Most agroecologists understand that genetic engineering has no place in a responsible, fair and sustainable food system but the PR campaign promoting new gene editing techniques is clever, well-resourced and gaining ground. The UK Government is accelerating plans to remove vital regulatory safeguards and, with them, our ability to say no. Post-Brexit market rules mean that even Scotland’s strong policy rejection of all GMOs will be under threat if we don’t stop the headlong rush towards a high-tech quick-fix takeover of our food and our farms.
Join an expert panel to learn about the latest scientific and political developments as well as the most effective ways to make your voice heard. There will also be plenty of time for questions on any aspect of GM in food and farming.
Speakers/hosts include:
Liz O’Neill – Liz is the Director of GM Freeze, the UK umbrella campaign on GM food, crops and patents. GM Freeze is working to help create a responsible, fair and sustainable food system.
Steven Jacobs – Steven is the Business Development Manager of Organic Farmers & Growers which certifies more than half of UK organic land and provides support, information and licensing to Britain’s top organic food businesses.
Pete Richie – Pete is the Executive Director of Nourish Scotland, a charity focusing on food policy and practice. He also runs Whitmuir Organics with his partner.
The opening session of the Northern Real Farming Conference explored the principles of real farming, the need for system change and the experiences of farmers in the North. There was also be an opportunity to network and meet other conference participants.
Speakers included:
Ellen Pearce has been coordinating FarmStart work in Lancaster for the last 3 years, undertaking a feasibility study, pilot programme and setting up a local funding scheme for the project. She co-chairs the Food and Economy working group for FoodFutures, North Lancashire’s Sustainable Food Network and coordinates the Northern Real Farming Conference.
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.
Anna Clayton sits on the management committee of Claver Hill Community Food Project and is a member of Spud Club (a community grown agriculture scheme) and Lancaster Seed Library. For the past ten years, Anna has worked on a variety of community food and environmental initiatives and currently coordinates FoodFutures: North Lancashire’s Sustainable Food Network. Anna also works part time as a Worker Director, Writer and Researcher at Ethical Consumer Magazine.
Rod Everett has over 60 years of living at Backsbottom farm, has experienced many floods and has recently set up a Natural Flood Management educational trail as part of a wider project working with neighbouring farmers to reduce flooding. He was instrumental in setting up the Northern Real Farming Conference.
You can read a blog post by Colin Tudge on Real Farming and why it matters.
Hosted by the Yorkshire Dales National Park with colleagues.
Results based payments are being used to inspire and incentivise nature friendly farming in 2 projects within the Dales – Payment By Results (managed by Natural England and Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority) and Payment for Outcomes (National Trust).
This session was an interactive webinar cum panel discussion to showcase an alternative approach to agri-environment schemes that’s being trialled by farmers in the Yorkshire Dales and which may play a role in England’s future Environmental Land Management scheme. There were opportunities to hear from farmers taking part, including a panel discussion on how they feel about the results based approach, the pit falls and the positives. In addition, there was a guest presentation from Irelands Hen Harrier project to show how a results based scheme is being delivered successfully, at scale in other upland areas.
Throughout the session the audiences’ views were sought on results-based incentives to gain a greater understanding of their perceptions and views.
Speakers/hosts:
Helen Keep is the Senior Farm Conservation Officer at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority. She manages the farm conservation team who work with farmers to help them improve the nature conservation value and reduce pollution risk on their farms via accessing agri-environment schemes. Her career has spanned 24 years within the upland farming and agri-environment sector, starting in ADAS in 1996 as a Countryside Stewardship adviser, then transferring to the Yorkshire Dales in 2005. She has worked on results based approaches since 2015 and has co-designed and helps deliver the grassland pilot of the Defra Payment by Results trial.
Annabelle LePage is a Senior Adviser in the Strategy & Government Advice Team at Natural England based in York. She has been the project manager of the grassland and arable pilots of the Defra Payment by Results trial and its EU funded precursor since 2016. Her long career at Natural England brings a wealth of expertise to this topic
Lauryn Mcloughlin has been with the National Trust since December 2019 as the Project Officer for the DEFRA ELMS Test working on engaging with National Trust Tenants and wider stakeholders to deliver a feasibility study of the Whole Farm Approach. She has a background in oil science and public engagement
Dr Elizabeth Sullivan has been the National Trust funded Payments for Outcomes project officer since 2019, working with 5 National Trust tenants in the Yorkshire Dales in relation to Soil Health, Pollinator Health and Natural Flood Management. She has a strong research background relating to hay meadows and is affiliated with Edgehill University
You can read a blog post about the session outcomes here.
