, the review will publish a final report in winter 2020 with recommendations that will shape a National Food Strategy (as a White Paper) which should ‘be delivered within 6 months’. 

How well this Strategy will get to grips with (and how much the Government will take forward and resource!) the need for a radical reform in farming plus the supply chains and dietary shifts needed to embrace an agri-ecology, fair approach remains to be seen. We have provided evidence and are working with the NFS staff and supporting members in engaging with this initiative. If the NFS acknowledges the truth in the evidence showing the harm of a business as usual approach – then it should shake the whole system up. 

Trade with the EU and the rest of the world is more than chlorine chicken

As previously noted, we’re looking to get amendments into the Agriculture Bill to stop agri-food imports undermining our standards and farmers. Government spokespeople repeat the mantra that food standards will not be undermined but then fail to put in legal constraints and parliamentary oversight to deliver on that assurance. Consumers have repeatedly said they do not want hormone- injected, chlorine-rinsed, antibiotic-intensive food. These processes often mask terrible animal welfare conditions. The UK should be leading the way in high quality, high welfare food, not bending over backwards to please the United States or other countries.

To conclude, if such a thing is possible in these turbulent times, as we have decided to definitely leave the EU and all that entails, some clarity (however unpalatable) is emerging. Some green shoots of hope are sprouting as we work with other stakeholders to help form the new, revolutionary farm schemes and better regulation of supply chains. Yet glowering over our efforts, we have the ever present threat of trade deals designed by the big ag and big food industry and not for our benefit. We also need to make sure  land based climate policies do more good than harm!

Pushing a farm and food  revolution supported by supply chain and consumer/citizen action that’s good for farmers, workers, the environment, animal welfare and our health, remains, as ever, vital. However wild it gets.  

 Follow Vicki on twitter (@vickihird and @UKSustain) and sign up for Sustain farm updates here.

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Vicki Hird, Sustain

Vicki Hird is an award winning author, expert, strategist and senior manager who has been working on environment, food and farming issues for over 25 years. As part- time Sustainable Farm Campaign Coordinator at Sustain, Vicki manages the farm policy and related campaigning and provides comment and guidance on these issues.

She has launched many major food and environment campaigns, from local to global in scope, has blogged frequently and published numerous reports and articles on the sustainability of food systems and published Perfectly Safe to Eat? (Women’s Press 2000).

She has an academic background in pest management and is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and the RSA. Vicki is on the board of Pesticides Action Network, and the Keo Foundation, was chair of the Eating Better Alliance and has sat on numerous government advisory groups over the years. She also runs an independent consultancy undertaking campaigning and research.

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Read More about
farming the future 2019

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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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Cumbria with the RSA’s Food, Farming and Countryside Commission

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For me, Cumbria in summer comes with the memory of being with my dad and my two younger brothers huddling from the rain. I can’t remember why or where that was, but it has with it, a feeling of adventure. I had not been back since my childhood holidays, but the RSA offered me the chance to return.  

The mission was to learn the dynamics and values of a complex region, their impact on the landscape, and what does Brexit mean for Cumbrians?  .. and all achieved whilst cycling.

An illustrative map of a very approximate route (although, I caught the train from Penrith to Barrow.... ssh!). 

Here, - to use a quote from the TV show Game of Thrones - “The North Remembers”. Along the journey, I was told how many folk remember a world where farmers and foresters were inherently valued by the wider society for the services that they give. It was a place where local markets thrived and the food was locally sourced, clean and affordable. Families could live in the villages that they (and the generations before them) grew up in. The youth were the lifeblood of the community and schools were full. The general consensus was that folk cared and the sense of human-connection was prevalent; all consequences from the milk of human kindness.

This was an adventure that had heart and soul.

A Tension Between Traditionalism and Development

My journey began with the Lake District and a world washed with cultural nostalgia; tea shops, cottages on biscuit tins, and me cycling across rolling hills - to quote Wordsworth - as lonely as a cloud. 

On Tuesday morning, the interviewer for BBC Cumbria posed me a question before going on air, “In the world of fake news, I gather that you are here to understand the difference between perception and reality, within Cumbria, farming and Brexit?” Truly an existential question, but a seed of curiosity was sown.  

The interview with BBC Cumbria, stood alongside Lois Mansfield of Uni. of Cumbria.

Numerous people cited to me that “Cumbria is like a doughnut, in the middle is the lake district”. Each would agree that what priorities occur on the inside aren’t the same as on the outside.

