Farmerama

Today, wheat covers an estimated 218 million hectares of the planet – more than any other food crop. The quality of a loaf starts with the wheat. Most bread we eat today is made using modern varieties of wheat that were bred for yield at the expense of everything else. These seeds produce a monoculture of plants that can yield a lot in a good year, but are reliant on chemical inputs and extremely vulnerable in the face of climatic extremes. Most shockingly international legislation dictates that trading any wheat seeds that don’t fit the modern wheat breeding criteria is essentially illegal.

We hear from a top scientist about new findings showing we need to dramatically rethink the seeds we sow if we want to feed the planet in years to come, re-focusing on diversity and quality.

And there’s real hope – stories of people all over the UK who are finding ways around these oppressive laws, building up a seedbank that supports diversity, low-input ecological farming and nutritious grains to feed people.

This is just the beginning. The radical changes that bread has undergone are revealing of wider truths about our relationships with food, to farmers, with the land, the environment, and with each other.

This if the second episode in a 6 part series, Cereal, uncovering the hidden truths behind our bread and the people who are building a new grains movement.

Cereal is written and produced by Katie Revell and made possible by the generous support of the Roddick Foundation.

Featured in this episode:

Andrew Whitley, Bread Matters, Chairman of Scotland the Bread, currently based at Bowhouse Fife

Rupert Dunn, Torth y Tir, community supported peasant bakery, Wales

John Letts, Heritage Harvest

Martin Wolfe, Wakelyn’s Agroforestry (previously Professor of Plant Pathology at Cambridge)

Mark Lea, Green Acres Farm, Shropshire

Kimberley Bell, Small Food Bakery, Nottingham

Josiah Meldrum, Hodmedods

Bread. How did something so basic, so fundamental, get so complicated – and even start making us ill?

How have the needs of industrial production come to dictate the way that seeds are bred, grain is grown, flour is milled, and bread is baked and eaten? And why are more and more people cutting this age-old staple out of their diets? In this episode, we hear from bakers and researchers who reveal the hidden truths about what goes into our bread, and explain how that’s impacting our health. And we’re introduced to the Real Bread Campaign, a movement promoting bread that’s nourishing, tasty and environmentally sound.

The radical changes that our bread has undergone are revealing of much wider truths about our relationships with food, farmers, the land, the environment, and each other. If you eat food, you have a stake in this story.

This if the first episode in a 6 part series, Cereal, uncovering the hidden truths behind our bread and the people who are building a new grains movement.

Cereal is made possible by the generous support of the Roddick Foundation.

This episode features:

Chris MacCormack, a home baker (Govanhill Bread Man)

Kimberley Bell, founder of Small Food Bakery, Nottingham

Chelsea Marshall, Trustee of Scotland the Bread

Andrew Whitley, Bread Matters, co-founder of the Real Bread Campaign, and Scotland the Bread

Theo Laffargue, Riverside Bakery, Stirling

November 18th marks the start of #SeedWeek - a great opportunity to celebrate and raise awareness of local, organic and open pollinated seed. In this special short Katie Hastings, Wales coordinator for the Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty Programme, takes us on a walk with Gerald Miles, a Welsh organic farmer who recently protested the planting of GM crops by driving his tractor down to London. Katie and Gerald talk about growing black oats, and the work of Llafyr Ni to trial new oat varieties and strengthen seed resilience.

This short was recorded by Katie Hastings, and produced by Jo Barratt, Hanna Soderlund and Abby Rose.

In this special episode, part of our Women of the Land series with Chelsea Green Publishing, Abby chats with Rhonda Sherman, vermicomposting and recycling queen! Rhonda’s book, ‘The Worm Farmer’s Handbook’ is a fascinating how-to guide, demystifying the science and logistics of the process of vermicomposting, or composting with worms. We were so inspired by Rhonda’s worm wisdom, and loved learning all about how effective worms can be at encouraging microbes and building soil health! Check out the ‘Worms Can Recycle Your Garbage’ fact sheet Rhonda mentions in the interview below. Thanks to Chelsea Green Publishing for supporting this episode.

Rhonda’s ‘Worms Can Recycle Your Garbage’ factsheet:

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/worms-can-recycle-your-garbage

Our title photo is by Zachary Brooks at Arizona Worm Farm

This month, we chat with compost pioneers in the USA about compost’s role in building microbial life and how to produce a more fungally dominated compost. Abby has some thoughts on soil health and soil carbon, and we share a rallying cry from a member of La Via Campesina to get us all in action growing food. Next, we give you a teaser with one of the characters from our upcoming series, CEREAL, which uncovers the secrets behind the bread we eat. Finally, we hear about a community project growing and brewing their own beer.

A quick ‘breaking’ news story for you all: At Farmerama we don’t always agree with some of the Extinction Rebellion messages, but this week we met Dagan James of the Broughton Water Buffalo Farm and asked him about about what is XR Farmers and what they are doing to share the regenerative farming message far and wide.

This month we begin by looking at the links between regenerative agriculture and climate change, then we take a walk on a Scottish beach with a seaweed entrepreneur, and we have some more from Bee lover extraordinaire Bridgit Strawbridge.

As we embark on our 5th year, we would love your ideas on how we can make Farmerama even better.

Do you have a few minutes? What would you like to hear more of?

Let us know here: https://forms.gle/fCSxaSUcEM4dRetK7

In this special episode, part of our Women of the Land series with Chelsea Green Publishing, we chat to Brigit Strawbridge Howard, a bee advocate, wildlife gardener and naturalist. Her new book, ‘Dancing With Bees’, is a love letter to the natural world. It brings the world of pollinators alive, and makes it overwhelmingly obvious that, once again, we humans have gravely oversimplified nature by allowing our desire for honey to blind us to the complex life of bees. In ‘Dancing with Bees’, Brigit awakens us to a new world where we are reminded that diversity is key, and inspires us all to get in action where the first step is just to start noticing our pollinator friends. Thanks to Chelsea Green Publishing for supporting this episode.

This month, we begin on the island of Jersey where the community have come together to build sustainable supply networks benefiting both smaller-scale farmers and local people. We revisit rewilding and how it fits into the farming landscape. Then, it’s off to Somerset to hear how one regenerative farm is working with nature to build pollinators and many other beneficials into their system. Finally, we hear from a Malawian reverend about the connections between faith, farming and agroecological principles.

Regular contributor Joel Rodker previously reported for Farmerama on his progress in setting up a market garden from scratch. In 2019 he has moved to working for Norwich Farmshare and is continues to share his experiences.