With multiple pressures coming from all angles, one thing is clear: our landscapes will, and must, be managed differently. This session discussed the opportunities and the tensions between upland farming, commercial forestry and rewilding in a post-COVID, post-Brexit, climate-changing future.
Bringing you an all-Scottish panel of farmers and conservationists coming from a range of perspectives – from rewilding to agroforestry to moorland management – we held this space to host a lively debate about the tensions and possibilities that lie ahead for the upland land manager.
Speakers/hosts:
Alan McDonnell is Conservation Manager at Trees For Life, a rewilding charity in the Scottish Highlands. While focused on ecological regeneration and involving volunteers in practical, mindful action to restore habitats and species, much of his work is about finding ways to use the skills, knowledge and livelihoods in today’s landscapes as the basis of a future with a sustainable balance between the needs of nature, business and people’s quality of life.
Andrew Barbour is a farmer and forester, working in Highland Perthshire. He was the chairman of the Scottish Government’s Woodland Expansion Advisory Group which reported back in 2010, looking at the ambitions of Govt to expand forestry at that time. More recently he was part of the Deer Working Group which has just recently reported to Scottish Government.
Finn Weddle is a self-directed student of agroforestry and an advocate of regenerative livelihoods, ecological design and agroecology. He is especially passionate about the landscape and the businesses and communities that shape it, and is bringing this session to the NRFC to highlight the work being undertaken in Scotland and cross-pollinate learnings with English counterparts. He is also a Director of Reforesting Scotland, has worked extensively with Permaculture Scotland and consults on ecological enterprise, sharing learnings through The Regenerative Livelihood Podcast.
Patrick Laurie worked as a project manager for the Heather Trust over eight years, promoting integrated moorland management for a variety of land uses across the UK uplands, including agriculture, peatland, renewables and fieldsports. He then moved to Soil Association Scotland to deliver their Farming with Nature program, before setting up as an independent moorland management consultant. Alongside this work, he now manages the Galloway Hills Network, a project to promote diverse and sustainable upland farming in southwest Scotland. He has also been running a herd of pedigree galloway cattle in a variety of conservation projects for black grouse and curlews since 2015.
Land reform is a huge and necessary process to undertake in the UK if we are to ever attain ecological justice and effectively work together to adapt our landscapes in pressing times; the inequity and inequality of ownership and management of land in the UK is unparalleled in Europe and is a major barrier to ecological farmers, especially new entrants.
At a policy level, it is difficult to find the political will to enact land reform but in Scotland at least there is a ball rolling which is undoubtedly building towards unprecedented and large scale changes in the way land is both managed and owned. This session presented an all-Scottish panel to discuss and disseminate the work already undertaken, explore opportunities in land reform going forwards, and to answer any questions from an English and Welsh audience looking for guidance and support in forging a more powerful narrative of land reform south of the border.
With a panel that represents many decades of expertise and lived experience, this session aimed:
to bring an awareness of Scotland’s vision for a strong and dynamic relationship between its land and its people, which is being actively pursued by the Scottish Land Commission of the back of decades of activism;
to explore the exciting barriers and dastardly opportunities inherent in reforming the way that land is governed and owned, looking at Falkland Estate as a case in hand;
to empower participants to use all the tools available to us – as land owners, managers and users – to pursue land reform in our local communities;
to better understand the needs and wants of farmers and farm workers from land reform; and
to make links between the parallel narratives of land reform in Scotland, England and Wales.
Speaker/host info:
Kirsty Tait is a land reform practitioner supporting change within urban and rural communities. She currently works for the Good Practice Team at the Scottish Land Commission and is responsible for practically implementing Scotland’s Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement. Prior to this, she worked for Carnegie UK Trust which included supporting the early pioneers of the Community Land Trust movement in England and Wales. Her connection to land stems from and continues through supporting her family’s secure-tenanted farm in Perth.
James MacKessack-Leitch is a Policy Officer at the Scottish Land Commission, primarily focusing on the Commission’s work to modernise land rights, governance, and ownership. He also leads on work to improve agricultural land access for new entrants and progressing farmers. Coming from a family farm in the Laich of Moray, and being a former director of a local community development trust, he has some experience of the challenges and opportunities faced on either side of the policy and practice fence!
Adele Clarke is an educator and community facilitator working to reconnect communities with the land through regenerative cultural design embracing our heritage. She’s excited to be working with Falkland Estate and Centre for Stewardship to explore the central roles that regenerative agriculture, localised food-systems and integrated landscape use can play in becoming part of the solution for a healthy planet and in support of UN sustainable development goals. She has a background in Botany (plant genetics), Geology and Landscape Archaeology amongst other things.