My trip to Barrow in Furness on the final day informed me that there are many people who live only 15 miles away, who will never step foot inside the park within their lifetime. But on that Monday, as I was still forming my own perspective, I met with Liam McAlesse at the Lake District National Park Authority who first proposed that view. “In Cumbria, there are perceptions from certain people that the Lake District isn’t for them, it has an invisible wall, they see it being for ‘other people’, we are working on trying to bring that wall down”.

The reality, the park attracts 19m people a year that visit an area the size of Birmingham for recreational and aesthetic enjoyment on top of the local 40,000 residents. In 2017, the park became a certified UNESCO World Heritage Site of Cultural Landscape…  and, it is those two words - cultural landscape – that paint a sense of ambiguity, one that connotates the underlying tensions in the region.

The term ‘Cultural Landscape’ is vague and how it is understood depends on the perceiver. Some relate it based on the recognition of how Wordsworth, Coleridge and Beatrix Potter once idolised the landscape with a brush of vivid romanticism or beautiful and charismatic childhood adventures. This is culture and therefore, ephemeral. However, what is in front of us, is physical landscape, specifically a ‘Managed Landscape’ of forests, farms, and watercourses.

Here, at the root of it, we are talking about people’s cultural and conditioned belief systems – how they subjectively look at the landscape and how they place their own values upon it.

The ambition of the Lake District National Park Authority is to turn Cumbria into the ‘Rocky Mountains of the UK’ – a vibrant place to live and work. Farming is a part of the plan but the bigger picture is one of rural development. This frozen nostalgia of how the lakes are perceived is not an economically viable and sustainable model for the future. There needs to be a local economy built on creativity, hubs of entrepreneurs providing social capital through society working together. “Brexit is an opportunity for policy to move beyond a sense of stagnation and into the real rural debate, creating places where people want to stay to live and work”.

Concern for the youth drain was a repeating pattern within many of the conversations that I had. The exodus of youth and what went with it, talent, was apparent on Kendal College’s wall where a sign read “Stay Local, Go Further”. Photographer and writer duo, Rob and Harriet Fraser gave me a wonderful introduction to sheep farming but there was an angle that I found specifically touching. In Harriet’s Poem ‘Michael’, it focuses on a well-respected young local farmer who left for Derbyshire to run his own farm as the opportunity didn’t exist for him in Cumbria. Harriet once publicly recited it and unknowingly, his father stood in the audience, tearful. The Poem ends with the following two stanzas;

 

These walls, land’s bones borrowed and stitched by man,

May stand, unchanged, for a century. But on a farm this size 

There are always gaps, forced by unforgiving rains and snow.

Today two hundred stones are fetched, fitted, back in place, 

                                                Two gaps, three men, one rhythm

 

Now the valley has a gap                         a man gone, a rare breed.

There’s that man, says Anthony, raising four fingers of a weather-worn hand,

That many young ones in Cumbria who could take over a farm.

But now he’s gone. How will you find another like that?

Alison Park of Low Sizergh Barn highlighted an additional angle – an ageing society. Areas, such as Kendal, has a sincere issue with the cost of housing. Many older folks are spending their retirement there, and rightly so, it is beautiful. But this means housing is being used by people who are not necessarily actively working in the local society. This has had an impact on community life. Young people can no longer afford homes and schools have had to shut due to a lack of children.

When I met Kelsey Thompson of Morecambe Bay Oyster Company, he told me a story of how the French – the largest consumers of oysters in the world - had lost their oyster industry to a disease. It took over ten years for it to return, the consequence is that a generation in France no longer eat oysters as they weren’t an option growing up. If living in rural areas such as the lakes is no longer an option for young people, what does this do to their connection to the place? Will they stay and invest their talents into the National Park Authority’s vision of the future?  

Oysters from Morecambe Bay

Farming – Go Big or Diversify

 After foot and mouth in 2001, Cumbria didn’t go back to the way it was before. On my first day, I followed in the footsteps of Lord Curry, visiting Low Sizergh Barn. The aim of his inquiry was to ensure that foot and mouth never happened again.

Photographer, Rob Fraser enlightened me to the extent of suffering that occurred during that time. He detailed how after the culling, a mindset had changed. He spoke of one farmer he knew, who walked around with a gun and shot each of his prize-winning Herdwick sheep because “it wasn’t right that it should be done by a stranger”.

