About Us

I founded the Sustainable Food Trust in 2011 with the mission of accelerating the transition towards more sustainable food systems. My advocacy for a major global transition now entails international travel, regular broadcasts and talks at public events on the importance of transforming our food and farming systems in the face of climate change, biodiversity loss and poor public health. I have been advising the Prince of Wales on sustainability issues since 1982 and am currently Patron of the UK Biodynamic Association.

After studying biodynamic agriculture at Emerson College, I established a mixed community farm in Wales in 1973, producing at various times: wheat for flour production sold locally, carrots and milk from a 90 cow Ayrshire dairy herd, now made into Hafod, an organic raw milk cheese. Prior to founding the SFT, I was the founding chairman of British Organic Farmers in 1982, before joining the Soil Association as director between 1995 and 2010, during which time the organisation led the development of organic standards and the market for organic foods.

I have been working with the SFT since 2013, now overseeing the organisation’s strategic activities. In recent years, one of my major focuses has been the development of a project called the Global Farm Metric – an internationally common framework for measuring on-farm sustainability. I am also currently an advisor to the Scottish Government.

In 2020, I undertook a part time secondment with the Welsh Government, and in 2019 I completed a part-time secondment with DEFRA, both times working to develop metrics for monitoring the new post-Brexit farm support schemes. Previous to these roles, I have a background in geography and soil science.

As Policy Director of the Sustainable Food Trust, I am the lead author on a number of reports and briefing papers and play a key role in overseeing projects, campaigns and events.

I was previously an editor of the journal New Farmer & Grower (now called Organic Farming) and was chairman of the Soil Association’s Symbol Committee, which first drew up detailed organic food and farming standards in the 1980s. I led the Soil Association’s campaign against the misuse of antibiotics in agriculture for 17 years, and have written widely on issues relating to agriculture, including the underlying causes of bovine tuberculosis and Johne’s Disease, the importance of grass and grazing animals, the true cost of food systems and the importance of small abattoirs for local farming communities.

As an organic, 100% grass-fed cattle and sheep farmer, I manage 390 acres on the Cotswolds, along with my sister Rosamund (author of The Secret Life of Cows), with a high emphasis on animal contentment and nature conservation.

I have joined the Sustainable Food Trust to work with the team to take the Global Farm Metric to the next stage of consensus and adoption, and to Chair the GFM coalition working group.

I first met Patrick Holden in 2015 when CEO of the Rothschild Foundation, director to the family office and board member of the Waddesdon Estate. I was looking for answers to how a responsible land owner could ensure that their land was passed to the next generation in a better state – environmentally, economically and for greater public good. This led to Sustainable Food Trust’s work into the establishment of a common language and framework for measuring the sustainability of our land management systems.

I remain a board member and trustee for a number of family offices, Non-Executive Director of Whitley Asset Management, Trustee of the Illuminated River Foundation and Director of Waddesdon Wines Limited.

I am the Director of Harmony in Education for The Harmony Project, and facilitate the SFT’s work in campaigning to transform education around food, farming and sustainability.

With over 30 years teaching experience, including as Headteacher of an Ofsted graded Outstanding School for 18 years, my work in redesigning a curriculum around Nature’s principles of Harmony has already begun inspiring the next generation of teachers and children.

I believe passionately that the best way for children to be motivated in their learning is when it makes sense to them and when they have a key role to play. Through combining core skills to purposeful enquiries of learning, the children start to develop their own vision of how they want to see their world and just as importantly what they can do to make it happen.

Before joining the SFT, I studied for a degree in International Politics and then gained a Masters degree in Food and Water Security at Aberystwyth University. Following some work as a lambing assistant in Devon, I joined the SFT as an intern, moving to a full time role as a policy assistant before becoming communications manager. I now work on our policy, campaigns and comms, linking these important areas together.

I currently live on my family’s Somerset farm where they rear sheep and spin and sell the wool.

As Head of Projects, I oversee a wide range of SFT activities, including the Feeding Britain campaign, Beacon Farms project, and work around food education and local food.

I joined the SFT in 2017 to support the development and delivery of SFT projects and events. A large part of this work included managing the establishment and evolution of The Harmony Project – an SFT led initiative, working with educators to help them put Nature’s principles of Harmony at the heart of teaching and learning. I have a background in food anthropology and environmental science with a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences from the University of Amsterdam, and a Food Anthropology MA from SOAS University of London.

I grew up in rural Somerset on a diet of cheese and pickle sandwiches and have loved food and farming ever since! I’m excited to be part of a growing movement of people who care about where their food comes from, and hope the work of the SFT will help to inspire farmers, producers and citizens to move towards more sustainable food production and consumption.

I take the lead on the operational management of the Sustainable Food Trust, as well as playing a key role in our strategic development and overseeing fundraising and financial activities.

