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Ancient futures: Lessons on sustainability and farming from Egypt

Alice Frost — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 14:17:20 +0000

Having recently spent some time in Egypt, our Global Farm Metric Trials Manager, May Wheeler reflects on what she learnt about the country’s agricultural practices and sustainability efforts, and how companies like SEKEM are working to ‘regreen’ the desert.

Driving through the outskirts of Cairo, the Egypt I had imagined since childhood – an ancient land of mystery, mummies and desert civilisations – flickered past the open taxi window. Warm air, glimpses of the Nile and the hazy glow of the city began feeding the kind of curiosity that often borders on romanticism.

Yet after an hour bumping along potholed roads through dusty midnight streets, surrounded by concrete tower blocks, stray dogs and clusters of young men smoking shisha, I began quietly preparing myself for the inevitable disappointment that sometimes follows the collision between childhood imagination and reality – an Egyptian version of Paris Syndrome, perhaps.

Eventually, after a few wrong turns and late-night pit stops for black tea brewed with fresh mint and sugar, the roads widened and the concrete began to thin and palm trees interrupted the sand. We had arrived at a gate welcomed by two men with the warmth and familiarity that I would later learn characterises so much of Egyptian hospitality.

Inside was another world entirely. Corridors of hibiscus bushes and trees frame softly curved buildings and fields of green. The air felt cleaner. We had arrived at SEKEM, a project founded in 1977 by Ibrahim Abouleish with the seemingly impossible ambition of regreening the desert and creating fertile farmland from sand.

I had travelled there through a volunteer scheme at the Sustainable Food Trust, where I’ve spent the last five years working on the Global Farm Metric; a framework to capture the social, economic and environmental factors important to farm sustainability across the world. Driven by a constant fascination with how other parts of the world live, work and eat, I wanted to understand what farming looks like in the desert. How can food possibly be grown on such sandy soils? How much has industrial agriculture transformed Egypt? What can Egypt teach us about sustainability, culture and farming systems? And, of course, I wanted to see the pyramids.

Now, I should say from the outset that I am far from an expert in Egypt or Egyptian agriculture. What follows is drawn from conversations, observations, reading and a short time spent at SEKEM. If anything here is incorrect or incomplete, I would genuinely welcome corrections and reflections.

Egypt’s agricultural inheritance

As with the pyramids themselves, Ancient Egyptian agriculture holds an element of mysticism.

Agriculture was not peripheral to civilisation: it was deeply embedded within culture, religion and everyday life. The annual flooding of the Nile deposited nutrient rich black silt across the landscape, transforming the surrounding desert into one of the most fertile agricultural regions on Earth. Bread and beer fuelled daily life and were the backbone of the Egyptian economy. Wheat and barley were grown and stored in communal silos, with harvests meticulously measured by scribes and protected by guards. Bread was so central to Egyptian life that loaf shapes became embedded within the written language itself, symbolising sustenance, offerings and survival.

Livestock provided milk, cheese, meat and labour, while cows were sacred to goddesses including Hathor, associated with joy, fertility and love. How do we know all this? Miniatures and hieroglyphs discovered in tombs depict idealised rural scenes of ploughing, harvesting and food preparation. Food was not simply fuel or commodity, but spiritual continuity, with grain, animals and produce buried with the dead to sustain them in the afterlife.

Cow miniatures

Of course, there is a danger here of romanticising the past. The harsh conditions of the desert was a constant threat to yields, with disease and famine a regular and unwelcome visitor. There’s evidence that Ancient Egypt was deeply hierarchical and sustained through forms of slave labour we would condemn today. But there is still something revealing in how closely agriculture, spirituality, ecology and community remained intertwined.

Modern tensions

But these ancient relationships between land, water and society would not remain untouched. Fast forward approximately 4,000 years and, like much of the world, the twentieth century brought immense change to Egypt’s social and agricultural systems.

Industrialisation and global markets reshaped production. Following land reforms and later economic liberalisation, farming systems shifted towards higher yielding crop varieties, synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and export-oriented production, particularly for crops like cotton. Population growth and rapid urbanisation placed increasing pressure on natural resources, with new towns built on fertile land bordering the Nile. The rhythms of the Nile itself were altered through damming and engineered control in the 1970s. The ancient flooding that once deposited fertile silt now also carries pollution.

