Business Models

Nature as a stakeholder in a farm business

Hosted by the Nature Friendly Farming Network

As agricultural support changes, business management for land owners and land managers will be critical. That business management will also have to take into account that uniquely in agriculture, Nature is a stakeholder in the business; it provides a free-issue bounty for farmers, but it also demands care and attention.

Every farm has a distinctive MSO (maximum sustainable output). This is the point at which productive variable costs (PVCs) end and corrective variable costs (CVCs) start. At the MSO, not only is profitability maximised but the benefits arising from Nature’s bounty are maximised, too. Operating beyond the MSO point starts to decapitalise the natural assets of the business, through overstocking in livestock farming, reduced fertility (natural yields) in arable farming, and over-cropping in woodlands. Continuous activity beyond the MSO point will lead ultimately to sterility in the land.

The benefits arising from Nature’s bounty are typically quantified as a stream of income or a stream of avoided costs. The capitalisation of these streams will quantify Natural Capital. It is not a fixed value; it will change with time and with different farming practices. Quantified in a pragmatic business-oriented fashion, as above, Natural Capital could form a new basis for State Support Schemes for farming. Understanding the MSO phenomenon and its role in determining Natural Capital is now a pre-requisite for developing superior farm-business strategies.

Participants had the chance to both explore whether we should be putting a value on natural capital and an opportunity to discuss the principles of MSO, leverage strategies and the impact of natural capital considerations.

Speakers/hosts:

Chris Clark, with his wife Fiona, previously owned Nethergill Farm and developed Nethergill into an eco-hill farm business with a sustainable added-value meat activity, an educational and field study facility and eco-tourism holiday lets. He is a Partner in Nethergill Associates, a business management consultancy currently assisting with the conjecturing and management of future farming uncertainties nationally. A former farm tenant and farm manager, Chris now has thirty years of business management experience, of which over twenty years were managing his own farm-based businesses. He is currently a member of the North Yorkshire Rural Commission and a past member of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority

Colin Tudge is a biologist by education and a writer by trade. He worked for Farmers Weekly, New Scientist, and BBC Radio 3 before going freelance in about 1990, and is author of about 15 books on natural history, evolution, genetics, ecology – and, in particular, on nutrition, cooking, and agriculture. Around 2008, together with his wife Ruth (West) and help from good friends, he began the Campaign for Real Farming — which has given rise to the Oxford Real Farming Conference and the still peripatetic but ever-growing College for Real Farming and Food Culture. The aim is to help bring about a global, cross-the-board Renaissance – beginning with food and farming.

Helen Chessire – Woodland Trust – Senior Advisor (Farming) – Helen Chesshire is lead farming advocate at the Woodland Trust, responsible for working with both the farming sector and policy makers to promote the benefits of trees on farms. Otherwise known as agroforestry, the deliberate integration of trees within agricultural crops and livestock is a win –win for sustainable food production and the natural environment. The Woodland Trust can provide advice and support to farmers interested in agroforestry. Helen grew up on a diary and sheep farm in the Midlands.

All about Community Supported Agriculture

Hosted by Community Supported Agriculture Network UK with CSA farmers.

Are you thinking about setting up or converting to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model? Then this session is for you!

This is a practical session run by the CSA Network UK to answer some commonly asked questions and get you started. After a brief introduction to CSA participants will be able to choose to go into a group focusing on a specific topic and then move to a second topic for the second half of the session. Groups will be led by experienced individuals and participants will be able to discuss and ask questions.

Topics will include: Crop planning and scaling up production; Marketing and promoting your CSA and recruiting members; creating a founding group, legal structures and finance; Community-led CSA and how to run a producer-led CSA.

Speakers/hosts:

Gareth Davies is a passionate advocate of local food production and helped to set up Canalside Community Food CSA. As well as being a member of the steering committee, he helped establish an orchard and do the book keeping, finances and business planning. Recently he helped to set up Five Acre Community Farm on land rented from Garden Organic. He has also worked as a researcher with Garden Organic/HDRA looking at weeds, pest and diseases and varieties among other topics.

