Category: arts/culture

FARMERAMA – THE OFFICIAL MEDIA PARTNER FOR Oxford Real Farming Conference 2020!

This week the Farmerama team will be at the 11th Oxford Real Farming Conference (8-9 January), where we are excited to be the official media partner. This is a highlight in the calendar every year, and a chance to share so many stories of hope for the future of our food and farming, and to meet and reconnect with the people behind a new regenerative paradigm – those instigating change for a better future for all. 

As extreme weather events capture global attention again this month, conflicting views and opinions are cast on the future of agriculture and its role in the climate crisis, and as we undergo an independent review of our entire food system, it could not be a more poignant time for ORFC. 

20/20 is the year for clarity of vision. Now is the time and the place for radical discussion about the future of our food, our farming, our environment, and our health. To follow are a few of the topics we’re looking forward to covering. 

Regenerative agriculture as a part of the solution to the climate crisis. A key challenge we face today is getting people to believe that we are part of a natural world. We must acknowledge that we are part of the ecosystem and embrace regenerative farming to ensure that we nurture the habitat we live in.  

Regenerative agriculture has the promise of rebuilding thriving ecosystems, providing clean water, producing nutrient dense food, preventing flooding/superfires, not to mention the added benefit of sinking carbon below ground. It could also mean more and more people become inspired by farming and want to be involved. 

We are also excited to learn about people working to build new definitions of success, new approaches to land ownership and business models that are regenerative by their very makeup. The economic and business structures that have served many people for the last few centuries are based on the extractive mindset which doesn’t fit with our new regenerative paradigm. 

What are the business structures and social change we need to build regenerative agriculture that truly serves people and planet, not just lining the pockets of shareholders? The talks looking at land ownership and alternative ownership models/succession plans really speak to this, as do discussions of land ownership across racial divides.

We’re looking forward to seeing the many friends from our latest series, CEREAL, where we spoke to the British farmers who’d become disillusioned with modern wheat varieties and commodity crops, and discovered the benefits of growing heritage varieties using regenerative agriculture methods. Many are speaking on panels about the new grains movement and alternative models and supply networks they’ve created. 

Championing biodiversity was a big part of our last series, and we’ll explore this in more detail at ORFC looking a biodiversity in practice – from Agroforestry to Silvopasture as well as diversity of people on the land.

Of course, we’re interested to hear more about animal farming as a key part of regenerative agriculture too. So expect a lot to come! 

With tickets selling out in record time this year, it’s great to see this community  of farmers, activists, scientists, lawyers and producers gain serious momentum. To us, these people are the real game changers! 

The OFRC team has done a brilliant job pulling together a hugely comprehensive and very relevant programme. Most importantly there are so many stories of hope and ORFC always acts as a reminder that there are people out there doing remarkable things to build a better planet for us all, and that we are all in it together. 

If you aren’t attending, follow our social channels and @ORFC on Twitter. We will be capturing voices from the community to share on future episodes. If you see something in the programme of interest, drop us a message and we’ll try to cover it.  

‘Cereal’ #1: Flour, Water, Salt

Bread.

Once the cornerstone of our diet, bread is now, at best a guilty indulgence or, at worst, something to be completely avoided.

How did something so basic, so fundamental, get so complicated? Why are more and more people made sick by this age-old staple?

Introducing our critical new series, CEREAL. Farmerama’s Katie Revell travelled the country to find out how the needs of industrial production have come to dictate the way that seeds are bred, grain is grown, flour is milled, and bread is baked and eaten.

Episode 1 “Flour, Water, Salt”, released today, begins to unveil the truths behind how our bread is made today and its impact on human health and the planet.

We are introduced to the Real Bread Campaign and the bakers and researchers giving rise to a new grains movement that’s good for our soil and our guts.

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

If you eat food, you have a stake in this story.