Before joining the SFT, I spent eight years as Project Manager for Ecoworks, a community urban food and environmental organisation in Nottingham. There, I managed a number of projects including the box scheme and café alongside community horticulture and healthy eating projects.

I joined the Sustainable Food trust in 2021 to oversee research activities, including within the Global Farm Metric as well as a range of other projects and focus areas.

Since 2011, my research has included applying quantitative and qualitative methodologies to problems as diverse as guillemot breeding productivity, the pollination niches of buttercups and the research priorities for animal health modelling. My current focus is on implementing change towards more sustainable grassland-based livestock farming.

Prior to joining the SFT, I was a Lecturer in Sustainable Systems at Aberystwyth University. I have expertise in high nature value and climate friendly livestock farming. Before gaining my PhD in pollination ecology in 2011, I held positions as a countryside ranger at a number of nationally important UK nature reserves. Away from work, I am a keen walker, sea swimmer and writer.

Working with the team, I make sure our messages are going out loud and clear across our platforms, including our website content, newsletter, social media and podcast. I also line manage the Communications Officer.

I have had a varied career in the communications and marketing world, including working in travel and tourism, ethical hospitality, and heritage and conservation. I love the positive change a strong communications message can inspire. I learnt about many of the small adjustments farmers could make to their practice to improve outcomes for wildlife and biodiversity while working at a National Trust property with brilliant, passionate tenant farmers.

We all have to eat – so making food choices that have a positive impact on climate, nature and health is a really personally powerful way to deal with the daily doom we see in the media. I think the plight of the Very Hungry Caterpillar is something we can all learn from – food that leaves us unsatisfied, food that nourishes us, and even though they might eat all our cabbages, the importance of insects!

My role involves management of the SFT’s finances and systems, and ensuring that all other aspects of the SFT’s core operations run smoothly. I enjoy the overview of the team’s work that my role affords, and love the team of people that I am lucky enough to work with.

I have worked in a variety of spheres, spending the first part of my career working in the arts, before retraining as an environmental professional and spending a number of years providing behaviour-change and carbon consultancy services to the public sector in Scotland. In 2011, feeling a growing sense of frustration with the mainstream winds, I threw off the bowlines and began a year of volunteering on organic farms, visiting intentional communities and cooking for permaculture and deep ecology courses.

I hold a deep belief that if we re-connect to the earth and its cycles we will find personal healing, and the motivation to create the new paradigm we so dearly need. 

I am responsible for the care of both our current and past supporters, keeping them informed about our work and arranging events through which they can connect with us. I also manage funding opportunities, alongside SFT project managers, to ensure our work can continue to develop.

I have extensive commercial experience as well as an MSc in Human Nutrition. Through my own businesses, I have exported consumer goods to Latin America and acted as consultant to the food industry on nutrition trend forecasting. For some years I have supported the SFT through my photography hobby and my images feature on the SFT website.

I have a particular interest in psychology and the reasons we have disconnected from the world around us. I am excited to develop ways to reconnect people with the land and with healthy, sustainable food. In my spare time, I write poetry and children’s fiction with environmental themes. Stories include a girl who sets out to prove she can communicate with plants and a mole with an ambition to work on the woodland internet!

I work alongside Anna in the Communications Team doing our best to distill complex matters and make accessible the work of the SFT through podcasts, social media, blog posts and newsletters. 

Before working for the SFT I studied Biological Sciences at Oxford University, and Anthropology, Environment, and Development at University College London. I’ve worked at the Oxford Martin School Future of Food Programme, at Schumacher College, at the Gaia Foundation, and at the Biodynamic Association. 

Whilst my academic learning was equally challenging and fascinating, I always felt the urge to learn what a truly sustainable approach to food could be with my hands and heart as well as with my head. That is how I ended up working at Schumacher College, and on organic rooftop gardens in London and a beautiful Permaculture garden in Switzerland. I now find myself creatively growing in whichever corner of the urban landscape I can get my hands on. 

I work as a freelance writer and website editor for the Sustainable Food Trust. I’m able to use my understanding of sustainable food from the hands on perspective of growing food on a small organic horticulture farm in West Wales, Troed y Rhiw Organics, which I run with my partner Nathan Richards.

Born in the United States, I’m a long way from home but love my life in the wild west of Wales. I graduated with distinction from Stanford University and have an MA in the history of photography from the University of New Mexico. Before finding myself a small-scale farmer, I worked for many years in the contemporary visual arts, working closely with artists as a curator, gallery educator and art critic.

I work in the research team, looking at the hidden costs of food production, the links between diet and non-communicable diseases, and the role of grass-fed livestock in UK agriculture and food security, most recently working on the Feeding Britain report.