And that is the crux of it, an upland sheep farmer’s sole existence is one built on love for the sheep – like a parent for the good of their child. As Isaac Benson, a National Trust Tenancy Farmer, said: “For why else would you do it?”. All the farmers that I met along the journey have invested their entire lives into being an upland hill farmer. Isaac continued “you have to in order make anything out it yet you leave yourself vulnerable”.

Rob and Harriet Fraser gave me with a vivid introduction to upland hill farming upon the commons, what it means to be ‘heafed’, and they painted a picture of lambing time; where all the sheep are brought down from the hills, known as ‘the Gathering’.

These sheep have been bred over hundreds of years to be hardy and territorial, safely roaming the commons unfenced and unmanned. Each sheep has their preferred patch that they graze (their ‘heaf’) and this knowledge is passed down through to their lambs. At the Gathering, all the farmers, young and old, their dogs and quadbikes, combe the hills to bring down each one. “Farmers, sheep and dogs walk all over the hills in synchronicity, flowing down the valleys like water”, recited Harriet poetically.   

A cow from one of Low Sizergh Barn's mixed-breed herd. 

But the future of upland farming looks difficult. The demand for lamb has plummeted, wool is considered a by-product with dwindling demand, cheap imports are killing business, farm tenancies are often questionable, environmental stewardship schemes aren’t being designed well enough, and the major concern; with Brexit, Government support looks set to go. Each farmer that I met, deftly articulated why this is a travesty.

It has become a common theme that in order to survive, farming, in general, has two options – go big or diversify. The farmers that I met all have various additional forms of income, be it a bed and breakfast, delivering meat boxes, or juggling second jobs.

Low Sizergh Barn, on the outskirts of Kendal, have a thriving farm shop that sells a diverse range of local, direct-to-market, goods and products. There is a vending machine outside that sells organic Raw Milk through recyclable glass bottles. It has a tea shop that overlooks the cows being milked – a massive pull for young families and tourists who want to see a working farm. John, the supposedly retired father of the family farm, says that they still receive calls asking “Do you milk the cows on weekends?” .. “That’s the level we’re up against” he added.

The alternative to diversification is expansion into ranch-style farms to spread the cost of overheads and infrastructure over a larger production. The consequences mean that the backbone of UK farming, the smaller, family farms find it more difficult to compete, along with the claims of negative animal welfare and environmental degradation. Richard from Low Sizergh Barn stated how “others are expanding to spread to the cost over more and more milk. Spreading the costs per litre is a double-edged sword; prices go up and down even if you milk more cows. If you have huge numbers of litres and the cost per price is below the price of production you lose even more money”.

Monbiot vs No Change

Towards the Forestry Commission by Bassenthwaite Lake

John Gorst of the Ennerdale Project and United Utilities said plainly, “The hills are knackered”. Ecologically speaking, there is a lot of work to be done. In the Lake District’s own UNESCO application, on page 535 it states that 75% of the park’s sites of environmental interest are in an unfavourable (but recovering or worse) condition – and realistically, everyone I met admits that the park ought to be in a better ecological state.

 The term “sheepwrecked hills” was coined by George Monbiot in his writings that depict his views of the “biodiversity desert” that is the upland hills. Throughout my journey his name occurred prolifically and the feelings attributed to him came with either esteemed praise or a spit on the floor. He cuts a divisive figure.

John Rowland, a sheep farmer from Low Beckside Farm in  Mungrisdale, recalled how it began, “Monbiot truly hurt a lot of people. We witnessed a case of dramatic flooding in 2015, it was a record amount of water. People lost a lot and they were hurting, Monbiot found the situation to his advantage and pressed his agenda without any sensitivity...  Journalists just want to sell”.

In short, Monbiot and the re-wilding group wish for sheep to be taken off the landscape and to allow the hills to return to a 'natural state’. There is merit in the idea at a conceptual level, but pragmatically this involves dealing with people who don’t want that to happen, and their resistance has its dignity. 

I met with Dr Lois Mansfield of the University of Cumbria along with Kate Rawles, author, adventurer and campaigner. Lois gave a vivid picture; “There is a vociferous aura around re-wilding. There are some within the movement who understand the complexities, yet the ones who speak the loudest are extremists who drown out the realists… Farming communities are turning inward, they are feeling under attack by environmentalists”. Kate added, “There was a conversation between the tribes of ecology and sheep before Brexit. Trying to work together, but now, Brexit has changed their focuses”.