In this episode, we hear from Chris MacCormack – ‘Govanhill breadman’, Kimberley Bell – the founder of Small Food Bakery and UK Grain Lab, Chelsea Marshall  – Trustee of Scotland the Bread, Andrew Whitley – co-founder of Scotland the Bread and The Real Bread Campaign, and Theo Laffargue – baker at Riverside Bakery, Stirling.

Please listen, rate, review & subscribe, and support the movement. Thanks to the Roddick Foundation for their generous support to make this series possible. Episodes are released each Sunday on Soundcloud and all podcasting platforms. And if you’d like to support Farmerama, visit patreon.com/farmerama

Cereal is produced and edited by  Katie Revell, with support from Abby Rose and Jo Barratt. Suzie MacCarthy and Hanna Söderlund also worked on the series. Our theme music is by Owen Barratt.

Thanks to Christopher, Ross, Jess, Sabine and Euan for lending your voices. As well as the voices you hear in this episode, many more conversations have helped to shape this series, thank you to everyone involved!

#44: Radical roots, Slow Money, CSAs and Allies

This month, we begin by hearing from Kim Hamblin and Dan Rinke of Roshambo Art farm in Oregon, who share their story of building resilience in their orchard through diversity. In the Pacific Northwest, climate change is increasing the occurrence of droughts, so Dan and Kim have also recently planted a seedling orchard, which increases heat resistance through better taproot connections to groundwater, and allows the trees to genetically adapt to their surroundings.

Next, we speak to Woody Tasch, a forward-thinking and environmentally conscious financier who founded the Slow Money movement. Slow Money defies the prevailing economic ethic of fast-paced globalised trade, instead focusing on soil and community health, through boosting local trade between growers and their surrounding community.

Next, we’re back to Jubilee farm, where Jonny Hanson reports from their recent #CSAacrossborders event with the UK and Ireland CSA networks. We loved hearing about the power of community supported agriculture to forge new bonds across international borders, with its focus on cooperation rather than division.

Last but not least, we hear from the super inspiring Brenda Ruiz, a chef and food educator who represented Slow Food USA at Terra Madre last year. She shares her dedication to allyships in the working environment, reminding us of the importance of collaborating with those around you, to connect restaurants, farms and food with integrity.

Thanks to Rebel Kitchen for supporting this episode! Rebel Kitchen are a member of 1% for the Planet. This means they donate 1% of their sales (not just profits!) to partners contributing to the planet – it’s through this commitment that they are helping to support us to continue to share knowledge in the farming community and spread the word to many more farmers and growers.

Farmerama is made by Katie Revell, Abby Rose and Jo Barratt. This week, editing by Suzy MacCarthy and Louis Hudson. Thanks to Jonny for sending in the story about CSAs. The Farmerama theme music is by Owen Barratt. Thanks as ever to our community team: Annie Landless, Eliza Jenkins and Olivia Oldham.

#42: No-cost agriculture in Zambia, Biofertilisers and a Regenerative farming journey

This month we head to the tenth annual Oxford Real Farming Conference. First up we hear the inspirational story of 5000+ women who are now practising natural agriculture, or no-cost agriculture, on farms and smallholdings across Southern Zambia. Back in the UK we get the lowdown on biofertilisers providing food for microbes, and finally we hear the ups and downs of a regenerative farming journey from one young farmer in Somerset.

Photo: one of the famers who are part of the Natural Agriculture Development Program in Zambia. Thanks so Shumei Intl for the photo.

January for us, and many others across the UK farming community, means ORFC – The Oxford Real Farming Conference – now in its tenth year and this year double the size.

There were more speakers than ever and the Landworker’s Alliance ceilidh was a definite highlight.

First up, this month, is one of our favourite sessions at the conference with Barbara Hachipuka Banda, founder of the Natural Agriculture Development Program in Zambia. Barbara is working with Shumei International and thousands of women in Zambia to teach and promote natural agriculture – or “no-cost” agriculture, as she calls it.

