Business Models

Local policy and sustainable farming: Sticking points or a genuine impasse?

Clearly, efforts to generalise sustainable farming practices face some pretty considerable barriers: unforgiving market conditions, unhelpful subsidies, uncooperative banks, unrelentingly inflated land values, and so on. What role can local authorities play in addressing these issues and supporting a transition to a more regenerative farming landscape? From county farms to public procurement, development banks to planning reform, over the years various measures have been proposed to support sustainable farming, and in many areas local councils are currently experimenting with their implementation.

This session will draw on case studies from across the North (and beyond) to assess their performance, and reflect on the opportunities and challenges for local policy approaches. The panelists will outline how local agricultural policies have been put into practice, what impact they’ve had on the sector, and what lessons have been learned for our big-picture strategies for food systems transitions. Through discussion we’ll attempt to confront some of the most challenging questions: where do these policies hit limits, and to what extent can they be overcome? If policy has its limits, what other options do we have?

Speakers/hosts include:

Callum Sunderland – Callum is a graduate student at the Centre for Alternative Technology. He recently completed dissertation research on the impact of Preston City Council’s local economic strategy on Lancashire’s agricultural sector. He grew up in Hull and currently lives in London.

Rebecca Laughton – Rebecca has many years of experience in organic market gardening, farming and research relating to small scale agriculture and low impact planning, and is author of “Surviving and Thriving on the Land” (Green Books 2008) . She currently works part time at a glasshouse in Somerset, growing salad crops, while focussing on advocacy and research in the Landworkers’ Alliance Horticulture Campaign.

Ruth Westcott – Ruth co-ordinates Sustain’s work on the Climate and Nature Emergency and on Sustainable Fishing, working to make food a central part of policies to tackle the climate and nature emergency at a local and national level; also to encourage businesses to adopt a fully sustainable fish policy, and thereby help transform the way the world’s oceans are fished.

James Woodward – James joined Sustain in September 2020 and works on farming policy and campaigns. Previously, he has worked in farm advice for Natural England, supporting farmers into sustainable whole farm systems. He has also worked in farming policy for Defra and the National Farmers’ Union. Alongside this, he also likes to spend time on his step-family’s Cumbrian farm.

Setting up a CSA

Hosted by the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Network UK

The session will include a brief intro into why set up a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in the context of the climate crisis and the urgent need for sustainable food systems, and then move on to a speed dating style workshop where participants can move between themes where they can learn about the different aspects of setting up a CSA and leave inspired to set one up. Themes will cover issues like finances, membership, cropping plans. communications etc.

Speakers/hosts include:

Rhian Williams – Rhian completed a traineeship at Cae Tan CSA in 2019 and has just finished her first season as one of the growers at Kirkstall Valley Farm, a community-run farm and CSA right in the middle of Leeds. She organises with the LWA and is excited to be part of a movement working towards socially and environmentally just food systems.

Rebecca Stevenson – Becca is Head grower at Five Acre Community Farm, a seven-acre organic vegetable CSA founded in 2012 and supplying over 100 households.

Connie Hunter and Tom Booth – East Neuk Market Garden is a 2 acre, small-scale, agroecological farm and CSA located on the Firth of Forth in Fife, Scotland. Along with our 60 member CSA we also attend farmers markets and sell our produce to local restaurants and cafes.

Janine McMahon – Janine set up and runs an Organic CSA Farm on the outskirts of Manchester, Moss Lane Farm. They are a Sustainable Food Hub, passionate about educating people about where their food comes from and making it accessible. They produce good, healthy food directly from the farm which is affordable for all.

Christine Morrison – Christine is part of GO Local Food, based in Northumberland and operational for nearly 10 years (no small achievement!) It has been an interesting journey finding out how best to connect to disparate communities, create ownership and maintain involvement.

Mick Marston – Mick has previously worked for the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens and for the Soil Association in Northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. He is a founder member of Gibside Community Farm CSA

Suzy Russell – Suzy is coordinator of the CSA Network UK. She has a background in community development, arts and environment and is passionate about local food.

Getting it together – structural and governance options for co-operative and community agriculture organisations.

Hosted by Mark Simmonds, Co-op Culture.

A presentation of and discussion around the scope of different ways co-operative agricultural enterprise is organised in the UK and how this relates to business model and finance.

Speaker/host:

Mark is a co-operative and community business practitioner and activist. Working through Co-op Culture, Mark specialises in co-operative models and has worked with many CSAs over the years.

An introduction to coppicing in the context of cooperative working

Hosted by the Coppice Coop.

This is a physically distanced in-person event and booking is essential.