The view towards Braithwaite from High Snab Farm

Tom Lorains, a sheep farmer of High Snab Farm, suggested that those who work at ‘vocalising extremism’ should instead work within the fold. To understand the complexities and make change occur within the institutions and systems that they easily criticise. This provides a constructive means to achieve their outcome without tearing apart society. Each of the sheep farmers I met agreed that biodiversity has a huge role to play in the quality of the uplands.

Kate Rawles, explained that natural processes are vital for life to thrive: “Biodiversity is a necessity. We are currently creating islands although everything needs to be connected. We need wildlife corridors across landscapes”. 

Kate asked me the rhetorical questions that both sides are grappling to understand; “What is sheep farming for if no one is eating the meat? Or using the wool? and What are the subsidies paying for? If they were to go, what else could that land be used for?”

Forestry on a hillside by Thirlmere

If the subsidies were to go, what would happen? This is where the two camps differ. Rewilding is leveraging itself to the present opportunity; giving an argument for a transformative change – an economic increase through timber (which the UK has a large growing demand for), watercourse management (creating cleaner water and resilience), and ecotourism. The farmers are open to change through adapting to environmental management schemes. However, if the ‘vociferousness’ continues they will adhere either to no change, or, as many farmers stated, recessive change through restocking, and with it, the loss of previous conservation work.

Gareth Browning of the Wild Ennerdale Project and the Forestry Commission believes that the markets aren’t there anymore for them to do that. “The economics just simply doesn’t add up. For them to exist, they need to be subsidised”. Gareth's work, considers the landscape as a multitude of interconnected parts that work for the whole. Letting nature take its own course is thoroughly beneficial. He sees the future with the farmer integrated into a wider landscape scale plan. The farmer would be without the mindset of sole possession, but with a mindset of being contracted to offer a particular service. Here, there could be an argument of financial support, not from subsidies of production but through a form of ‘income support’; an honest case for basic income that is designed for a liveable salary comparative to the task at hand.

This view is felt by the farming community as a ‘clearing’. Gareth agrees that “the loss of sheep farmers is a socially jarring thing”. However, he goes on to say that “it is no way representative of the coal mines or the shipyards … only 3% of the local community are affected”. Needless to say, the farming community is vehemently opposed.

Is this what we want our society to be about? Two polarised camps at each other? Adam Day of The Farmer Network, says simply; “it has to stop, we are both on the same side”.  

A ravine near Grasmere

Isaac agrees, “The answer is a balanced landscape. We need to combine practical reality with the foundation of a solid environment. If family farms disappear, it will be the end of conservation and we will be in a food crisis. In society, the Farmer is considered a land agent, but one farmer can provide up to 40 services.

Having to renew farms once they are lost, has a cost that the public purse cannot afford. We have to get this one right, otherwise, it’ll be beyond disrepair …There needs to be food as our population is growing – we’re going to need farmers. This 'us vs them' has to stop. Farmers are the best hands to lead us into the future. They are strong enough to carry the burden of many demands. But we need a platform where we are believed in and can continue to do so for the future generations”.

Challenging Identity

A  combination of top-down approaches and ‘societal suspicion’ from pressure groups has lowered the farmer’s esteem and stock. Isaac gave an honest depiction of his reality that shone a light upon something deeper. Perhaps the root of the issue, and one not being directly spoken about. “I have to comply with the vision of Defra and the National Trust. In order to stay profitable, I have to forfeit my identity”.

He adds, “We have identified that sheep don’t belong here, do we?”.

It is easy for you and me to look at our work with a sense of separation. Even if we love it, we leave it in the evening. And here’s the crux; upland sheep farming isn’t a vocation, it is an identity.

Upland hill farmers have spent all their lives ‘bide to the landscape’. Through repeating tales of their forefathers, spotting a rare bird in the sky on a quiet mundane morning, socialising at busy auctions, drenched wet through pulling out a lamb to save the ewe’s life – there is a deep connection, one built over time and with love. Through a life lived in this way, they have forged their identity, this is their reason for existing, the ‘why’ in their being.

If you say, ‘take the sheep of the hills’, you are inadvertently saying ‘you get off the hills’, and that becomes personal. If you say, ‘Sheep are unwanted’, you are saying that ‘they are unwanted’, and that’s hurtful. If you say ‘Sheep shouldn’t exist’, you are saying that ‘they shouldn’t exist’, and that is de-humanising.