Ninian Stuart is an estate owner with a commitment to reviving the relationship between people and land whilst addressing inequalities. Following many years in community care, advocacy and social enterprise, he is co-founder of the Centre for Stewardship, Fife Employment Access Trust and A Thousand Huts campaign. Ninian’s main focus is now on sustainable, community-based land management whilst teasing out the tensions of holding the Hereditary Keepership of Falkland Palace whilst working towards a just transition locally, regionally and globally.
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.
Since the 1980s, permaculture pioneers have been creating innovative farms and smallholdings around the world using a design approach and ecological principles. From the initial information, it looks like permaculture-designed farms will score very highly under The Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS), the payment scheme that will be used to distribute “public money for public goods” as the Basic Payment Scheme is phased out from 2024. Farmers and land managers will no longer be paid to produce food, and will instead be paid to deliver public goods like clean air and water, biodiversity and heritage.
This session brought together two experienced permaculture designers and practitioners, who, alongside the CEO of the Permaculture Association, demonstrated the design approach, gave practical examples and showed how permaculture design provides a clear pathway to farmers looking to diversify their land, improve soil, biodiversity and income.
The session combined short, focused presentations and video clips with Q&A and panel discussion.
Speakers/hosts:
Hannah Thorogood is a permaculture farmer, designer and teacher. She has set up and runs her own 18 acre permaculture demonstration farm, The Inkpot. Hannah has taken the farm from a depleted, compacted, toxic arable field into the diverse, abundant farm it is today demonstrating permaculture, regenerative agriculture and producing nationally award winning food. Hannah is a senior tutor with the permaculture diploma system and has been teaching permaculture design courses for 15 years and permaculture teaching courses for 10 years. She has a reputation for creating a very accepting and fun learning environment, putting people from all backgrounds at ease to enjoy their learning together. Hannah has a BSc in Environmental Studies from Manchester University & an MSc Organic Farming from Scottish Agricultural College. She also loves to knit and crochet using her own Inkpot wool.
Niels Corfield is an advisor, researcher, educator, designer, grower and nurseryman who has been working to deliver a truly sustainable food system for over 10 years. Over this time Niels has acquired an amazing breadth of knowledge and gained experience on many different farms. This enables him to draw on a wide range of practical tools and techniques to find what works in every new situation. He works to create sustainable/regenerative landscapes, farms and spaces in the UK and Europe with a focus on agro-ecological systems that are low maintenance and productive. Niels works in partnership with the PFLA on soils, coordinating the PFLA soils monitoring project – establishing an empiric case for healthy soils on pasture and mixed farms – and provides a number of services direct to farmers.
Andy Goldring is the Chief Executive of the Permaculture Association and has been supporting the organisation’s farm policy work since 2000 through projects such as the influential Low Carbon Farming initiative, member working groups and network learning events. Andy has provided direct project support to many member farmers and smallholders and initiated the LAND demonstration network which now has 100+ sites that can be visited in the UK. Andy is currently working to develop the association’s advice and support for farmers wishing to use the permaculture design approach to achieve maximum ecological, social and financial benefits once the new ELMS scheme has been implemented.
Hosted by FoodFutures and Lancaster University with experts.
How can small scale food producers access larger scale contracts offered by public sector and other anchor institutions in their local area? What are the opportunities and challenges posed by taking this route to market? This session was a chance for farmers and producers to have their questions answered by a panel of people with experience of working at different scales, from national to local, to create opportunities for small-scale sustainable producers to benefit from public procurement.
The Q&A session was with a mixture of producers with experience of different models of procurement. Panelists included:
– Greg Parsons (POM Support and the National Advisory Board for Dynamic Procurement)
– Duncan Catchpole (Cambridge Food Hub)
– Nicky Stonebridge (Lower Hurst Organics)
– Ebba Wilhelmsson (“Modellodlingen” Gothenburg)
– Chris Walsh (Manchester Veg People/Kindling Trust)
Prior to the session a video conversation with three members of the National Advisory Board for Dynamic Procurement was shared on the event website. This group have been instrumental in developing a pilot for a Dynamic Purchasing System for food procurement within central and local government. In this conversation we discussed how this pilot has the potential to facilitate access to public sector markets for smaller scale, sustainable growers and how producers might work to benefit from this.