We have been intrigued by biofertilisers for a while now as we have heard from a number of different farmers and growers who are excited about them, yet the scientific community often seem unconvinced by them. At ORFC we got the lowdown from Matt Dunwell and Juanfran Lopez who regularly run courses on biofertilisers (and much more) at Ragman’s Farm, a 60 acre farm in the Forest of Dean. They explain that unlike compost teas, biofertilisers are all about providing food and nutrition for the microbes, not actually brewing microbes themselves.

Finally we hear from Fred Price who was part of a panel on becoming a soil health expert on your own farm, hosted by Abby and the team behind the Sectormentor for Soils app. Fred has been farming at Gothelney Farm in Somerset for the last 10 years. From the start, he’s been on a quest to be the best farmer he can be. Initially, that meant maximising his yields and being as productive as possible. Within a few years, he’d achieved those goals – but then he started to realise it didn’t all add up. The questions he began to ask have led him on a regenerative journey – a process of un-learning the chemical farming mindset and instead using the soil as his guide to build the health of his farm

Be sure and keep an ear out later in the month for our Short which features brilliant perennial polyculture farmer Kathy Dice with some tips from her pick-your-own farm in Iowa, Red Fern Farm. We met Kathy at the Perennial Gathering put on by the Savanna Institute in Wisconsin late last year. The Savanna Institute are laying the groundwork for widespread agroforestry in the Midwest. Over 100 farmers and researchers gathered to share learnings from different agroforestry and silvopasture operations. Kathy has some great tips…

Photo: Pastured pigs on Gothelney Farm, Somerset

Thanks as ever to our supporters for this episode Rebel Kitchen! Their health message doesn’t separate the individual from the whole, and demonstrated through actions, not just words. As they point out, it’s all connected. We couldn’t agree more!

Farmerama is made by Abby Rose, Jo Barratt and me, Katie Revell. This month, we also had help from Louis Hudson and Suzie McCarthy. Thank you to the Oxford Real Farming Conference for kindly allowing us to use their recording of Barbara Hachipuka Banda speaking at the event.

Community support is by Annie Landless, Eliza Jenkins and Olivia Oldham, and our theme music is by Owen Barratt.

Leah Penniman: Farming While Black

In this special episode, brought to you by Chelsea Green Publishing, we hear from a super inspiring small-scale farmer, Leah Penniman. Leah is a farmer, activist, author and co-founder of Soul Fire Farm in New York: a family farm committed to restoring food-sovereignty and ending injustice in our food system. (Photo: Onion harvest on Soul Fire Farm credit:Leah Penniman).

In the last century, over 14 million acres of land in the US have been taken from the control of black farmers. Leah’s recent book, ‘Farming While Black’, published by Chelsea Green, is a stirring manifesto that aims to reconnect people of colour to the land, in sharing Afro-indigenous traditions and sustainable farming practices that have been aggressively undermined through slavery and colonialism. At Soul Fire Farm, innovative programmes such as the ‘Black-Latinx Farmers Immersion’ and a sliding-scale farmshare ‘CSA’, work to reverse systematic food injustice.

This is a story of one black woman embracing the land and activating a whole community to do the same. The book is at once fiercely political, deeply practical, and unashamedly spiritual, because as Leah shows us…. farming is ALL of those things.

The podcast is brought to you by Chelsea Green Publishing, the leading publisher of books on sustainable food and farming, including Farming While Black by Leah Penniman. To get this book and discover more great titles visit chelseagreen.com

This show is made by Katie Revell, Jo Barratt and Abby Rose. Thanks to Leah Penniman for sharing her recordings of field songs and Yabisi Asili for sharing his experiences. Community support is provided by Annie Landless and Eliza Jenkins.

#38: Alice Waters, Terra Madre, Palestinian teenager, intercropping trials and cooperative farming

This month we begin in Turin, at the international gathering of the Slow Food Movement, Terra Madre. Members of the farming and food community from over 90 different cultures around the world assemble with a shared philosophy of respect for the earth that we farm on. Among the diversity of voices in this community is Alice Walters, founder of the Chez Panisse restaurant in California and general champion of ecological agriculture. Alice shares with us just how important it is to work with small-scale farms and also gives us a sneak peak of her latest project connecting schools and small-scale farms!

