Stairway to Heaven: Food, Farming and the Regeneration of our landscapes with Patrick Holden of the Sustainable Food Trust

How can we improve our health, reduce the costs to the NHS by 50%, restore soil biodiversity, reduce flooding, reverse ecosystem decline and draw carbon down from the atmosphere into the earth's crust?  Regenerative Farming does all of these and more - and Patrick Holden of the Sustainable Food Trust is at the heart of a movement to spread the word around the world.  

After studying biodynamic agriculture at Emerson College, he established a mixed community farm in Wales in 1973, producing at various times: wheat for flour production sold locally, carrots and milk from an 85 cow Ayrshire dairy herd, now made into a single farm cheddar style cheese.

He was the founding chairman of British Organic Farmers in 1982, before joining the Soil Association, where he worked for nearly 20 years and during which time the organisation led the development of organic standards and the market for organic foods.

His advocacy for a major global transition to more sustainable food systems now entails international travel and regular broadcasts and talks at public events.

He is Patron of the UK Biodynamic Association and was awarded the CBE for services to organic farming in 2005.

Patrick is passionate about the application of Nature’s principles of Harmony to food and farming, which is explored in the SFT’s latest initiative, The Harmony Project.

In this episode, Patrick talks about the work of the Sustainable Food Trust in building a commons-based trust network which can co-create a global farm metric to assess farms around the world for their environmental impact in all ways.  With this, farms can really begin to assess their own impact, and political institutions across the world can begin to rewards farms and farmers for restoring our land to the extraordinary fertility and abundance that we used to take for granted.  

Links 
Sustainable Food Trust https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/
Patrick's Farm: https://holdenfarmdairy.co.uk/
Patrick's Farm on social media: 
https://www.instagram.com/hafodcheese/
https://www.facebook.com/Holden-Farm-Dairy-100227754976198/
https://twitter.com/hafodcheese