Speakers/hosts:
Greg Parsons has a 30 year career in food and drink with a wealth of experience in working with food businesses to develop markets with retailers, caterers and large regional employers. In 2014, Greg founded Somerset Larder a collaboration of SME food and drink suppliers to provide a one stop catering service for local businesses using locally sourced, high quality food. In October 2017 Greg left Somerset Larder in ‘rude health’ with over 50 local suppliers, 94 employees (including 20 apprenticeships) spending over £3m PA in the local economy, to pursue other opportunities and develop his own venture, POM support Ltd. Through POM Greg now works across the food and drink industry using his experience and contacts to help small and medium sized businesses and collaborations to exploit their potential through Projects, Operations and Marketing. For the past 3 years Greg been working with Menter Môn and Welsh Government on the Môn Larder project looking at equality of provision within public procurement, and the creation of opportunities for food and drink businesses in North Wales. In his role for the National Advisory Board for Dynamic Food Procurement, Greg is leading a steering group in the South West to set up a ‘pilot’ for food and drink supply to public procurement, working with Crown Commercial Services. In May 2020 the ‘South West Food Hub’ was incorporated as a ‘Community Interest Company’ and presented with a memorandum of understanding to prepare to South West region for the impending changes in public sector procurement. You can find out more about the work of the National Board for Dynamic Food Procurement here: https://www.dynamicfood.org/
Duncan Catchpole is a social entrepreneur with more than twenty years’ experience in the organic and sustainable food sector. Duncan is the founder and owner of The Cambridge Organic Food Co.; an organic vegetable box scheme enterprise which was established in 1998. He is also project leader of the Cambridge Food Hub project, which is building a ‘local food ecosystem’ in the region. This is a way of structuring local food supply chains in such a way that lessens the environmental impact of food, minimises waste, improves connectivity between local food businesses and leads to more equitable distribution of food throughout the community. Duncan is also a committee member of Cambridge Sustainable Food; the organisation responsible for Cambridge’s inclusion in the national Sustainable Food Cities network. More recently Duncan has become involved with the Harmony Project; an initiative run by the Sustainable Food Trust and inspired by HRH The Prince of Wales’ book ‘Harmony; A New Way of Looking at our World’. Duncan is interested in the way the principles of Harmony can be implemented in commercial processes and systems, and in particular how the attributes of balance and interconnectivity can lead to improved efficiency and the elimination of waste.
Nicky Stonebridge works for Lower Hurst Farm, an organic farm in the Peak District National Park owned by Andrew Sebire. The farm has been organic since 1998 and they rear Hereford Cattle for beef production. In 2006 the farm shop was struggling to turn a profit on its sale of beef cuts and the farm started to explore different market opportunities. At the same time Jamie Oliver had just launched a campaign to improve the quality of food provided in schools and the Soil Association Food for Life scheme had just been formed. The timing was right and Lower Hurst Farm approached the local village school to see how meat from the farm could be supplied to them. This trial was successful and Lower Hurst Farm decided that it should supply into more schools. The process was far more complicated than the farm team had initially thought and Nicky was brought in to lead and set up a dedicated food business to produce and supply into the school food market. Nicky’s background was in Stock and Sales Merchandising and Marketing for a national retail group, but as a mother of three children herself she was keen that good, locally sourced food should be made available in schools. The Organic Food for Schools business grew and supplied organic meat products into more than 200 schools. In 2019 the business was awarded Supplier Champion by the Soil Association in recognition of the work the Lower Hurst team has achieved with school caterers. In 2020 despite the set-backs that we have all endured from the Covid-19 pandemic, we see the positive outcomes of people reconnecting with local business and understanding how important small producers are to the food chain. You can read more about Lower Hurst Farm here: http://www.lowerhurstfarm.co.uk/
Chris Walsh is an accomplished social entrepreneur and has helped establish two of Manchester’s largest and best-loved social enterprises; Bridge 5 Mill eco-centre and Fairfield Environment Services. He then went on to co-found the Kindling Trust in 2007, with the belief that ‘good food is a fundamental human right and a powerful force for positive social change’.
Chris played a key role in developing Manchester Veg People – a multi stakeholder co-operative of growers and buyers. Before lock-down the co-op was on target to sell over £250,000 of organic veg to the public sector, cafes and restaurants. He is an active member of a team who explores new procurement opportunities and maintains relationships with existing customers. Learn more about Manchester Veg People here: https://www.vegpeople.org.uk/newsite/
Ebba Wilhelmsson is the farm manager at the Model Farm Gothenburg where she is employed by the Property Management Department at the Municipality of Gothenburg. The Model Farm is a highly productive small-scale farm unit, providing food and education. By showcasing a business model behind a sustainable and successful small-scale farming enterprise run within a municipality, the Model Farm will serve as a driver for the integration of regenerative farming practices in the continuous evolution of urban and rural multifunctional landscapes. The farm is located on Gothenburg’s outskirts on municipal land, and the produce from the farm is delivered to schools, preschools, and old people’s homes. Around 40 different vegetables are grown on permanent, raised beds on 585 square meters (efficient bed use). The principles of market gardening and the techniques of biointensive agriculture are being used. The farm is a part of the European project SATURN, financed by EIT Climate-KIC with partners in Trento and Birmingham. To follow the development on the farm, visit their Instagram page: Modellodlingen.