We also hear from a super inspiring young farmer called Muna from the West Bank in Palestine. Muna is passionate about saving the fragmented land that her family have farmed for generations. She also tells us about an epic project she began, aged just 15, tending to abandoned olive groves after recruiting young volunteers from her community.

Next, we head back to the UK, to hear about an exciting farmer-led research project from Innovative Farmers. They are trialling the efficacy of different arable intercropping systems. Katie Bliss, from the Organic Research Centre and Agricology, reveals some fascinating results in favour of on-farm diversification for the suppression of weeds and reduction of chemical inputs.

Finally, we revisit Jubilee Farm, to hear from Jonny Hansen, who has exciting news about a farm-share to be launched on October 20th; the first of its kind in Northern Ireland. Jonny speaks to Tiziana O’Hara of Co-operative Alternatives, who shares the benefits of the community ethic, where a network of co-operation and support achieves success.

We also hear a special message from two old friends of Farmerama with some lovely news!

We would like to thank Rebel Kitchen for supporting this episode. Rebel Kitchen are a member of 1% for the Planet. This means they donate 1% of their sales (not just profits!) to partners contributing to the planet – it’s through this commitment they are supporting us to continue to share knowledge in the farming community and spread the word to many more farmers and growers.

Farmerama is produced by Jo Barratt, Abby Rose, and Katie Revell. Social media is led by Annie Landless with Eliza Jenkins and Olivia Oldham, and the music is by Owen Barratt. Additional reporting this week came from Jonny Hansen at Jubilee Farm. 

#31: Growing herbs, Christian perspectives on farming and Aquaponics on diversified farms

(Alice Bettany of @sacred_seeds harvesting herbs for her CSA herbal medicine box scheme)

Welcome to Farmerama! This month, we hear from herb growers and suppliers about the opportunities for growing herbs in the UK. We have the first of a series of reports from Jubilee Farm in Northern Ireland, offering a Christian perspective on agriculture and the environment. We take a visit to Humble by Nature, a tenant farm in the Welsh Wye Valley run by TV presenter Kate Humble we hear from an artisan pasta producer in Italy.

One of the most exciting panels at this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference was all about growing and selling herbs in the UK. We learned that there’s real demand for good quality UK-grown herbs, and that more growers are finding ways to grow commercially here on a relatively small scale. We caught up with a few of the panelists: herb producer and medical herbalist, Helen Kearney; Managing Director of The Organic Herb Trading Company Jim Twine; and Alice Bettany who runs a CSA herbal box scheme (you can hear her on a ‘Shorts’ over on our soundcloud page).

Jonny Hanson is an environmentalist who’s involved in setting up Northern Ireland’s first Community-Supported Agriculture scheme, at Jubilee Farm, he tells us a bit about what they are building and what Christianity has to do with it all.

We meet Andrea Cavaliari, whose family have been producing pasta in Italy for generations by what he calls the delicate method. Finally we hear from Beca Beeby who setup and runs the Aquaponics project at Humble by Nature, a diversified farm in the Wye Valley, Wales. She is very clear that aquaponics is a brilliant addition to a mixed farm, but definitely not a substitute when it comes to growing food.

#30: Gove, agri-CULTURE, Human Ecology, Sanfoin and Pollarding

Hello and welcome to Farmerama, episode 30! This month we bring you stories from the 9th Annual Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC). The Conference this year was a bit different as politics took centre stage, we have a few words from Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in conversation with Zac Goldsmith. His positive words we hope will bring positive actions.

A brilliant part of the conference was the launch of The Soil Never Sleeps, a book of poetry from the Pasture Fed Livestock Association (PFLA), written by their poet-in-residence Adam Horowitz – you can get a copy here. We hear two PFLA farmers, Fidelity Weston and Chris Jones, share their experiences of working with a poet and read poems written about their farms.

