Fir Farm Conference 2022: A Roadmap to Sustainable Farming

Minette runs a tenanted family farm in Wiltshire. The mixed farming business includes a 100 cow continental cross suckler herd, and a small herd of pedigree Herefords as well as sheep and arable. Diversification includes the conversion of a 17th Century tithe barn into a wedding and corporate events venue, and horse liveries. Minette co-founded the campaigning initiatives ‘Ladies in Beef’ and the ‘Great British Beef Week’.

She has been an NFU member from grassroots through to County Chairman; she served as Wiltshire’s Council delegate and also as Regional Board Chairman for the South West. Minette has also been a member of NFU Governance Board and served as NFU deputy president for four years from 2014 to 2018, before being elected as president in February 2018 and re-elected in 2020. Minette is also a Trustee of Farm Africa.

The Rt Hon Lord Benyon was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 13 May 2021. Lord Benyon returns to Defra having been Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Natural Environment, Water and Rural Affairs from May 2010 to October 2013. Richard was educated at Bradfield College and the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. He was Conservative MP for Newbury from May 2005 to November 2019. Following a career in the army, where he served with the Royal Green Jackets from 1980 to 1985, Richard qualified as a chartered surveyor and ran a business which included farming, forestry and the management of rural and urban housing.

Helen is a recognised nature and biodiversity expert, delivering pioneering and impact led climate and nature focused solutions for our clients. Formerly the Head of Sustainable Sourcing Innovation at the French company Kering, Helen advised luxury brands on best practices in sustainability. Prior to this, Helen worked with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) for over a decade on conservation strategy. ​Early in her career, she worked as a senior consultant to companies on building out environmental health and safety programs to encompass broader sustainability issues.

In October 2019, Helen took a year-long sabbatical as a Fellow and Senior Advisor for Resilient Supply Chains at Conservation International, developing new approaches for business to address climate and biodiversity challenges. ​Helen has a PhD in Zoology from the Australian National University and is on the Boards of non-profit organizations including Textile Exchange, Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature US. She is also on the advisory boards of the GEF Planet Gold Program and Alante Capital. Helen contributes to the business and biodiversity work of the World Economic Forum as an advisor and member of the Global Futures Council.

Paula Daniels is Co-founder, Chief of What’s Next, and Founding Chair of the Center for Good Food Purchasing. She is a lawyer, and has held a number of senior positions in government in California and Los Angeles, including as Senior Advisor on Food Policy to Mayor Villaraigosa of Los Angeles.  She has also taught food policy at UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC and Vermont Law School. She is an Ashoka Fellow, and a Stanton Fellow of the Durfee Foundation.  

The Rt. Hon John Gummer, Lord Deben, set up and now runs Sancroft, a Corporate Responsibility consultancy working with blue-chip companies around the world on environmental, social and ethical issues. Lord Deben is Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, Valpak Limited, and the Personal Investment Management & Financial Advisers Association. He was the longest serving Secretary of State for the Environment the UK has ever had (1993-97). His sixteen years of top-level ministerial experience also include Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food, Minister for London, Employment Minister and Paymaster General in HM Treasury. He has consistently championed an identity between environmental concerns and business sense.

Before founding Leon, Henry worked at Bain & Company, working on private equity transactions and helping large companies to develop their strategies. Previously he was a journalist at the Daily Telegraph and a commis chef at the Michelin-starred Inn on the Park restaurant in London.

Henry is a regular speaker on how to create a purpose-lead business and how to create a better food system. He is the Lead Non-Executive Director on the board of the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, through which he led the National Food Strategy independent review. He is the co-founder and chair of Chefs in Schools and sits on the board of Rockfish. He also advises the CEOs of a handful of high growth leisure businesses.

Morgan Gillespy is the Global Director of the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) at the World Resources Institute. In this role, she provides strategic leadership to the coalition, working collaboratively across the FOLU network to advance the FOLU agenda with governments, the private sector, financial institutions, and civil society.

Prior to this, Morgan spent seven years at CDP where she worked across its Technical, Supply Chain, Water and Forests programs. She was named Head of Water Security in 2016 was Global Director, Forests from 2017 – 2020.

She holds an MSc from Imperial College London, specializing in Environmental Assessment and Analysis.

John Gilliland is Director of Global Agriculture and Sustainability at Devenish, an innovative livestock nutrition company with a focus on sustainable food solutions. He was recently appointed Professor of Practice in Agriculture and Sustainability at Queens University Belfast.

John has previously been an award-winning farmer in Ireland, President of the Ulster Farmers Union, a policy adviser for Devolved, National and European Governments on Biotechnology, Climate Change and Sustainability, and chaired Defra’s Rural Climate Change Forum for seven years. For the last six years he has chaired the N. Ireland Expert Working Group on Sustainable Land Management and is currently a member of the EU Commission’s Mission Board Assembly on Soil Health & Food in Brussels.

Andy Gray has run his slaughterhouse, catering butchery, game and venison processing business and Elston Farm since 1991. A 13th generation Devon farmer and cider maker, he has a historical perspective on changing practices and declining wildlife and is dedicated to reversing this decline. Andy’s business supplies regional, high-end meats to hotels and restaurants throughout the southwest.