The session will include a guided walk in the woodland nature reserve adjacent to our depot to see one of our active coppice management rotations and its effect on biodiversity, landscape character, and economic sustainability, and a a discussion about the cooperative working model in the context of sustaining livelihoods from regenerative woodland management / nature conservation, through traditional rural heritage crafts. There will be an opportunity to view a range of woodland crafts and coppice products, including demonstrations of some of the craft skills. 

Speakers/hosts:

Duncan Goulder’s background is in nature reserve management and ecology. He joined Coppice Coop in 2015 following a lifelong interest in woodland craft.

Sam Ansell is a founder member of The Coppice Coop (2013) after graduating from the BHMAT coppice apprenticeship.

 

Common sense farming

Hosted by Graham Bell and Charlie Wannop.

This session included a forty minute presentation on some different perspectives about what we need to achieve farming which is sustainable for people (producers processors and consumers), land, wildlife, economics and society’s connection with the environment. We looked at some facts, where we would like to see change, what the benefits of those changes are and what are the challenges. After the presentation there was a conversation with participants about the suggestions made, other options and thoughts for action.

Speakers/hosts:

Graham Bell MA FCIM FRSA DipPerm Inst, is the author of The Permaculture Way and the Permaculture Garden and lives in Coldstream in the Scottish Borders. He is Chairman of Permaculture Scotland, and of the UK wide Education Working Group which has just made working with young people its number one priority. Along with his partner Nancy he has cultivated and nurtured a forest garden, which is the longest established of it’s kind in Scotland. The forest garden is a ScotLAND demonstration site for permaculture students and specialists alike. Graham now works largely in regeneration and community development at a strategic level but has many years experience in teaching and guiding students on the permaculture learning path. He is in constant contact with senior politicians and the media and so is also in a position to influence Government policy. He is currently consulting on various farm scale projects in the North with an emphasis on environmental and social improvement. Graham is an internationally respected teacher, author and lecturer in Permaculture and other allied disciplines. The lead instructor on the Countryside Premium Scheme (for farmers) for Scotland in the nineties, he has taught on five continents. His home in the Scottish Borders boasts the longest standing intentional food forest garden in Britain. Over a thousand visitors a year (in previous times) attest to the amazing productivity of this space. His main career he shares “is as a storyteller”. We learn and teach understanding for all the creatures in the living environment, how they interact and how we can make them available sustainable for all with the least amount of work. We never cease believing a better future is possible and we keep sharing the skills to make it happen. This is only possible because we respect the prior knowledge of everyone who joins us in this progression.

Charlie Wannop is an extension worker on organic farming and rural development and an adviser on Organic farming and management. He has worked extensively overseas and is a trainer in business management and strategy, organic production rural enterprise, development. Previously he was Head of Outreach for the Organic Farming Centre based at Edinburgh University, and the Scottish Agricultural College. He has lectured at several colleges both in UK and overseas.

It begins with a grass-fed sirloin steak in a handbag

Hosted by Richard Cossins with chefs and farmers.