Yet modern Egyptian farming continues to be shaped by an extraordinary (to the mind of a city-dwelling Brit, at least) geographical constraint: only around 4% of the country is considered fertile farmland. This creates a striking divide. Along the Nile Valley and Delta lie the “old lands” – ancient, intensely fertile soils that have supported civilisation for thousands of years, but are now under immense pressure from urban expansion, overcrowding and salinisation. Beyond them are the “new lands”: ambitious desert reclamation projects driven by government schemes and private investment, attempting to transform arid landscapes into productive farmland through irrigation, technology and infrastructure. Elsewhere, rainfed farming exists only in small pockets along the northern coast, used largely for grazing and livestock. Much of modern Egyptian agriculture therefore exists in tension between scarcity and expansion – between the ecological limits of the desert and the human ambition to push further into it.

These changes have also left agriculture occupying a somewhat contradictory social position. Farming work is frequently viewed as low-status labour, particularly among younger generations pursuing urban careers. While the 1970s saw parts of the British middle classes fantasise about “returning to the land”, many young Egyptians understandably preferred to leave rural hardship behind, although a growing agripreneur movement is now attempting to shift that perception through agri-tech, sustainable farming initiatives and food systems innovation.

“Much of modern Egyptian agriculture exists in tension between scarcity and expansion – between the ecological limits of the desert and the human ambition to push further into it.”

The effects of modernisation have also been felt keenly by those living at the margins of settled agriculture. Many nomadic and Bedouin communities, whose livelihoods were built around moving livestock through arid landscapes, have seen traditional ways of life reshaped by modern borders, tourism, settlement and economic change. Yet these cultures have not disappeared. While many Bedouin families have now settled in permanent villages and towns, often working in tourism and hospitality alongside pastoralism, it is still possible to glimpse herders moving goats, sheep and camels across stretches of land that conventional farming could never fully occupy. In a country defined by both ancient agricultural heritage and rapid modernisation, they remain a living connection to older ways of inhabiting the landscape.

Despite these profound changes, agriculture still quietly underpins Egyptian society and economy, employing around a quarter of the population and contributing significantly to food security and trade. Across Cairo, its persistence is visible in the city’s daily bread.

Loaves of bread (‘aish shamsi’) being sold on street markets

From dawn, markets and bakeries begin producing freshly baked ‘aish baladi’, a fermented wholewheat flatbread whose name translates to ‘bread of life’, is used to scoop or wrap everyday foods like ‘ful madamas’ (stewed fava beans), ‘ta’meya’ (falafel) and ‘bessara’ (similar to hummus). These are baked rapidly on heated conveyor belts and stacked high in woven trays. In rural areas, thick sourdough loaves such as ‘aish shamsi’ (‘sun bread’) are still proofed in the desert heat before being baked in clay ovens. In Cairo, the loaves are carried through the streets by vendors balancing them expertly on their heads or bicycles, a scene that still nods to practices depicted in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs (if you can look past the chorus of car horns).

A different vision

Against this backdrop of intensification, pressure and expansion, Dr Ibrahim Abouleish dug the first well in a stretch of desert that would later become SEKEM. Founded in 1977 after his return to Egypt from Austria, SEKEM began with a vision of regenerating desert land through biodynamic farming: a counterpoint to the growing momentum towards intensification, chemicals and industrial agriculture that was reshaping farming across much of the world.

Yet SEKEM was never intended to be simply a farm. From the outset, Dr Abouleish envisioned agriculture as the foundation for something much broader: a thriving social, cultural, economic and ecological ecosystem. Today, alongside agriculture, there sits a school, university, hospital, processing facilities, research centres and social enterprises, with profits from commercial enterprises being reinvested back into education, healthcare and the wider community. SEKEM’s vision is carried by thousands of farmers, educators, engineers, researchers, doctors and entrepreneurs, all working towards the development of the individual, society and the environment.

