Farmerama

This month we have voices on three continents. We begin talking to Juani Lisboa, part of a natural cider-making collective in Chile - Agricola sin Patrones - who are working to support more diverse rural ecosystems. Then our co-creator Abby Rose puts her Vidacycle hat on and talks to agroecologist Nicole Masters about a powerful new tool they worked on together - the Soilmentor Regen Platform - which uses the 10 Regen Indicators to help farmers learn from their in-field observations. And finally we hear from two people working closely with Bruichladdich Distillery on Islay. Richard Gantlett at Yatesbury House Farm supplies the distillery with biodynamic barley, and Christy MacFarlane works in their comms department. She shares about the distillery's work with growing landrace barley on the Hebridean Islands where they are based.

Episode Links:

Agricola sin Patrones

https://www.instagram.com/agricola_sinpatrones/

Nicole Masters x Vidacycle = the Soilmentor Regen Platform

https://www.integritysoils.co.nz/

https://soils.vidacycle.com/

Richard Gantlett, Yatesbury House Farm

https://yatesbury.wixsite.com/yatesbury

Bruichladdich Distillery

https://www.bruichladdich.com/

This month we hear about the new food and farming media and how the two are becoming ever closer, we head to a medicinal CSA and we end with a technology that may be part of our toolkit for a regenerative future.

This episode of Farmerama was made by Jo Barratt, Abby Rose and Olivia Oldham. A big thanks to the rest of the Farmerama team Katie Revell, Fran Bailey, Annie Landless, Eliza Jenkins and Dora Taylor. Our theme music is by Owen Barratt.

We’re very grateful to those of you that support us and allow us to bring you these stories every month. Even the smallest contribution makes a big difference to us. If you'd like to become a supporter, visit patreon.com/Farmerama

Links:

Vittles https://vittles.substack.com/ @vittleslondon

Jonathan Nunn @demarionunn

Earthlight Herbs: https://www.earthlight.uk/

Regen Network : https://www.regen.network/token/

In this month’s episode, we bring you three conversations with farmers and researchers who spoke at this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference.

First, we hear from John Letts - a wheat grower and crop developer living in Buckinghamshire, known for growing heritage grains. He joins us to explain Continuous cropping, something that got a lot of attention this year at the ORFC.

Next, we speak to Frances Northrop, who works for the New Economics Foundation and is an associate fellow specialising in local economies. Frances talks to us about a project she worked on last year called 'Land for Who'. She also explores the concept of 'new municipalism' - a global political movement that is all about ordinary citizens claiming power in their local and city governments - and how this relates to land.

Finally, we catch up with Ben Raskin to talk about his new book.‘The Woodchip Handbook’ delves into the magic and potential of woodchip not only as a mulch but also as a way of building soil health and fertility through beneficially increasing the fungal content of the soil.

This episode of Farmerama was made by Jo Barratt, Abby Rose and Olivia Oldham. A big thanks to the rest of the farmerama team - Katie Revell, Annie Landless, Eliza Jenkins, Fran Bailey and Dora Taylor.

This month we hear about more resilient grape varieties and growing grapes in the UK from new grower Victoria Vine Lizard, we are offered a mind bending new way of understanding what soil is from Rothamsted research scientist Andy Neal and you can sit back and relax as we take you on a farm tour on the other side of the world with Greg Hart of Mangarara Station in Aotearoa New Zealand.

It’s been a long year and we don’t know about you, but here at the Farmerama team we are pretty exhausted. We wanted to say thank you to all of you, the Farmerama listeners and people out there doing the work to build a more ecological and just farming future for all of us. We know this isn’t easy but we really appreciate you and it’s an honor to all be in this together. May 2022 bring beauty to you all.

We’re very grateful to those of you that support us and allow us to bring you these stories every month. Even the smallest contribution makes a big difference to us. If you’d like to become a supporter, visit patreon.com/Farmerama

This month, we’re heading to Glasgow to bring you three stories from the fringes of the COP26 conference.