A trustee of the Westcountry Rivers Trust, chairman of the Devon County Agricultural Association, Chair of the River Taw Fisheries and Conservation Association, involved in alleviating food poverty, Andy has a practical, boots on the ground, collaborative approach to problem solving allied with enthusiastic engagement with the science.
He is currently participating in the first silvopasture trial in the UK and collaborating with Fir Farm, licencing the first mobile red meat slaughterhouse in the UK. Andy also runs a regenerative, nature plus, meat box scheme www.farmwilder.co.uk, recognising the added value of meat from Devon farms with exceptional wildlife. Conservation and a hatred of waste inform most decisions.

James Harding is the Co-founder and Editor of Tortoise Media, and prior to this was Director of News and Current Affairs at the BBC, the worlds largest news organisation. He was the Editor of The Times of London from 2007-2012, winning the Newspaper of the Year in two of the five years he edited the paper. He was previously The Times Business Editor, having joined from The Financial Times, where he worked as Washington Bureau Chief, Media Editor and China correspondent opening the paper’s bureau in Shanghai in 1996. He is the author of Alpha Dogs- How political spin became a global business and he presented On Background on the BBC World Service with Zanny Minton-Beddoes, editor of The Economist.

Oliver runs an organic, pasture-fed-only dairy farm in West Dorset. All production and processing is done at the farm which employs 12 people and focuses on farming in conjunction with nature and selling direct to consumers via vending machines and online. Pasture For Life accredited, products include 3 soft cheeses, butter, milk, cream, yoghurt and kefir.

Prior to buying a farm in Dorset, Oliver founded and ran Numis, an investment banking business in London and New York. He has always had a passion for nature and is a keen bird watcher and wildflower enthusiast.

Patrick Holden, CBE, is the Founder and Chief Executive of the Sustainable Food Trust, an organisation founded in 2011 with the mission of accelerating the transition towards more Sustainable Food Systems.

He farms 140 hectares in west Wales, producing Hafod, a raw milk cheese from the milk of 90 Ayrshire cows on what is now the longest established organic dairy farm in Wales.

He has been advising the Prince of Wales on sustainability issues since 1982. He was director of the Soil association between 1995 and 2010 is Patron of the UK biodynamic agricultural Association

John grew up on a dairy farm in Ayrshire and trained as an Agri-Food and Environmental Chemist at Glasgow University where he stayed on to study a PHD on phytoremediation.

His career has been as a Scientist and Civil servant with a long-standing interest in how we improve the way humans work with and impact on nature. John has recently moved from a science role supporting agriculture to a more policy focused role heading up Agriculture and Crofting policy.

John has the good fortune to spend time working in and around the UN, in agricultural quality standard work, and this has reinforced his view that the good things in the world are built upon the methodical, often unseen but always determined and focused efforts of hard-working public servants. Things like food on our plates, low infant mortality and high levels of protection from disease through vaccination are all built on the work done by those who serve the public interest. John takes pride form being part of this collective effort.

Ikenna is the co-founder and CEO of Releaf, an agriculture technology company that develops hardware and software solutions to drive industrialisation of food processing in Africa. He graduated from Yale University in 2017 with a Bachelors in Computer Science and co-founded Releaf while he was still at university. In the early days of Releaf, Ikenna also worked as an Associate Consultant at Bain & Company, one of the biggest management consulting firms in the world, as part of the Private Equity Group conducting commercial due diligence for leading global private equity funds.

Jeremy is the founder and senior partner of SYSTEMIQ –a blended advisory/investment firm whose purpose is to create good disruptions in the world’s critical economic systems. Prior to SYSTEMIQ Jeremy was a senior partner at McKinsey until 2016, where he worked for 24 years serving some of the world’s leading companies and public institutions in the finance, consumer goods, technology, healthcare and energy sectors. In 2007, he set up McKinsey’s Sustainability & Resource Productivity Practice, supporting ambitious organizations to put in place low-carbon, resource-efficient strategies. Jeremy worked at the World Bank from 1988-1993 as a senior economist. In 2013-2014, Jeremy was programme director of the New Climate Economy project. He sits on a number of non-profit boards, including Global Action Plan (as Chair) and the Woods Hole Research Center.

Jeremy holds a Masters’ Degree in Public Administration (1986) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and an undergraduate degree from Cambridge University in Law and Economics (1984).With more than 200 people in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Brazil, SYSTEMIQ combines cutting-edge research with corporate strategy advice, policy insights and hands-on projects to positively transform economic systems. SYSTEMIQ manages a focused pool of disruptive capital from mission-aligned investors and works globally and locally to help partners anticipate, shape and create value in the new economy.

Sue is the Chief Executive of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. Sue leads the organisation in its mission to bring people together to act on the climate, nature and health crises, through fairer and more sustainable food systems, and a just transition for rural communities and the countryside. Sue’s background is in combined research and practice in leadership and organisation development for systems change, working with leaders across public, private and not for profit organisations, especially on complex partnership projects. She is a Trustee of CoFarm Foundation and Black Mountains College, and is an independent Governor at Royal Agricultural University. Living on an organic farm in Wales, Sue and her family raise livestock and farm for conservation.