“SEKEM began with a vision of regenerating desert land through biodynamic farming: a counterpoint to the growing momentum towards intensification, chemicals and industrial agriculture that was reshaping farming across much of the world.”

Underlying this is a philosophy that repeatedly surfaced during my visit: that sustainability begins with love. At SEKEM, this is often described as an “economy of love” – the idea that healthy soils, thriving communities, meaningful work and successful businesses are not competing ambitions, but deeply interconnected ones.

Most mornings, Helmy Abouleish (Ibrahim’s son) gathers senior staff for a short circle. A mixture of Egyptian colleagues, German and other European expatriates, many switching effortlessly between Arabic, German and English, begin the day with light stretching, notices and SEKEM’s daily mantra: “Goodness of the heart, light of truth, love of the people.” What could easily be dismissed as symbolism instead appears throughout the organisation in practical ways. Workers are encouraged to pursue artistic practices and exercise during the working week, while university students study art and movement alongside technical disciplines. Conversations about spirituality and responsibility sit comfortably alongside discussions of composting systems, export logistics and groundwater monitoring.

There is also an interesting negotiation taking place between different worlds. German organisational precision meets laid-back Egyptian hospitality and Islamic traditions. Workers using modern technologies move between fields alongside oxen-drawn carts. Groundwater levels are monitored through WhatsApp photos, while ancient ideas about stewardship and shared responsibility remain embedded in the culture of the site.

Livestock housing in SEKEM

Rooted in organic and biodynamic principles, SEKEM aims to work with ecological processes rather than against them. Yet some of the practices may surprise regeneratively minded farmers in the UK. The dairy cows are housed rather than grazed because the sandy soils cannot tolerate grazing pressure. Irrigation is constant, delivered through underground, trickle and sprinkler systems supplied by a mix of recycled and ground water. It seems water remains one of the project’s greatest vulnerabilities, with farming in the desert inevitably dependent on careful water management.

Perhaps that is exactly what makes SEKEM so interesting. Too often sustainability conversations present neat binaries: industrial versus regenerative, traditional versus modern, economic versus ecological. But real systems are messier than that. SEKEM does not feel like a perfect solution or a nostalgic return to the past. It feels more like an ongoing negotiation between desert constraints, cultural differences, modern pressures and alternative possibilities for the future of farming in Egypt.

Negotiating the future

Working on the Global Farm Metric has taught me that there is no single path to sustainability. The outcomes we seek may be similar, but the routes towards them differ enormously depending on culture, geography and history. What works in the British uplands does not necessarily work in the Egyptian desert.

After a long day, the sun sets on the Nile in Cairo

At SEKEM, sustainability appeared less as a checklist of metrics and more as a way of thinking about relationships. Still, measurement remains central. During an impassioned meeting at Heliopolis University, one question framed the discussion: “How do we measure love?”. And through its Economy of Love initiative, SEKEM supports tens of thousands of farmers across Egypt to reduce chemical dependency through training, knowledge exchange and financial incentives linked to carbon markets, while exploring how broader social and environmental benefits might also be recognised.

Yet spending time in Egypt left me reflecting on a bigger question than any metric could answer.

“Working on the Global Farm Metric has taught me that there is no single path to sustainability. The outcomes we seek may be similar, but the routes towards them differ enormously depending on culture, geography and history.”

What would life look like without projects like SEKEM? In a country facing increasing environmental pressure, pollution and social challenges that come from rapid urbanisation, projects like this act almost like beacons. Not because they offer a perfect blueprint, but because they suggest that alternative futures remain possible.

As Bedouin traditions adapt to modern realities, Egyptian agriculture continues evolving to modern challenges too. New technologies, markets and desert reclamation projects surface alongside older ideas about stewardship, spirituality and community. Whether SEKEM represents the future of Egyptian agriculture or simply one possible path through the desert, I’m not entirely sure.

But perhaps that uncertainty is what I found most interesting. Not the contrast between ancient and modern, but their coexistence. It reminded me that sustainability is probably less about returning backwards or accelerating forwards. It is not simply about reducing a system to set of metrics that can be scored and valued. It can be about deciding carefully which values are worth carrying with us, and allowing these aspirations to guide our work and fill us with hope for the future.

