Farmerama

“What if we’ve been getting this wrong?”

Col Gordon is a farmer’s son from the Scottish Highlands. After a decade away, he’s finally returned to the place that he loves: his family farm. Now, he’s eager to start realising his vision for an agroecological future: a future in which rural areas are alive with culture, many more people work on the land, farms operate in sympathy with nature, and nutritious food is available to everyone in society.

But now that he’s back, Col’s starting to wonder whether this vision can be achieved within the existing family farm model. Increasingly, it seems the odds are stacked against farms like his. Many are struggling to survive, let alone to employ people and deliver good food affordably to local communities. As older farmers retire without succession plans, and their land is amalgamated into large industrial operations, the future of the small family farm looks pretty bleak.

As he wrangles with all of this, Col stumbles across something that throws his vision – and his very understanding of farming – into doubt. What does it mean to say that “The family farm is a colonial concept”? And might this jarring idea be the key to understanding the problem – as well as its potential solutions?

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 month we are introduced to the importance of ecosystem architecture by a forest ecologist and winegrower. We hear from two researchers investigating a shift in how we understand our relationship with the natural world - from one where humans are in control, to one where we work with other life-forms and biological processes to build human and ecosystem health. And we finish hearing one grower’s experience of implementing regenerative techniques on her flower farm.

This month we start with a fond farewell to internationally renowned water specialist Professor Tony Allen, most noted for his pioneering work on the concept of virtual water. We’ll hear a conversation with him from 2017 about the OurField Project. We then hear from the Kindling Trust. They work on a range of projects that model a fairer, more responsible, ecologically restorative food system, and are opening up an opportunity to invest in their new farming endeavours in Manchester. Next, farmer John Turner introduces us to a new vision of dairy farming- a vegetarian dairy farm producing cow’s milk alongside innovative naked oat mylk. Tiger and Float are making this oat mylk, using the naked oats that John is growing. Finally we meet Mohammed Ruzzi, a fair trade farmer in Palestine, who talks to us about the role of regenerative farming and the Zaytoun cooperative in supporting a better life for Palestinian farmers.

This month, we learn from an entomologist in Wiltshire about the importance of dung beetles in our farming systems. We hear how a medical herbalist in London is bringing people together to care for and heal each other and a soil microbiologist shares how restoring hydrological cycles is vital in mitigating the climate crisis and how the soil carbon sponge is core to that.

63: Indian farmers’ protests, the Forever Flock and Biopriming by Farmerama

This month we invite you to join us as we take a dip into some of the key sessions at the recent Global Oxford Real Farming Conference, where Farmerama were official media partners again this year. We hear from two women lawyers in Aotearoa New Zealand who tell us about how a river and a forest have been given legal personhood. Then, we hear how an economic think-tank and a London CSA have worked together to understand the community benefits of localised routes to market and local organic food. Next, we head to Cape Town to hear about food justice from two women working at a farming cooperative. Finally, we hear from an indigenous seedkeeper and leader in Turtle Island (the United States) about cultivating ancestral brilliance and regenerative economies.

It’s good to be back this month with a collection of conversations with farmers who are building a more ecological future. We begin at Whistlebare Farm learning how raising sheep and goats ecologically results in wool that’s extra special – all because of good work going on in the soil. We head to France, to Andy Cato’s farm, to hear about his regenerative learning journey, and discover how he’s putting that learning into practice here in the UK. And finally, we’re in Germany, where the Kulturland Cooperative has created an innovative funding model bringing farmland back into common ownership, and securing it for generations to come.

In this final episode, we revisit some of the people we’ve heard from throughout the series. We tease out some common threads that bind these apparently disparate voices together – threads such as reverence, gratitude, sovereignty, dignity and abundance. We hear more about what these people have learnt over the course of this year, their visions for resilient, localised food economies... and how they see the future of who feeds us.

It is clearer than ever: Food is not just a question of calories. Food is nourishment for the body and soul. Food is about community, culture and our relationship with each other and with the Earth. We are all part of the food system.

The journey ahead – towards a truly resilient, humane and nourishing food system, a food system rooted in abundance – that journey is complicated, and it will most likely be bumpy. But this series is an invitation to embrace that complexity, to dive into it, to seek out and connect with those who feed us. After all – food doesn’t come from shelves. Food comes from the soil, the sea – and the hands of people. This is who feeds us.