We’ll hear from Tenement Veg about the challenges of growing food in Scotland’s largest city. We’ll highlight Nourish Scotland’s involvement at the conference, and speak to Warami Jackson and Marlon Opigo, two participants in Feedback’s “participatory action research”- an innovative and inclusive project researching young people’s experience of the food system. We’ll visit the Landworkers’ Alliance’s agroecology hub, and speak to the LWA’s Catherine McAndrew about the urgent call for solidarity with migrant workers.

This episode of Farmerama was produced by Katie Revell, Olivia Oldham and Abby Rose.

We’re very grateful to those of you that support us and allow us to bring you these stories every month. Even the smallest contribution makes a big difference to us. If you’d like to become a supporter, visit patreon.com/Farmerama

Links:

‘Young Seeds for your Thoughts: Towards a Just Food System’.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNkYxX90O7Y

This month we speak to Cumbrian sheep farmer and celebrated author James Rebanks about the collective discovery of aligned interests of farmers as they are regenerating their landscapes together. And Abby has visited, Erica ten Broeke, Landscape Manager at Commonland, a Dutch NGO that bring a holistic approach to landscape restoration as initiator, catalyst and enabler of large-scale, long-term restoration initiatives. 

This episode of Farmerama was made by Jo Barratt, Abby Rose and Olivia Oldham. A big thanks to the rest of the Farmerama team Katie Revell, Fran Bailey, Annie Landless, Eliza Jenkins and Dora Taylor. Our theme music is by Owen Barratt.

We’re very grateful to those of you that support us and allow us to bring you these stories every month. Even the smallest contribution makes a big difference to us. If you'd like to become a supporter, visit patreon.com/Farmerama

Links:

James Reanks @herdyshepherd1

La Junquera lajunquera.com/

Common Land https://www.commonland.com/

This month we begin with a story from Rosie Bristow, MSc student of Fashion and Textile Management based at Phantassie Organic Farm in Scotland. We learn from Rosie about a farm to fashion project she’s pioneering as part of her studies, to prototype a UK textile economy in collaboration with George Young at Fobbing Farm in Essex.

Next, we head to Uganda, where we hear from Noah Ssempijja of YICE (Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment), a social enterprise focused on providing smallholder farmers access to regenerative farming technique.

Finally, we hear from Alfonso Chico Gusman and Yanniek Schoonhoven of La Junquera, who are experimenting with rain-fed regenerative techniques on their mixed farm in the arid mountains of southern Spain. La Junquera’s influence extends beyond the farm, with training initiatives such as the Regenerative Academy which offers education to the wider community as well as research collaborations with different universities bringing research to the farm. We will be hearing more from La Junquera over the next few months, as they are a great example of the power of collective action to build on the regenerative movement!

This episode of Farmerama was made by Jo Barratt, Abby Rose and Olivia Oldham. A big thanks to the rest of the Farmerama team Katie Revell, Fran Bailey, Annie Landless, Eliza Jenkins and Dora Taylor. Our theme music is by Owen Barratt.

We’re very grateful to those of you that support us and allow us to bring you these stories every month. Even the smallest contribution makes a big difference to us. If you'd like to become a supporter, visit patreon.com/Farmerama

Links:

Rosie Bristow @straw_into_gold

YICE Uganda https://twitter.com/YICEUganda

La Junquera https://lajunquera.com/

Regeneration Academy https://www.regeneration-academy.org/

So if, as it turns out, the family farm is a colonial concept, what are the alternatives? And if we’re to address the tangled mess of challenges we’re faced with – the climate emergency, biodiversity loss, farmer burnout, food inequality and the need for reparations – then perhaps we need to be thinking not at the scale of the individual farm, but of the entire landscape.

In this final episode, Col explores the patchwork of pre- and post-colonial land relations that already exist across Scotland. He learns more about the tried and tested model of crofting that still exists in parts of the Highlands, as well as Scotland’s community right-to-buy legislation, and asks whether, together, these could be part of a broader strategy to rethink land ownership and tenure, and even our relationship to land more broadly.