If you’d like to find out more about SEKEM and the work they’re doing to regenerate Egypt’s desert land, you can listen to this episode of the SFT Podcast, when our CEO, Patrick Holden, sat down with SEKEM CEO, Helmy Abouleish.

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A global language for sustainable farming: GFM 2.0 is here

Victoria Halliday — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 11:47:15 +0000

Over the past two years, more than 240 farms across 23 countries have been part of a collaborative effort to help reshape how we understand, measure and value sustainability on farms.

We’re delighted to now share the results. The Global Farm Metric (GFM) has released a new report capturing insights from farms of all types and sizes, spanning six continents. Together, these farms have helped refine a framework that offers something the food and farming sector has long been searching for – a shared language for sustainability that moves beyond carbon tunnel vision and encompasses the wide range of outcomes that farming delivers. Read more about the GFM mission here.

The GFM framework enables farmers to capture a complete picture of their farm’s health – environmental, social and economic – in one place. Whether it’s a family farm in Kentucky, a mixed farm in the UK or a regenerative producer in South Africa, farmers used the GFM to understand what’s working, where there’s room for improvement, and how to tell that story to others – be it buyers, policymakers or their own communities.

Many found that the process not only provided clarity, but renewed confidence in their farming decisions.

“Participating in this programme improved my confidence as a solo operator, because I got data and validation. It’s motivated me to do things I’d been wanting to do but wasn’t sure whether it would be worthwhile.” – Farmer, Kentucky

“The detailed nature of the assessment revealed areas of my farming practices that I hadn’t previously considered, highlighting the importance of a comprehensive approach to sustainability.” – Farmer, South Africa

Of course, gathering this kind of whole-farm data isn’t always easy – particularly when time and resources are stretched. But the trials showed that with the right support, from advisors or digital tools, it is possible, and more importantly, it’s worthwhile.

Why now?

This comes at a pivotal time. Farmers everywhere are facing huge challenges, from climate change and biodiversity loss to volatile markets and new trade pressures. At the same time, the demand for transparency and trust in how food is produced has never been greater.

The Global Farm Metric offers a way forward – a common framework that’s flexible enough to work anywhere, but consistent enough to drive meaningful change. Already, the data from these trials is being used to shape new policies, inform procurement decisions and support more outcome-focused approaches to rewarding sustainable farming.

“What we grow and how we grow it has never mattered more,” says Fabia Bromovsky, Director of the Global Farm Metric. “These trials show that it’s possible to gather meaningful data at farm level, and that this data can become a powerful tool for farmers and decision-makers alike. The GFM offers a shared set of goals that can guide action from farm gates to government desks.”

What’s next?

The release of this report marks the launch of  GFM 2.0, a refined version of the framework shaped by the experiences of farmers, retailers, policymakers and assessment providers around the world.

The report also lays out a clear call to action for everyone involved in the food system:

For farmers: Use the GFM to take a holistic look at your farm, identify opportunities and connect with markets and support networks.

For policymakers and finance providers: Design policies and funding that reward outcomes and support the transition to truly sustainable farming.

For retailers and supply chains: Align sustainability reporting, reduce duplication and invest in long-term resilience.

For assessment providers: Collaborate to harmonise tools and reduce the burden on farmers while capturing data that truly matters.

For everyone: Embrace a whole-farm, outcomes-based approach as the foundation for a more sustainable future.

Find resources and reports, and sign up to the GFM newsletter to hear quarterly updates and future trial opportunities: globalfarmmetric.org/get-involved/. You can also get in touch with the team at info@globalfarmmetric.org.

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Aligning nature conservation and livestock production: An Australian perspective

Alice Frost — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 13:53:45 +0000

Australia’s wildlife is regarded by many as some of the world’s most unique and deadly. But it’s in trouble. Here, Brodie Crouch, a PhD student at The University of Queensland, unpacks how biodiversity and production ‘win-wins’ can help livestock graziers to be part of the solution in tackling Australia’s extinction crisis whilst continuing to produce important nutrition.