Dr. Gunhild A. Stordalen, a physician who also holds a PhD in pathology/orthopedic surgery, and an environmentalist, is the Founder and Executive Chair of EAT, a global, non-profit platform for food system transformation. She sits on several boards and advises on councils including the United Nation’s Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Lead Group, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Stewardship Board on Food Systems, the UNICEF’s Advisory Group, member of Africa Europe Women Leaders Network, and the international Advisory Board of the SRC. In addition, Gunhild is an ambassador for Friends of Ocean action, a member of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLP) for the Blue Economy, and a part of the International Leadership Committee for a Net Zero NHS. In 2019 she was the recipient of the UN Foundations’ Global Leadership Award. Gunhild is the Chair of the 2021 UN Food System Summit’s Action Track 2: Shifting to Healthy and Sustainable Consumption Patterns.

Mark trained as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse, and owns and manages a traditional estate in the Cotswolds. The farm is mainly arable incorporating key conservation measures for wildlife and enhancing biodiversity. It is part of the Jordans Farm Partnership and a member of LEAF Marque. In addition, there are a number of residential properties and commercial lets.

Mark has been actively involved in the CLA for over 20 years at branch and regional level, then chairing the Business and Rural Economy committee, Agriculture & Land Use committee and latterly the Taxation committee

Alice Thomson is a British political journalist. She is an associate editor,
weekly columnist, and political interviewer for The Times. She has written
for Vogue and The Spectator and appeared on Question Time and Newsnight.
In 2014, jointly with colleagues from The Times, she was Political Journalist of
the Year in the Press Gazette awards. She is a member of the Policy Committee
of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

Ian has over 38 years’ experience at NatWest, with 13 years as Head of Agriculture and Renewable Energy. In 2014 Ian established a successful renewable energy company within a large, corporate agricultural business. Ian is responsible for the strategy and policy of Agriculture, Rural, Landed Estates & Renewable Energy within the bank. Most recently, Ian is focused on developing the bank’s climate change and suitability strategy within the Agriculture and Rural sectors, liaising with UK Finance and the Government on ensuring the farming community can transition to a low carbon economy.

Jonathan Baker is Head of Programme Policy Engagement and Strategy in Defra’s Future Farming and Countryside Programme. Jonathan heads up the team responsible for cross-cutting policy across the Agriculture Bill, overarching policy across the agricultural transition period and the strategic direction of the reforms to England’s agricultural policy. Prior to working in Defra, Jonathan was a Senior Land Use Advisor at the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) where he led on environmental and land use policy.

Marisa has 17 years of experience as a policy adviser and campaigner, working on issues relating to food, farming, animal health and welfare in the UK and has also worked internationally on agroforestry projects. She is Cabinet member for Environment at Surrey County Council responsible for the Climate Change Delivery Plan and is involved in numerous projects around local food, land management and nature recovery. She authored the Future for Small Abattoirs report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare and currently co-chairs the Small Abatt oir Task Group.

Alasdair MacLeod is Executive Chairman of the Macdoch Group, a private investment company with offices in London and Sydney. In Australia, Macdoch Ag Group comprises a group of innovative businesses striving to show how a resilient agricultural sector builds natural capital and contributes to global climate solutions. Alasdair is also Chair is of the Macdoch Foundation, a philanthropic body whose work includes a ground-breaking farming analysis and community engagement project, Farming for the Future.

David is Director of Food Strategy at WWF-UK and sits on WWF’s Global Food Leadership Team. Prior to joining WWF in 2018, David served for 10 years as Assistant Director of HRH The Prince of Wales’ International Sustainability Unit, having worked previously both as a development consultant in Africa and as a research executive with KANTAR-TNS advising major food and drinks companies. He is a Trustee of Food Foundation and SUSTAIN.

Adele Jones is Deputy CEO at the Sustainable Food Trust. She has been with the SFT since 2013, and now oversees the organisation’s strategic activities. In recent years, one of her major focuses has been the development of a project called the Global Farm Metric – an internationally common framework for measuring on farm sustainability . She is currently an advisor to the Scott ish Government. In 2020 she undertook a part ti me secondment with the Welsh Government, and in 2019 she completed a part-ti me secondment with DEFRA.

Sir Alan Parker is Chairman of Brunswick, which he founded in 1987. Since then, Brunswick has grown into one of the leading international corporate and financial PR companies, with 23 offices in 14 countries and clients in over 50 countries. Alan was Chair of Save the Children International 2016-2018. He is also Chairman of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conferences. Alan was knighted in 2014 for services to business, charitable giving and philanthropy.

Justin is strategic advisor to the Sustainable Food Trust. He is also a Partner at Leaders’ Quest, based in London, where he co-leads Count Us In, a radical collaboration of business, faith, sport, and civil society to inspire a billion people to take climate action. A communications and strategy expert, Justin has worked for two UK Prime Ministers, as an Assistant Secretary General of the UN, Deputy Head of UNICEF, and with Save the Children and Oxfam.