These men and women, throughout their lives, have been free to live amongst the landscape investing every amount of energy, love and soul into a way of life that gives them meaning. Now, I ask, how would this generation of farmers cope with living in a ‘two-up, two-down’ in an urban area, outside the Lakes, commuting in to do contracted work? They will be muscled out of their local communities due to the expensive housing market propped up by retirees and tourism. For me, this has an ethical and humanitarian consequence.

This same sense of identification of self is also true to the wider community whose immediate landscape has shaped their upbringing, and this is the reason for the Lake District being a ‘Cultural Landscape’ in the eyes of world heritage, it lives in the minds of those who live and visit the region.  And it is true of the Pro-Environment Groups that define themselves by their identity; the identity of virtues. They reflect upon themselves ‘as good’ by the deeds that they do and the values that they uphold. Yes, it is important to have virtues and strive for a greater sense of societal enlightenment, but should it come at the expense of tolerance and pragmatism?   

Looking back over The Lakes at Mungrisdale whilst heading towards Penrith

Stepping Out and Seeing the Big Picture

 read more about the RSA's work: the UK's heritage index

On Friday, I headed for the west coast. The last day of my visit took me to the post-industrial town of Barrow-in-Furness, a town with a nuclear submarine that gives the UK access to the highest table of influence in the political world. With more in common to neighbouring Lancashire than Cumbria, Barrow is the counterweight to the Lake District’s public image. Instead of being exhibited, it is overlooked, either by design or by circumstance.

You ask people around the town what do they think of it? And you’ll get, “It’s a bit shit, but we like it like that”, said with a sense of in-genuine pride.

I met with Maddi Nicholson and Stuart Bastik, directors of ArtGene who introduced me to the town; “It started in the 80s when 10,000 people were laid off in the closure of the shipyard all from the labouring class. There are now 3 generations of unemployed, and this has created an underclass”.

There is a sense of unworthiness. Without the ability to move circumstances, people find other methods to escape. Barrow has become one of the UK’s most prolific areas for deaths via drug overdose. The majority of it occurs on a housing estate literally over the road from BAEs Devonshire Dock Hall, built as the tallest monument in Cumbria. Here, there is a dynamic tension between power and pressure.

Art Gene's satire preserve

Maddi described how this town has faced a lot; “The people here have had to deal with the closure of an industry that once gave them a job for life. To keep the job, they adhered to the rules, but then the day came when that industry went and what replaced it no longer valued its place in the community”.

Although Barrow faces a lot of deprivation, it is in the top 1% nationally for landscape and nature (data from the RSA’s Heritage Index). Yes, there are economic differences, yet there are also assets of rich heritage and cultural history, which can be the driver for transformational wellbeing. But the community is completely unconnected to it, well, yet..

Art Gene is working at the frontiers of community engagement through a number of projects, some creative and some connective, to align the community with its true heritage. “Art Gene embraces the positives of the duality in people and place. We are revisioning social, urban, and natural environments. We are engaged in defining futures”.

The word future is very poignant. Barrow in Furness voted to Leave the EU by a large majority. Later in the day, I met with John Woodcock MP who painted a straight picture on this topic; “Constituents have a lack a faith in the ‘establishment’ and the system. They’ve been left behind, things are getting worse. They’ve been told how to do things by ‘experts’, and consequently have lost trust. It is in their greater economic interest to remain, but here, people reject that”.

The disconnect is increasing. It seems the constituents feel they have no agency, no one is listening and all the while they see their world diminishing in value. John takes it further “In the 80’s we went through a period of greed that still echoes; back then, community didn’t matter, kindness didn’t matter”.

Lucas from the bakery Peace and Loaf

That notion sent me back to a conversation that I had with Kate Rawles; “We need to go back to basics. Simply; what do we value? As a society, our values are inadequate, western farming is driven by profit, it is considered an industry – to be industrious. Arguably, it should be primarily nutrition led along with positive impacts on the environment, welfare standards and fair jobs.”  

A sense of disconnect was a reoccurring theme throughout my journey; a disconnect from each other and our environment. Earlier in the week, whilst I was writing this report in the Drayton Hall pub in Penrith (dare I say, supping a beautiful golden ale), I couldn't help but overhear a neighbouring conversation, “values from the future, need to be brought to the present”, I looked over, as a man took a glug from a half-swilled pint glass.