Platypus duck-diving in a creek, an endangered parrot returning to its termite-mound nest, bilbies scurrying across a Channel Country paddock – these are all scenes that may greet you on a biodiverse livestock grazing operation in Australia. However, Australia (one of 17 mega-diverse countries) has, concerningly, one of the worst contemporary extinction rates in the world.

As managers of over half the continent’s land, Australian graziers are incredibly important stewards of the country’s biodiversity, along with numerous other public goods including carbon stores, flood mitigation services, soil fertility and water quality. Working to improve conservation outcomes on grazing land offers, perhaps, the biggest opportunity for increasing the abundance of species that are poorly represented in the protected area estate (National Parks, Conservation Areas and other conservation focused land tenures). This approach has been identified as a priority action by government, conservation NGOs and academia alike.

An endangered Golden-shouldered Parrot returns to its termite-mound nest on a beef grazing property in Australia’s Cape York Peninsula. A partnership between graziers and conservationists is restoring the habitat of this threatened species. Photo Credit: Patrick Webster

Whilst there are wonderful examples of biodiversity co-existing with sustainable grazing, like the platypus mentioned earlier, livestock production in Australia is linked to some of our largest natural resource management problems. Land clearing to establish pastures throughout the forested regions of Australia is a major driver of biodiversity loss, carbon emissions and poor water quality outcomes, and in the northern savannas hotter, larger fires and overgrazing has degraded the condition of land and impacted ecosystem functions.

So how can we address these problems, whilst supporting the business of food production? First, we need to look for ‘win-wins’, where biodiversity conservation goals can be achieved without compromising production. I’ve had the privilege of visiting many grazing properties, and learning about how beef producers, from small, family-owned operations to immense corporate businesses managing over six million hectares (an area roughly three times the size of Wales), can manage their land to support biodiversity alongside beef production.

Whilst enhancing biodiversity on farms is essential, minimising or avoiding yield losses is also critical, as numerous studies are beginning to highlight the risks associated with ‘leakage’. Leakage is where yield reductions in one region are compensated for by an increase in another if there is no associated change in demand. With 60% of Australia’s red meat production exported to markets like the US, China, Japan and South Korea, and with demand set to increase in some of these markets, pursuing domestic conservation policies that markedly reduce yields could simply see environmental impacts exported to other beef-exporting countries like Brazil. Win-wins minimise this risk of leakage, and can also fast-track adoption of conservation strategies, as they do not rely on subsidies or payments for ecosystem services that can take a long time to be implemented and are expensive.

These win-wins look different depending on which beef producing region you are in. In Central Queensland, it might mean retaining some of the native forest as shelterbelts that provide shade and shelter for cattle and habitat for wildlife, whereas in Northern Australia savannas, it could involve managing stocking rates and utilising fire to prevent woody thickening, a process where the density of trees and woody shrubs increases in native grasslands, causing conservation and production issues. What is common between them is that they recognise and leverage the value that nature can provide for beef production. To date, the value of many of these contributions has been overlooked, often leading to the degradation of nature and reinforcing the old adage ‘you can’t manage what you don’t measure’. Recognising and measuring the value of nature to agriculture is an essential first step in moving towards more sustainable systems, but it is yet to have occurred in many of the globe’s agricultural regions, with Australia’s grazing lands no exception.

Implementing and managing appropriate fire regimes is essential for enhancing production and biodiversity outcomes on Northern Australian pastoral properties. Photo Credit: Patrick Webster

In Central Queensland, our research team from the University of Queensland is looking at how intact areas of native forest on grazing properties can support biodiversity, whilst also enhancing animal productivity and welfare outcomes. This is a region in which land clearing to establish pastures throughout the second half of the 20th century reduced the amount of brigalow (a species of Acacia) forest to less than 12% of its original extent, pushing many species like the Bridled Nail Tail Wallaby and Painted Honeyeater to the edge of extinction. Brigalow forest has the unfortunate habit of growing on the best soil and supporting very high biodiversity, however, it was preferentially cleared and is now very poorly represented in our protected area estate. It also represents the conundrum that has plagued conservation in agricultural areas: typically, more marginal areas are set aside for conservation, despite the best biodiversity commonly occurring on the better soils. This means you end up with a skewed protected area estate dominated by national parks with shallow, sandy soils or high slopes, but often missing the biodiversity-rich ecosystem types that grow on areas with better soils, like former floodplains. Implementing win-win management strategies on these better soils has the potential to increase the amount of the now rare ecosystems that used to exist on them, whilst minimising foregone production and leakage risks.

