Farm Gate

At the UK prime minister’s summit this week a package of measures to support British farming was unveiled. But the summit failed to address the enormous existing and future fragility in Britain’s food system – or its impact on the natural world, public health, global supply chains or indeed the wellbeing of those actually living and working in the countryside. What should have been on the table at the prime minister’s Downing Street Food Summit? Our panel: Martin Lines, Chair, Nature Friendly Farming Network Phil Stocker, Chief Executive, National Sheep Association Natalie Bennett, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, Green Party Sue Pritchard, Chief Executive, Food, Farming & Countryside Commission Rebecca Mayhew, Old Hall Farm, Pasture for Life Ben Reynolds, Deputy Director, Sustain Dan Parker, Chief Executive, Veg Power Chaired by ffinlo Costain, Chief Editor, 8.9ha

George Eustice has been the Conservative MP for Camborne and Redruth since 2010. He was a Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2015 to 2020 - and served as the Secretary of State at Defra from 2020 to 2022. Mr Eustice has been the longest serving minister at Defra in the post-referendum period, providing a relatively rare point of consistency and stability in what was a time of substantial disruption in British politics. In this podcast Mr Eustice discusses his time in government, with the Chief Editor of https://8point9.com, ffinlo Costain.

Outwintering your cattle herd in an agroecological farm system can reduce both costs and environmental impacts - but while ever more producers are taking this approach it's still far from common place. In this programme we discuss how to design an outwintering system that maintains productivity and ensures good cattle health and welfare. ffinlo Costain is joined by Silas Hedley-Lawrence and Clare Hill from FAI Farms in Oxfordshire.

While regenerative agriculture itself isn't new, popular interest and the increasingly widespread deployment of regenerative principles, is a product of a global conversation that has taken place largely within the last decade. Despite that, regenerative farming has already become mainstream, with large businesses and corporations investing in research and embedding ambitious regenerative targets, and even government ministers urging producers to take up regenerative methods. So what happens next - what does the next decade look like for regenerative agriculture? ffinlo Costain is joined by Caroline Grindrod, founder of Roots of Nature, Sue Pritchard, chief executive of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, and by Jonty Brunyee, the Head of Farming and Food at FarmED.

Wilder Doddington is at the start of a hundred year project to bring more nature back to the Doddington Estate - working to restore ecosystems to benefit people and nature.  In this programme ffinlo Costain is joined by Wilder Doddington's Isobel Wright and the independent farm advisor, Liz Genever, who's working with Isobel and advising on cattle management.  The conversation ranges from the exciting activity at Wilder Doddington to a discussion about some of the more controversial aspects of the rewilding movement.

Environmental breakdown and global population rise have led to a strong focus on food supply chains, but the way that we produce fibre is equally important.  At least 60% of our clothes are now made using synthetic, petrochemical-based fabrics - all of which need to be replaced.  Natural animal or plant-based fibres will become resurgent on the cat walks and on the high street - so the need to reform and integrate food and fashion supply chains is urgent. ffinlo Costain talks to Cate Havstad-Casad, farmer and founder of Range Revolution, an Oregon-based company which produces luxury leather products from certified regenerative ranches.

The world of glamping may seem remote from the every day toil of working with crops and livestock, but for six months of the year it can provide a hugely important source of income that can be used to underpin other aspects of farming life. ffinlo Costain is joined by Hannah Jefferson from Woodfrys Farm in Dorset and Jessica Allen-Back from Home Farm Glamping in Elstree.

This is the final programme in our Regen Dairy mini-series. Today we're visiting Germany, and ffinlo Costain talks to two regenerative dairy farmers - Anja Hradetzky, who farms at Hof Stolze Kuh in northeast Brandenburg, and Annabelle Gerard who farms at Hof Tangsehl in Lower Saxony. Regen Dairy is a partnership project of Farmwel and FAI Farms, in collaboration with Arla Foods, Barry Callebaut, Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever, and Woolworth South Africa - you can find out more about the project at regendairy.org 

One of the greatest challenges for global transformation is mindset shift - and because, in terms of food systems, this transformation needs to happen in so many places at once, it can be very difficult for individuals to feel that they're actually making a difference. The Inner Development Goals framework has been developed to support and foster the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Alongside this, the UN Development Programme has established the Conscious Food Systems Alliance. ffinlo Costain talks to Thomas Legrand, author of Politics of Being, and Lead Technical Advisor to the Conscious Food Systems Alliance - and Klaudia Shevelyuk, a sustainability consultant and communications manager for the UN's Inner Development Goals. Klaudia also talks about her harrowing experience of conflict in Ukraine, and explains how the IDGs helped her to cope.

ffinlo Costain speaks to Jayne Buxton, author of The Great Plant-Based Con.  Jayne has written novels and non-fiction, published articles in The Independent and The Guardian, and has been an ambassador for the Real Food Campaign and the Public Health Collaboration.   The Great Plant-Based Con, explains why eating a plants-only diet won't improve our health or save the planet - and it's available from all good book stores on-line or on-the-street.