I come from a hill farming family in Highland Perthshire, and have always been interested in the relationships between land-use and the environment. I studied Geography and Scottish History at St Andrews University, before returning to work on the farm. After stints volunteering with the James Hutton Institute and a research project on natural flood management, I began a PhD in palaeoecology at St Andrews, but left this after realising that I wanted to carry out research in a more applied setting.

I support and coordinate the research and development of the Global Farm Metric framework, including facilitation and analysis of farm trials, desk-based research, communications and relationship management.

After working on farms in the UK and abroad, I completed a BSc in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Bristol. Before joining the Sustainable Food Trust, I supported resilience projects with environmental think tanks and co-managed a mobile catering business.

Learning about the intersection between the science of nature and the art of growing has always fascinated me – as well as the many ways to grow food that benefit nature, climate, health and social justice. It’s so exciting to see this more in global food movements and cross-generational activism.

I work alongside Lydia to oversee the development, delivery and analysis of the Global Farm Metric’s national trials.

Previously, I studied Marine Engineering for 5 years, until one day I understood that what made me happy was food and sharing moments with my loved ones, like my mom and grandmother – and so I became a chef to further explore food and my own culture. After working in different restaurants around the world, I began to question my relationship with food and the planet. I stepped out of the kitchen and far back to the roots of food itself, farming.

A new passion was unlocked and it became my personal responsibility to try to influence others’ relationships with food in the same way. For me the best way to spend my day would be fermenting and pickling everything I have in my kitchen – pickled nasturtium seeds are the new capers!

I work with Marina to support the delivery and roll out of the farm trials for the Global Farm Metric team and to design and deliver the future farm trials programme.

Previously I worked as the Project Manager for Agricology – a sustainable food and farming platform set up by Daylesford and run by the Organic Research Centre. I have an MSc in Carbon Management and a BSc in Geography from the University of Edinburgh. I also worked as a Marketing Manager for The BBC Good Food and BBC Gardeners World Live events, before spending a year at Ballymaloe Cookery School, which led me to a role as a private chef at Daylesford.

My love of food was inspired by a childhood of wholesome, home cooked food and no day beginning without a freshly baked loaf of Irish Soda bread. But my interest in pursuing a career in sustainable food and farming was affirmed at Ballymaloe Cookery School. Not only did I develop an understanding of sourcing quality produce but that most importantly, it all starts with the soil!

I support Patrick with his daily schedule and facilitate the wider SFT team with event organisation and general administration.

I have a degree in Geography and a solid Executive Assistant and team strategy background, having worked extensively in a broad range of industries throughout the UK and mainland Spain. Most recently I assisted the executive of a regulated utility on strategy development for the evolution of the UK water sector.

I maintain a lifelong connection and interest to nature and environmental causes. Since moving from London to the West Country, we have embraced our country life and have enough space to modestly grow our own organic fruit and veg, whilst supporting local producers and farmers #thinkglobalactlocal. I have a passion for friends, food and good fun – an old 90s raver who loves a summer festival!

I help SFT’s Deputy CEO, Adele, to keep on top of her busy schedule and support the rest of the team with event organisation, project logistics and comms work.

I studied Italian at university and have since taken on a variety of roles in the UK and Italy, including editing books, teaching English as a foreign language, organising tours of Florence and supporting an in-house legal team.

My great grandfather was a farmer and I’ve always felt drawn to rural life. In 2018, I set off to southern France to volunteer on organic farms and vineyards; learning about biodynamics and permaculture, helping to fill 20,000 wine bottles and repair drystone walls, and enjoying some excellent pesticide-free rose! The experience left me with a keen interest in sustainable living and the desire to learn more.

I work closely with the Finance & Operations Manager and Head of Operations in the development and delivery of a variety of projects within the operations team.

I have a background working in charities and IT; I was a photographer for several holistic & sustainable small brands for over 10 years. It is this creative interest that led me to a people and culture role for a global IT company, a few years before joining the SFT.

Family life and thinking about the footprint we leave behind have shaped my sustainable food choices, including keeping a flock of ducks in our back garden! I am currently completing a postgraduate degree with an environmental focus which has also inspired me to live more sustainably.

I support the research team in keeping up to date with the latest scientific evidence and report writing. I also assist with communications and policy work to ensure our messages are based on current research and policy events.

After completing my Biology degree at Bristol University, where I focussed on plant biology, molecular genetics, and the ecology of food production, I spent time volunteering with the Soil Association before joining the SFT as an intern. I am currently studying for a master’s in Food Policy at City, University of London alongside my work.

I am drawn to the link between people, food and nature. Promoting equitable access to land, employment opportunities and food itself, is one of the strongest ways to ensure that the food system can support the planet and everyone who lives on it.