Maddi, Stuart and I went to the beach on the north of Walney Island to soak up some of that week’s heatwave. It was a breath-taking sight of beauty, white sands abundant, contrasted by the dark mountains rolling out into the background, eventually merging into the sky.

Stuart explains that “local people, when empowered, are the drivers of meaningful change. There was a chap who did all the leg work in getting Walney Island recognised as an official nature reserve. He studied all the birds and accounted for them before dawn and after dusk. Once it was under the auspices of the Wildlife Trust they employed a ranger - who had no previous knowledge of the area - to deliver a strategy based on where the money is. The local knowledge was displaced, with it the true value”.

Near Morecambe Bay Oysters, a mass of wind turbines stretching out to beyond the coast of Walney Island. Apparently, it has boosted the local marine life, which has developed into an artificial reef.

Maddi continues with a story about an old rickety hut that was once existed along this beach. “A lady sold ice creams out of it, a place that all the locals new and she knew most of them. Then, when the National Trust took over the site, they replaced the hut with an iron clad information box, the lady has gone and the area surrounding it has been landscaped in a way that can be found at all National Trust beaches”. Maddi points to the floor stating how they have used plastic imitations of wooden sleepers to create a footpath.

“Generic interpretations have taken over local distinctiveness”. She sighed.  

In that sentence, I stopped, and I saw.

Earlier in the week, I met Dan Stamper, Senior Lecturer of Newton Rigg College, who has the important task of keeping farming an attractive option for young people. He told me that he teaches his students that “difference is a strength, it adds another form of brilliance to the world”.

In areas of our lives, the rich diversity of everyday life has dulled into uniformity; a ‘one size fits all’ top down approach. As opposed to the bottom up, organic process of life. The interrelationships of complexity, difference and diversity are what makes communities and ecosystems resilient and thriving.

As I continue to write, the bartender at the pub in Penrith pulls me from my flow and from the bar, asks me what is it I am working on. I say to her that I am trying to understand the difference between perception and reality, she says “for what it’s worth, what is real to me – as she softly held a small bunch of fragile roses from yesterday’s wedding - it’s the smell of these, a childhood memory, you know – like, when an apple wholeheartedly tastes like an apple – you see it, touch it, feel it; that’s what’s real”.

In Barrow, I walked into the BBC’s “Best Food and Farming Shop of 2018”. Peace and Loaf’s story is one of optimism. Run by two resolute individuals, they have shown the world that circumstance is merely a matter of perception. The reality for them is creating bread that people love. Due to the inflated rates (the council says ‘competitive’), Peace and Loaf run out of a shop that is only big enough to sell international calling sim-cards. However, here is an organisation selling the UK’s best sourdough loaves in one of the most poverty-stricken areas of the UK and from which, they crowdfunded £9,000 from a community with limited resources. The folk here saw two of their own just doing it, giving it a go. With that belief came engagement, support, and pride. Upon walking up to the entrance, I was instantly struck with that familiar, fruity, toasty, almost sweet scent of fresh bread that lingers heavily in the air and at that moment, you stop, you savour, you are present. That was real.

Earlier that week, sheep farmer, Tom Lorains welcomed me into his home. Margins are tight on the edge of a hill, yet here they had open arms for a stranger; Tom and his wife gave me lunch. ­Caroline remembered that I was vegetarian and there I was with a man whose job it is to produce lamb. We respectfully spoke at length and we ate as friends. That was real.

When I met Isaac, upon meeting I offered my hand and like all farmers, a shovel-sized, rough hand worn from years of graft clasped around mine and he looked me deadpan in the eye. We said nothing for a second, and yet I understood. For 20 minutes, he opened up to me about his fears for his livelihood, his community, and his children. Towards the end, I honestly had to turn my head away. I couldn’t face a man with that much strength and that much to lose. In a moment of personal openness, an eye teared up. I felt the frequency of his pain, the heavy load he carries.. That was real.

Before arriving in Cumbria, I thought about my childhood holidays in the Lake District. But now, I truly saw the county a new. As I was leaving Barrow-in-Furness, with my bike ready to go, Stuart shook my hand, he said with reverence “come back again”. I probably will, but it’ll be that old Gypsy reality; you go to a place and when you return, it’ll be different. Whether that’s my perception of it or the reality of today’s world? Who knows, it’s all one and the same. 

The beach to the north of Walney Island, looking over the Duddon Channel. With the old iron works slag heap to the right and towards the National Park in the distance. 

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