Ben Raskin has worked in horticulture for more than 20 years and has a wide range of practical commercial growing experience. For the Soil Association, he provides growers at all levels of production with technical, marketing, policy, supply chain and networking support. He also leads on their Agroforestry work. Ben is an author of gardening books for children and grownups. He is also currently implementing a 200-acre agroforestry planting in Wiltshire. Ben also co-chairs the newly formed Defra Edibles Horticulture Roundtable and sits on the boards of the Organic Growers Alliance.

Charlotte Barry spends a lot of time on her hands and knees growing and harvesting vegetables, as well as cooking and eating them! She is a founder member of Camel CSA in Cornwall, set up on two acres of rented land near Wadebridge in 2008. So she has plenty of hands-on experience running a community veg box scheme and working with volunteers. She also kept and bred poultry for many years. Her specific skills are in media and digital communications, arising from her career as a journalist, renewable energy publicist, media trainer and university lecturer. Follow Camel CSA on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Rosa Bevan and James Reid run Tap o’ Noth Farm; an 8 acre, permaculture designed smallholding in rural north east Scotland. They operate a CSA market garden and veg box scheme from a quarter of an acre with a 20 week season for 50 shares. The veg box has been running for 5 years as a producer led CSA scheme and is one of just a handful of CSAs in Scotland.

Roger Plumtree from Kirkstall Valley CSA. Roger’s father was a farmer and his involvement as one of the leading figures in Kirkstall Valley CSA has taken him back to his roots. He is a keen supporter of the community supported agriculture model – and is also quick to stress the value of producing organic food, using natural pest control. He’s inspired by the smallholding model of agriculture the Chinese have mastered as a way forward for this country.

Mick Marston from Gibside CSA. 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

Jo Cartwright is from Swillington Organic Farm, a CSA on a mixed family farm outside Leeds

Suzy Russell has worked in environmental and arts-based community development for over 20 years and has skills and experience in relationship building, strategic management, leadership and income generation. She started out organising an environmental arts festival and running a community environmental centre in the North East before living in Spain for six years where she worked with a community street theatre group and set up an environmental community development project. More recently she’s been CEO at participatory arts organisation in West Yorkshire, building skills and knowledge in health and training and alongside this learning to teach mindfulness. She’s always had a patch to grow on, albeit with a wide range of growing conditions. She’s passionate about local food, wellbeing, creativity, nature, community and the magic of everyday life.

Unlocking land for CSA in the North of England: Challenges and Opportunities

Hosted by Community Supported Agriculture Network UK with perspectives from a panel of experts.

How can we access more land for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms and other small-scale regenerative agriculture in the North of England? Why is it so difficult to access land and what can we do to unlock more?
Hear from a fantastic panel of speakers coming at the topic from a range of angles. Panelists are Kate Swade (Shared Assets); Helen Woodcock (Kindling Trust); Graeme Willis (CPRE) and Guy Shrubsole (Environmental Campaigner) and the session is hosted by the CSA Network UK.

Speakers/hosts:

Kate Swade is Shared Assets’ co-executive director. She has over 15 years’ experience helping local authorities and communities collaborate in stewardship of their environments and neighbourhoods. She has designed and delivered qualitative and quantitative research projects at a variety of scales, and is an experienced trainer and facilitator. She has experience as a consultant to as well as an employee of land based social enterprises, supporting the creation of numerous business and governance models, and the crafting of business plans and strategies. She works across the full range of Shared Assets work including policy, research, consultancy and advocacy, and leads on organisational development and culture. Kate is a trustee of Toynbee Hall, a social justice charity in East London.

Graeme Willis is farming lead in the Rural Economy and Communities team at CPRE, the countryside charity. He joined CPRE in 2006 and launched new tranquillity and intrusion maps. He went on to manage research on local food webs across England. More recently he has written on farm diversity (New Model Farming, 2016), the loss of smaller farms (Uncertain harvest, 2017) and on agroecological management of soils (Back to the land, 2018). His current interests are: promoting better use of county farms and changing land use to address the climate emergency. Graeme was previously a senior lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and tutor and research officer at Essex University where he gained an M.Env in Environment, Science and Society. He grew up in Cheshire where he regularly worked on family farms.

