How can we make the land we have in the UK work best for nature, for people and for producing food?
Our final episode recorded in our Podcast Tent at Groundswell this year, focused on a contentious yet hugely important topic: land use. Simply, do we have enough land in this country to do everything? To produce food, to support nature, to generate energy, to store carbon, to build housing, to maintain community spaces – the list goes on.
The SFT’s Stuart Oates is joined by our CEO and organic dairy farmer, Patrick Holden, journalist and presenter of Countryfile and BBC Radio 4’s Rare Earth, Tom Heap, and organic mixed farmer and Nuffield scholar, Dave Oates – they discuss whether or not crop rotations and rotational grazing offers the solution to doing it all, how ‘agrihood’ initiatives across the world are successfully integrating food growth and productive green spaces into residential areas, and ask how can regulation and government policies better support multifunctional land use?
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This conversation was recorded in the SFT Podcast Tent at Groundswell in July 2026, sponsored by The Rothschild Foundation. To listen to more podcasts recorded live at this year’s festival, click here.
Audio-only version available here:
Timestamps
0:00: Welcome + who’s on the podcast + initial thoughts
02:26: The challenges of land use and food production
05:21: Balancing nature and demand for food
08:27: The role of diets and consumer behaviour
11:48: Is animal agriculture a good use of land?
14:39: Innovative approaches to land use
17:45: Integrating agriculture with community development
21:39: Organic vs regenerative
24:07: Balancing productivity and environmental targets
28:43: Regulation and measurement in agriculture
29:43: Integrating solar and agrivoltaics
32:03: Community ownership
36:05: The future of biofuels and land use policy
39:33: What’s one change you’d make to land use in the UK?
“We can do so much more by not dividing our approach.”