Human Ecology and holistic food systems in cities are explained by Abi Morden of Propagate, who run Glasgow based food projects. Richard Smith, farm manager at Daylesford talks about his favourite crop, Sanfoin and just how beneficial it can be.

Finally we hear from Ted Green who is focused on pollarding for fodder – if that doesn’t mean anything to you (it didn’t to some of us) then listen in and all will be revealed!

This episode was produced by Abby Rose, Jo Barratt, and Katie Revell. Thank you to Joy Rose, Annie Landless and James Fryer for helping us capture stories at the conference. Thank you also to the wonderful fiddler Becky Dellow who played the music at the start of the show, performed between poems from the Soil Never Sleeps launch. And thank you also Katherine, Nessie and the ORFC team for making ORFC 18 such a success and pleasure to cover!

#29: Biodynamic vines, Catalonian chickens & medicinal plants

We have passed the darkest day here in the UK, every new day eeks out a few moments more light. To tide us over this month we have some slightly longer stories for you from 3 young farmers scattered across the globe.

First up, is young Welsh biodynamic farmer Dave Morris. He grows and makes natural wine at Ancre Hill Estates in Monmouthshire, Wales. Biodynamic farming is often seen as pretty esoteric but Dave makes it all seem fairly straightforward and sensible.

To get a biodynamic certification you must prepare and use both the 500 and 501 sprays. Preparation 500 is an animal horn manure and Preparation 501 is animal horn silica. Dave explains how he uses each in the vineyard.

We hear from Jaume Pretel, a chicken farmer in Catalonia who is moving towards making a living off the land and why he is doing this. Finally, Ari de Leña is the owner-operator of community-supported Kamayan Farm, near Seattle. As well as being a farmer, Ari is also an educator with a focus on the land and plants as medicine.

For the year ahead we’re excited to hear more stories from the fields, what’s important to you? We make Farmerama to share knowledge amongst the independent farming community so if you’ve got another story for us, do let us know.

A very happy new year to you all!

This episode was produced by Katie Revell, Jo Barratt and Abby Rose. Thanks to Joel Rodker for sending in the story about Catalonian chickens and to Annie Landless for all her support on social media.

If you have something you’d like to share, please get in touch. We’re farmeramaradio@gmail.com and you can find us easily on twitter, instagram and facebook.

#28: Films for the farming movement, rural-urban connections in Greece and fungi to manage weeds

Welcome to another episode of Farmerama with more voices from the smaller-scale farming communities in the UK and beyond.

This month we hear from two projects which are using film to share stories from the front-line of farming. First up is filmmaker Sabine Hellmann who shares about her Participatory Video work with small-scale farmers in Malawi, a practice she developed working with Insight Share. Also featured is the recently released ‘In Our Hands’ film from the Land Workers’ Alliance and Blackbark Films. They say, “At the heart of all change lies a story, and ‘In Our Hands’ is the story of a new kind of farm, a new kind of food and a new kind of society”.

We hear a brief excerpt from one of the farmers featured in the film, dairy farmer Josh Healey (pictured above) at North Aston Dairy. He has just 18 cows and runs a successful milk business employing 2.5 people. The film is free to screen and they encourage everyone to setup screenings in towns and cities around the UK to spread the word.
Thanks to the GROW Observatory team in Dundee, we meet sociologist Maria Partalidou, who’s been studying the relationship between urban and rural communities in Greece.

And we indulge in more fungi-love with soil expert Joel Williams as we learn how it’s possible to manage weeds simply by working with the microbial balance in the soil.

This month’s episode was produced by Jo Barratt, Katie Revell and Abby Rose. Special thanks to Pavlos Georgiadis and the Grow Observatory team for the interview from Greece, and thanks to Hannah Steenbergen for her interview with Humphrey.

If you have something you’d like to share, please get in touch. We’re farmeramaradio@gmail.com and you can find us easily on twitter, instagram and facebook.