In February of this year, Richard and Joseph were fortunate enough to open our inaugural restaurant concept in Manchester: Higher Ground. During the evening of the launch, we were introduced to a local, regenerative cattle farmer named Jane. Jane is based in Nantwich, Cheshire, and has been regeneratively farming cattle for over a decade and is in the process of converting 200 acres of depleted dairy pasture into more diverse ecosystems as she expands her herd.
A young organic grower called Michael Fitzsimmons also attended the evening. Michael has been working with small-scale organic farms and growing operations within the UK for ten years. We first met Michael when he interned in the kitchen at Where The Light Gets In, Stockport. The purpose of his visit was for him to study how to develop the direct relationship between growers and chefs.
A few weeks later we found ourselves around a dinner table, eating and discussing all things soil related. During this discussion, Jane mentioned her vision to have an organic vegetable production as part of the ecosystem she is creating out at her pasture farm, and so began the idea of us working in collaboration. In the past few months and during the Covid-19 pandemic, we have explored how a relationship can mutually benefit everyone involved and how to share responsibilities between us and through this have begun work on the creation of our collaborative project – Poole Bank Market Garden.
The session explored the opportunities for chefs and farmers to collaborate.
Speakers/hosts:
Joseph Otway sees ingredients through a lens that is dictated by nature. He is in constant pursuit of the ingredients which have the most exciting background and draws inspiration from his travels around the globe. Joseph’s quest for sustainability, connection to agriculture and talent for showcasing flavour ensure his kitchens will be forward-thinking and delicious. Most recently, Joseph was Head Chef at Where The Light Gets In, creating a dining experience that took guests through a journey of British heritage and the history of where our food in the North-West originates. A dedicated focus on working with small organic farms has allowed him to create an intimate network of producers and growers to work with. Joseph worked at Relae in Copenhagen, identified as one of the world’s most sustainable restaurants. Working closely everyday with ‘The Farm of Ideas’, this role has focused his ability to use ingredients to their maximum potential. As a cook at Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Joseph pushed his thinking about how vegetables can be used in a new direction. In 2016, Dan asked Joseph to present at the New York Times Food for Tomorrow conference, he spoke about the missed opportunities to be found in culturally undesirable tomatoes.
He launched his first restaurant in Manchester in 2020 called Higher Ground.
Richard Cossins’ foray into restaurants began at his local seafood restaurant in Hertfordshire, England. A passion for representing well-sourced, sustainable ingredients was soon established and in 2008 he moved to London to work at the acclaimed fine dining restaurants Pétrus and Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley in Knightsbridge. For a brief period Richard traded the food world for that of marketing but his love for restaurants was too great and became restaurant manager of Roganic in Marylebone in 2012. Richard worked for Simon Rogan for four years and was a part of Fera at Claridge’s senior opening team that won a Michelin star in the first three months of being open. At the beginning of 2016, Richard relocated to Westchester County, New York, to join the management team at Dan Barber’s restaurant, Blue Hill at Stone Barns. During his tenure the restaurant reached a high of number 11 in the World 50 Best Restaurant List and won two Michelin stars when he was General Manager in 2019. He left at the end of 2019 to launch his first restaurant in Manchester in 2020 called Higher Ground.
Michael Fitzsimmons is a Liverpool-born organic grower. After training at Abbey Home Farm in The Cotswolds he has gone on to intern at Farm of Ideas in Copenhagen and currently works as Assistant Grower at Moor Hall in Ormskirk. He is passionate about collaborating with chefs to bring the farm to the fork.
Jane Oglesby owns Jane’s Farm in Nantwich, Cheshire, and has spent years developing an approach to rearing livestock and understanding the nutritional value of her produce. She has established firm principles upon which she wishes to build her business relating to suppliers, range and customer experience. Jane is converting depleted dairy pasture into a more diverse ecosystem as she expands her herd, currently farming 200 acres.

Implementing agroforestry with native cattle as part of a healthy agro-ecosystem

Hosted by Nikki Yoxall, grazier, Aberdeenshire.

This session highlighted the benefits to the farm ecosystem that integrating livestock and trees can bring. We shared how we have brought together native cattle and on farm woodland to reduce the need for supplements, enable outwintering of cattle and promote positive animal health and welfare. Using Holistic Management has enabled us to manage for both wildlife and, diversity and cattle health.

The session reviewed the work we currently undertake as graziers and explored how the approach could be scaled up and adopted across the agriculture sector and how that affects the contribution it makes as a key component of the biosphere.

Speaker/host:

Nikki and her husband James run a small farm and grazier business in NE Scotland. They raise cattle and poultry in a low input system utilising agroecological principles. Nikki has a role with the Pasture Fed Livestock Association as Research Coordinator, supporting knowledge exchange in the context of pasture fed livestock.

What’s a Hill Worth? Preparing public goods for payment on upland farms around Pendle Hill: Issues, Approaches and Findings

Hosted by the Forest of Bowland AONB.

The Forest of Bowland AONB are researching the impact on Lancashire hill farms of current policy changes by assessing their current business models and the value of natural capital they farm. We are providing the farms with scenarios for them, based on these factors and the possible options for payments to manage environmental outcomes. This data will support them in making business and farming decisions. A hypothetical case study farm was be described and the issues facing it drawn out for discussion.

Speakers/hosts:

Dr Alison Holt is director of Natural Capital Solutions Ltd and Visiting Researcher in Animal and
Plant Sciences at The University of Sheffield. She works with a broad range of organisations from the public, private and NGO sectors, delivering projects that focus on natural capital assessment, modelling, mapping and economic valuation of ecosystem services, natural capital accounting, landscape opportunity mapping and economic impact analyses. She has worked on Eycott Hill reserve natural capital account (2018); Cumbria Catchment Pioneer Pilot Project (2017 – ); Socio-economic impacts of the MoorLIFE 2020 Project (2017-20).

Professor Joe Morris: Director of Morris Resource Economics, Emeritus Professor of Resource Economics at Cranfield University; Principal Investigator, Rural Economy and Land Use Project, Integrated Floodplain Management (2006-9); Lead Expert, UK Foresight Land Use Futures Project (2010), Cabinet Office for Science and Technology, UK Government; Project Advisor: UK Land Use and Climate Change, UK Committee on Climate Change, 2016-2017; Lead Author, Land Degradation and Restoration, UNEP International Platform for Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity (IPBES): 2014-2017.