Helen Woodcock is a founding member of Greater Manchester’s Kindling Trust – working to create a fairer, more sustainable food system for Manchester and beyond. Over the last 13 years Helen has helped establish Kindling’s practical initiatives including our FarmStart programme, to encourage and support a new generation of organic growers; Woodbank Community Food Hub; and Kindling’s sister co-operatives Manchester Veg People and Veg Box People, to create fairer markets for organic growers and make local organic food accessible to all. Helen is currently focused on establishing the Kindling Farm, a 100+ acre organic agroforestry farm for the Northwest.

Guy Shrubsole is an environmental campaigner and author of Who Owns England? (William Collins, 2019), a book that delves into the secrecy surrounding land ownership, why it’s so unequal, and why that matters for how we use land. Guy helped co-author a recent report, Reviving County Farms, about the sell-off of council-owned farms, with NEF, Shared Assets and CPRE; and he’s currently campaigning to get a ban on moorland burning by grouse moor estates, coax landowners into investing more in natural climate solutions, and extend Right to Roam.

Suzy Russell has worked in environmental and arts-based community development for over 20 years and has skills and experience in relationship building, strategic management, leadership and income generation. She started out organising an environmental arts festival and running a community environmental centre in the North East before living in Spain for six years where she worked with a community street theatre group and set up an environmental community development project. More recently she’s been CEO at participatory arts organisation in West Yorkshire, building skills and knowledge in health and training and alongside this learning to teach mindfulness. She’s always had a patch to grow on, albeit with a wide range of growing conditions. She’s passionate about local food, wellbeing, creativity, nature, community and the magic of everyday life.

Exploring the links between farming and other rural enterprises: Could Brexit make or break the chain?

Hosted by researchers at Newcastle University.

A team of researchers from Newcastle University have undertaken research to investigate how potential post-Brexit structural adjustments in the farming industry will affect local and regional industries in the north of England, beyond farming. We are also interested in the multiplier effects of these potential structural changes. Using interviews, we spoke to enterprises based in Northumberland, Yorkshire and Cumbria who are linked to agriculture but are not primary producers themselves. We discussed with them the risks and the opportunities their businesses and communities face following the changes in farm support post-Brexit.

Preliminary findings indicate that there is a great deal of concern about the impact of changes on produce quality, the environment and the fabric of rural communities. However, we also note a high degree of ‘business pragmatism’ and a willingness to ‘roll with the punches’, as well as some optimism around opportunities for innovation, both within participants’ own businesses and within agriculture more generally.

This session involved a facilitated discussion. We spent 5-7 minutes introducing our research and findings, and then used the remainder of the session to engage participants with a range of activities. We aim to co-produce knowledge with session attendees, with the goal of identifying key challenges and opportunities facing (northern) rural regions post-Brexit and post-Covid, and discussing solutions to these, based on best practices and local strengths and weaknesses. A better understanding on how Brexit will affect farming and the wider rural community and how we, as a community, might respond to these changes in the north would allow for the identification of more viable solutions to support sustainable and vibrant communities.

Speakers/hosts:

Adrienne Attorp is a PhD Researcher in Sociology and Social Policy at Newcastle University (Teagasc Walsh Scolar). She is currently studying agriculture policy and land use on the island of Ireland. Prior to returning to academia, Adrienne spent 6 years working in the charity sector, first with urban farming charity ‘Growing People Project’ in Milton Keynes, then with horticultural social enterprise ‘Cultivate London’, in west London. She is broadly interested in agriculture policy, sustainable food systems and food sovereignty.

Katie Aitken-McDermott is a PhD Researcher at Newcastle University’s Centre for Rural Economy. Her research focuses on why and how individuals and groups establish and manage rural social enterprises.

Dr Carmen Hubbard is a senior lecturer in rural economy at Newcastle University. Her major research interests are in the economics and policy analysis of EU rural areas. She has also extended her expertise to other countries such as Japan, Brazil, South Korea and Vietnam. Recently, she led a major national project on ‘Brexit and Agriculture’. In 2014, she was awarded a prestigious fellowship by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Since 2015, she has been an appointed member of the (Farm) Animal Welfare Committee. She also sits on the North East Farming and Rural Advisory Network steering group.

You can read the session outcomes here.