Featuring:

Skye Gyngell: https://springrestaurant-shop.co.uk/

Jane Scotter: http://fernverrow.com/

Salma & Khalil Attan: https://www.bushwoodbees.co.uk/ // https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVrsm10F2zp_KO26MBCGRUw

Ursula Myrie: https://www.adira.org.uk/

Angus Buchanan-Smith: https://www.the-free-company.com/

Dee Woods: https://granvillecommunitykitchen.wordpress.com/

Dr Lisa Palmer: https://www.bcu.ac.uk/social-sciences/sociology/staff/lisa-palmer

Muhsen Hassanin: https://abrahamshalalmeat.com/

Abigail Holsborough: https://www.brixtonwindmill.org/

Rosy Benson: www.fieldbakery.com/

Lynda McFarlane: https://veganvybes.co.uk/

Farmerama.co

Producers: Jo Barratt, Katie Revell, Abby Rose, Suzie McCarthy

Additional interview: Lovejit Dhaliwal

Series Executive Producers: Jo Barratt, Katie Revell, Abby Rose

Community Collaborators: Cathy St Germans, Zain Dada, Andre Reid

Project Manager: Olivia Oldham

Artwork: Hannah Grace www.hgraceoc.com/

Music: Michael O'Neil

PR & Comms: Fran Bailey, Kate Lam, Elma Glasgow, Nancy Brownlow

Who Feeds Us? is possible thanks to the Farming the Future COVID Response Fund. We’re very grateful to The A Team Foundation, the Roddick Foundation, Thirty Percy and the Samworth Foundation for providing the funds to make this project happen.

In this episode, we visit one region – the West Midlands – to explore how the pandemic has highlighted connections between the local and the global, the present and the past...and between food, health, community and identity.

What can we learn from this time about the experiences, the resources and the needs of individuals and communities in the UK – and, in particular, communities of African descent?

How can having access to land, to green space and growing space, “feed” us in multiple ways – physical, emotional and spiritual?

Does being together in growing spaces allow the experience of abundance and the ability to share in that?

Featuring:

Lynda McFarlane: https://veganvybes.co.uk/

Dr Lisa Palmer: https://www.bcu.ac.uk/social-sciences/sociology/staff/lisa-palmer

Andre Reid: https://kiondo.co.uk/

Farmerama.co

Producer: DeMarkay Williams

Executive Producers: Jo Barratt, Katie Revell, Abby Rose

Community Collaborator: Andre Reid

Project Manager: Olivia Oldham

Artwork: Hannah Grace www.hgraceoc.com/

Music: Michael O'Neil

PR & Comms: Fran Bailey, Kate Lam, Elma Glasgow, Nancy Brownlow

Who Feeds Us? is possible thanks to the Farming the Future COVID Response Fund. We’re very grateful to The A Team Foundation, the Roddick Foundation, Thirty Percy and the Samworth Foundation for providing the funds to make this project happen.

At the start of lockdown, as supermarket shelves were cleared of flour, people who might not otherwise have thought to seek out a local bakery – let alone a local mill – started to do just that. In this episode, we’ll hear about how this sudden upsurge in demand presented a huge challenge for these small-scale bakers and millers – but it was a challenge they met with enthusiasm and ingenuity, as well as a deep sense of responsibility to their communities.

At one time, pretty much every town and village had its own flour mill, driven by wind or water. Today, across the whole of London, just one working windmill remains – Brixton Windmill. It’s a unique heritage site with a rich educational programme. But as lockdown began, the mill became much more than a historic curiosity – and its volunteers found themselves providing a vital service to the local community. Meanwhile, bakers across the country, from the city of Bristol to the highlands of Scotland, were baking nourishing loaves for the people who needed them most.

These bakers and millers, many of whom have spent the last few years investigating the connections between the bread, the mills, the farms that produce the grain, and, crucially, the soil in which that grain grows, are engaged in building a better system – one that looks very different to the one that produces most of the bread we eat in the UK today. When inflexible, centralised supermarket supply chains buckled, join us to learn how they were able to carry on producing flour, baking bread and feeding people – thanks to the localised, adaptable, human-scale infrastructure they’re part of.

How can we grow that infrastructure? How can we all become part of a more resilient, equitable, efficient and enjoyable bread system? How can we help local millers stock local takeaways with bread baked with their flour? How can we help people to understand that, if they care about good bread, they also have to care about healthy soil? And how can we make sure that we celebrate everyone involved in making our bread – and that we listen to what they have to say?

Featuring:

Abigail Holsborough: https://www.brixtonwindmill.org/

Rosy Benson: https://www.fieldbakery.com/

Rosie Gray: http://www.revivingfood.co.uk/

Farmerama.co

Producer: Dave Pickering

Executive Producers: Jo Barratt, Katie Revell, Abby Rose

Community Collaborators: Cathy St Germans, Col Gordon

Project Manager: Olivia Oldham

Artwork: Hannah Grace www.hgraceoc.com/

Music: Michael O'Neil

PR & Comms: Fran Bailey, Kate Lam, Elma Glasgow, Nancy Brownlow

Who Feeds Us? is possible thanks to the Farming the Future COVID Response Fund. We’re very grateful to The A Team Foundation, the Roddick Foundation, Thirty Percy and the Samworth Foundation for providing the funds to make this project happen.