In the end, Col concludes that it’s not the case that the family farm is no longer relevant – it’s just that on its own, it’s not enough to deal with what the future has in store. Instead, the family farm must come to understand itself as part of a much broader landscape – one made up of a kaleidoscope of different understandings of, and approaches to, what it means to be Landed.

Landed is produced by Col Gordon and Katie Revell, with Executive Producer Abby Rose. Our Project Manager is Olivia Oldham. Huge thanks to Josina Calliste for her guidance and input and to Sarah Nicholas for all her help and support. Thanks also to Jo Barratt. The music for Landed is by Dagger Gordon and Col Gordon.

This episode featured Marian Bruce, Helen O’Keefe, Patrick Krause, Calum MacLeod, Adam Calo, Will Frazer and Emma Whitham.

Funding for the project was provided by the funding platform Necessity.

Farmerama is committed to keeping all our episodes free, and to paying our team a living wage. To do so, we rely on support from you, our community of listeners. If you’d like to help us make more podcasts, you can become a Patron at patreon.com/farmerama.

In Part 2, farmer’s son Col Gordon explored the ways in which the colonisation of Highland Scotland destroyed a rich pre-colonial culture and relationship to the land. But in Part 3, he learns that the story of Scotland as the victim of colonial practices is just one part of a much bigger narrative.

The Highlands is one of the least racially diverse parts of the UK, and it would be easy to think of the area as far removed from the UK’s grim colonial history – a place where racial justice and reparations have no direct relevance. But, as Col discovers, this would be far from the truth.

Col traces the connections – some indirect, others very concrete – between the rural landscape he grew up in and global patterns of displacement, exploitation and enslavement. To dig deeper, he speaks with Josina Calliste, co-founder of Land in Our Names (LION) – a Black-led, grassroots collective committed to reparations in Britain by connecting land and climate justice with racial justice – and explores what it means to be a person of colour in rural Scotland today.

Landed is produced by Col Gordon and Katie Revell, with Executive Producer Abby Rose.

Our Project Manager is Olivia Oldham.

Huge thanks to Josina Calliste for her guidance and input and to Sarah Nicholas for all her help and support. Thanks also to Jo Barratt.

The music for Landed is by Dagger Gordon and me, Col Gordon.

This episode featured David Alston, Josina Calliste, Iain MacKinnon, Srik Narayanan and Philomena de Lima

Funding for the project was provided by the funding platform Necessity.

Farmerama is committed to keeping all our episodes free, and to paying our team a living wage. To do so, we rely on support from you, our community of listeners. If you’d like to help us make more podcasts, you can become a Patron at patreon.com/farmerama

Over the last 250 years, Gaelic culture in the Highlands of Scotland has experienced what academic Iain MacKinnon refers to as “cultural devastation”. For farmer’s son, Col Gordon, the forced displacement of people during the Highland Clearances, and the dismantling of Gaelic language and traditions, are best understood through the lens of colonisation. Now, only small pockets of Gaelic culture remain, detached from the conditions and ways of life that they evolved in.

In this episode, Col learns about the pre-colonial attitudes of the Gaels towards the land, investigating the question of what came before the family farm. What he finds is a system based on community and collective work, with a yearly migration to the hillside “shieling” to graze the cattle and rejuvenate the spirit. Above all, what he finds is a fundamentally different way of relating to the land – an understanding that people belong to the land, not the other way around.

Could a revival of these “indigenous” practices, and these relationships to the land, provide a route forward? And, if so, how might we “re-indigenise” in an open and inclusive way?

Landed is produced by Col Gordon and Katie Revell, with Executive Producer Abby Rose. Our Project Manager is Olivia Oldham. Huge thanks to Josina Calliste for her guidance and input and to Sarah Nicholas for all her help and support. Thanks also to Jo Barratt. The music for Landed is by Dagger Gordon and Col Gordon.