Despite some beef properties in Central Queensland being almost completely cleared, there are others that maintain 20-40% of their property as brigalow forest and continue to support endangered species. Our research team are using GPS collars on cattle to compare heat stress risk and grazing behaviour between paddocks with minimal tree cover, and paddocks where over 30% of the forest was retained as shelterbelts. Given that heat stress could cost global meat and dairy production over $14.9 billion USD per year by the end of the century, with impacts especially pronounced in tropical regions, understanding how tree cover affects heat stress risk, grazing behaviour and pasture utilisation could help the industry adapt to these challenges.

Critics of on-farm conservation are rightly concerned that it may only serve to increase the abundance of relatively common farmland species, instead of the threatened, fragmentation-sensitive species we are so worried about. Whilst intact, well-connected protected areas will be essential in stemming current biodiversity loss, it is imperative that we complement them with agricultural landscapes that also provide habitat value and allow species to disperse across the landscape. That’s why our research team is complementing this production analysis with on-farm bird surveys that are looking for the presence of declining and threatened bird species that rely on intact forest within the retained vegetation (being conscious, of course, of other creatures, including mammals, reptiles and insects).

From this work, we hope to determine the amount of forest that is required to support populations of these declining species on farms and recommend how graziers can best manage the forest to enhance its conservation value. This is especially important given that natural forest regeneration on Central Queensland farms provides us with an opportunity to strategically increase the amount of forest within over-cleared landscapes, without the expensive exercise of tree-planting.

Brigalow forests (pictured) support unique and endemic biodiversity but have been reduced to less than 12% of their original extent. Supporting graziers to retain natural regeneration of this forest is key to enhancing conservation outcomes. Photo Credit: Brodie Crouch

By combining conservation and agricultural science within actively operating farms, we can identify whether the native forest cover required for good production outcomes aligns with the amount required for the survival of threatened species. If not, appropriate incentives could be designed to account for opportunity costs (whilst being mindful of leakage risks).

Encouragingly, another project carried out by the research programme Farming for the Future identified that on-farm natural capital was positively correlated with gross margins, production efficiency and farm resilience in southern Australia’s livestock regions. They suggested this was because enhanced natural capital acted as a substitute for more expensive and volatile farm inputs like energy and bought-in fodder. Again, their approach teamed up ecologists with agricultural scientists, economists and industry representatives to make holistic assessments of natural capital and what this meant for farm performance.

As important as such collaborations are, to increase the uptake of conservation actions on farms and accelerate the food system transition, we also need to convince politicians and the private sector that this is a worthy cause to invest in. For many conservation actions, we lack an understanding of how they also benefit other public goods, including enhanced water quality, carbon storage and flood mitigation. This is where ‘True Cost Accounting’ and frameworks like the Global Farm Metric become so important; they allow us to visualise and value why nature-friendly farming is a worthwhile pursuit, beyond the intrinsic value of biodiversity and the benefits it provides to food production.

Drawing on my conversations with farmers, graziers, policymakers and academics, I believe there are three key things that need to be prioritised, if we are to address the triple threats of biodiversity loss, climate change and food security:

Conservationists work in partnership with agricultural scientists, economists and social scientists to identify win-win scenarios that minimise leakage risks and are likely to be adopted by farmers.
We value public goods influenced by on-farm conservation interventions.
Workshops and decision-support tools are provided to farmers and graziers to help them decide upon and implement context-specific conservation actions that work for their production system.

There’s a lot to be excited about in the biodiversity and livestock grazing space at the moment, and I think we have good reason to be cautiously optimistic. Livestock production can co-exist with wonderful biodiversity, I’ve seen it firsthand. But there is much to be done to support a transition to make these cases the rule rather than the exception.