Cathy Hopley is Scheme Manager for the Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership led by Forest of Bowland AONB. She has been Develepment Officer at the AONB since 2004, having previously worked at the Countryside Agency, Mersey Forest and Lancashire Wildlife Trust.

Thomas Binns is the chairman of the NFU’s Upland Forum, and a livestock farmer on Pendle hill.

You can read a blog about the session outcomes here.

Developing supply chains for minor cereals in North East England

Hosted by researcher from Newcastle University and farmers, brewers and millers.

Researchers, farmers, brewers and millers in North-East England have been developing sustainable production systems for minor cereals, alternative grains and ancient wheat varieties. This panel provided a review of outcomes from experimental research at Newcastle University, commercial development of alternative crops from Coastal Grains Ltd, lessons from incorporating minor grains into brewing from Donzoko Brewing and specific experience in farming and milling organic cereals from Gilchesters Organics. Results from fields trials of organic wheats, spelt, rye, buckwheat and quinoa were presented and discussed in the context of the current supply chains for these crops from a North-East perspective. The session was particularly relevant to those interested in learning more about how to diversify cereal production systems, why these alternative crops and varieties are important environmentally and nutritionally and how the UK and regional supply chains for minor cereals are developing.

Speakers/hosts:

Amelia Magistrali is a post-doctoral researcher at Newcastle University who has spent the past five years assessing the potential of and developing supply chains for alternative grain production in North-East England. As a PhD researcher, Amelia studied spelt and rye variety performance with alternative fertilisers as part of the EU HealthyMinorCereals project (http://healthyminorcereals.eu/) and the DEFRA Sustainable Intensification Platform (http://www.siplatform.org.uk/). Amelia currently works with Coastal Grains Ltd (http://www.coastalgrainsltd.co.uk/), a grain co-operative in Northumberland, on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership to develop supply chains for novel grain production. Through the project, she works with farmers to trial commercial production of spelt, buckwheat and rye varieties, which has resulted in a well-established supply chain for regional spelt production and additional avenues for buckwheat and rye in the UK.

Andrew Wilkinson has been farming at Gilchesters in Northumberland since 1992, converting them to organic production in 2002 and establishing the organic cereal research programme for Newcastle University’s Nafferton Ecological Farming group in 2003 (NEFG). Alongside his own PhD research evaluating organic milling quality cereal production, long term cereal variety and soil fertility trials continue to be conducted at Gilchesters in conjunction with many international research partners to the present day http://orgprints.org/10417/ . With the construction of their own flour mill, Gilchesters Organics, established in 2003, https://gilchesters.com/ provides stoneground organic flour directly to artisan bakeries, chefs and home bakers throughout the UK. From his experiences in farming, milling and organic crop research, Andrew continues to promote sustainable, local production systems for UK producers through better cereal variety choice and short food chain networks.

Israel F. N. Domingos is a researcher with an MSc in soil science focusing on soil management and a PhD in agriculture focusing on production and quality of the pseudocereals buckwheat (F. esculentum Moench.) and quinoa (C. quinoa Willd.). He is currently working on improving vegetables and maize production under sustainable low input farming system in Cuanza Sul (Angola). His long-term research interests involve the development of a comprehensive understanding of alternatives for improvement and diversification of genetic resources to increase productivity and quality of arable crops.

Reece Hugill is owner and head brewer at Donzoko Brewing Company (https://www.donzoko.org/home), who make unfiltered, continental inspired lagers and ales in the North-East.

Building regional autonomies for a small farm future

Hosted by Chris Smaje.

The session arose from Chris Smaje’s book ‘A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity and a Shared Earth’ (Chelsea Green, October 2020).

In the book, he argues that present crises demand a move towards more localised economies, geared to providing for people’s needs for food, fibre and other resources from their local ecological base – and also for more localised forms of semi-autonomous political organisation, which at the same time avoid nationalist or nativist forms of social exclusion.

Particular themes for discussion included:

– regional agricultural specialisms: arable, pastoral, horticulture
– reconnecting towns and cities with local rural hinterlands
– defining non-exclusive rural autonomies
– building solidarity outside the region
– managing the relation with centralized political power

Participants from the session gained some insights into how regional agricultural links and solidarity connect with global developments in environmental politics and the more localist future the world faces, and shared thoughts and insights from their own practice.

The discussion focused on the applicability of regional approaches to the North of England and Scotland.

Speaker/host:

Chris Smaje is a small-scale farmer and grower based in southwest England. Formerly an academic social scientist, he’s the author of the forthcoming book ‘A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity and a Shared Earth’ (Chelsea Green, October 2020) and he’s written for several publications on agriculture, the environment and politics. Chris is currently a director of the Ecological Land Co-op and blogs at www.smallfarmfuture.org.uk.