Chris Walsh is an accomplished social entrepreneur and has helped establish two of Manchester’s largest and best-loved social enterprises; Bridge 5 Mill eco-centre and Fairfield Environment Services. He then went on to co-found the Kindling Trust in 2007, with the belief that ‘good food is a fundamental human right and a powerful force for positive social change’. Chris played a key role in developing Manchester Veg People – a multi stakeholder co-operative of growers and buyers. Before lock-down the co-op was on target to sell over £250,000 of organic veg to the public sector, cafes and restaurants. He is an active member of a team who explores new procurement opportunities and maintains relationships with existing customers. Learn more about Manchester Veg People here: https://www.vegpeople.org.uk/newsite/
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.
Hosted by Hannah Field, Sue Pritchard and Julia Aglionby, Food, Farming and Countryside Commission.
The Food, Farming and Countryside Commission are turning the recommendations from the ‘Our Future in the Land’ report, developed over 2 years of participatory research, into practical actions with our partners in governments, businesses and communities. This is being supported through 6 place-based inquiries – 3 in England, and 1 in each of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, with funding from Esmée Fairburn Foundation. The recommendations are, at their core, focusing on connecting food, farming and the public’s health for a just transition to a greener, fairer economy in response to the climate, nature, health and now Covid-19 emergencies. To enable these actions, we are helping to convene collective leadership and collaboration across sectors and stakeholders.
Cumbria is our Northern England inquiry, focusing on upland contexts. This session was an excellent opportunity to engage with stakeholders and gain valuable input and collaboration to support this 3-year implementation, action-focused phase. There will be an overview of the inquiries nationally and then a focus on Cumbria to explore how we might implement some of the recommendations. The recommendations we discussed could include (subject to change at this early stage of the inquiry):
• a National Nature Service to support young people from different backgrounds to experience meaningful land-based work to kickstart the regenerative economy
• a roadmap to support the transition into agroecological farming practice
• supporting equitable distribution of the health and wellbeing benefits of access to landscapes and nature connection.
Participants received a summary report of the session and next steps in the inquiry.
Find out more about the work and reports at ffcc.co.uk
Speakers/hosts:
Sue Pritchard is Chief Executive of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, a newly independent charitable organisation working across the UK and funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. Its mission is to help implement the recommendations contained in its reports in June 2019, accelerating the transition to a fair, sustainable food and farming system and a thriving countryside, reversing climate change, restoring nature, and improving public health and wellbeing. Sue runs an organic, permaculture livestock farm in Wales, home to the Silver Birch Foundation, a charity providing education, training and development for disaffected young people, in partnership with local schools.
Julia Aglionby is the Chair of the Cumbria Inquiry for the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. Julia is Executive Director of the Foundation for Common Land, Chair of the Uplands Alliance, a practicing Rural Chartered Surveyor and Agricultural Valuer and a Professor in Practice at the University of Cumbria. Julia was a Board Member of Natural England from 2014 – 2019. She has worked as an environmental economist on National Park Management in Indonesia and the Philippines. Julia’s PhD research was at Newcastle University Law School and her thesis was entitled Governance of Common Land in National Parks: Plurality and Purpose. Julia lives in the Eden Valley, Cumbria with her family on an organic Care Farm of which she is a Trustee – Susan’s Farm CIO – where she enjoys practical farm work at the weekends.
Hannah Field is the Cumbria Inquiry Coordinator for the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. Hannah grew up in Rochester, Kent and has spent the last 10 years in Cumbria, beginning with her studies at the University of Cumbria gaining a BSc (Hons) in Animal Conservation Science and then, in 2019, her PGDip Ecosystem Services Evaluation. Hannah is currently a PhD Student at the University, researching how diverse perspectives and values in land management can be brought together for social and ecological benefit through place-based decision-making in case studies of common land contexts. During this time in Cumbria, Hannah has worked for Forestry England in communications and visitor experience and runs her own business. She is an artist and tutor in wool crafts, designs and teaches nature-based and regenerative livelihood programmes and helps with horticulture and livestock on a permaculture smallholding. Hannah weaves together practical experience and academic knowledge to inform her research and practice. Building relationships with the land threads Hannah’s life through fell-walking, mountaineering, lake swimming and gardening, always with collie-dog Nova.
You can read a blog post about the session outcomes here.