Featured image courtesy of Brodie Crouch.

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Soil: The world at our feet

Alice Frost — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 11:58:02 +0000

Our Global Farm Metric Project’s Officer, Olivia Boothman, recently took a visit to Somerset House where ‘Soil: The World at Our Feet’, is currently exhibiting in London. Reflecting on her visit, Olivia writes about the impact of overlooking the ground beneath our feet and the power of soil to better connect us to the Earth.

“ ‘Look up’ we are often told, an invitation to pause chaotic lives and cast our eyes skywards to appreciate the wonder of the world. But what if instead of looking up, we looked down?”

This was the question posed to me by the writing on the wall as I stood in the opening room of the exhibition Soil: The World at Our Feet at Somerset House.

As the curators encouraged me to imagine taking off my shoes and allowing my toes to sink into the soil, I stood there, disappointed in myself, thinking ‘when was the last time I felt the soil?’ The only memory that sprung to mind was a dramatic skid down a steep hill on a rainy day at Hampstead Heath… very Bridget Jones-esque.

I glanced around and wondered how many of my fellow gallery goers – who likely also rushed from their last meeting, hopped on the tube and navigated the mycelial network of Somerset House’s underground hallways to get to the exhibition on time – were asking themselves the same question?

I continued reading: “Is it crumbly and aerated? Does it clump together? Is it cool on your skin?” These were almost exactly the same questions I asked farmers as we carried out a VESS (visual examination of soil structure) test as part of our trials of the Global Farm Metric framework. I was astounded by the lack of knowledge some farmers had of the most basic and intuitive indicators of soil health.

With the advent of advanced laboratory soil testing, have farmers become reliant on technological tests and lost the skills of interpreting the look, feel, smell or even the sound of soil? I have sympathy with them – in my previous career as a farm vet, I would have been far more confident reaching for the ultrasound scanner to rapidly detect pregnancy than rely on physical examination and palpation alone.

“As the curators encouraged me to imagine taking off my shoes and allowing my toes to sink into the soil, I stood there, disappointed in myself, thinking ‘when was the last time I felt the soil?”

But what has been the impact of us all overlooking soil for so long?

The answer was highlighted in my favourite piece in the exhibition. In 1983, the artist David Nash cut a circular patch of turf from the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park and transplanted it in a field in North Wales and vice versa, taking turf from North Wales back to London. Botanists counted just three species in the field from Hyde Park, compared to 27 in the Welsh field. In 2024, artist Mike Perry decided to repeat the experiment, taking the patch of urban ground from Springfield Park, in my home borough of Hackney, and swapping it with a patch of farmland in Pembrokeshire National Park in West Wales. This time around, botanists counted 39 species in the urban turf, and only four in the Welsh turf. Of course, the amount of biodiversity is hugely dependent on what sort of farming has taken place. As the SFT recently showcased in a new film about a farm in Snowdonia, regenerative grazing practices can help to support a staggering abundance of wildlife.

I can attest to the biodiversity of Hackney’s parks. Every June, I watch – slightly bemused – selfies being taken against a backdrop of wildflowers. The photos make a splash on Instagram for sure, but I refuse to believe that the wildflowers feature for aesthetics only. I think these selfies represent people’s desire to be reconnected with nature. In the same way, I am sure that many visitors to the Soil exhibition are doing so to learn about the ‘the world at our feet’ – this matter which sustains us – and what they can do to better understand it, increasing a connection with it. The power of seeing-is-believing experiences can be transformative in engaging with the natural world, which is why the SFT is developing the Beacon Farms Network. The Network brings together sustainable and regenerative farms acting as educational platforms to inform and inspire young people and adults about the story behind their food and to get their hands back in the soil.

Although it can be easy to despair of our growing disconnect – between rural and urban, farmer and consumer, wild and cultivated, our needs and wants – the closing room of the exhibition offered a reminder that food can be the cure to all of these. We make decisions about what to eat three times a day, and our food choices matter.

Thanks to this exhibition, this weekend, you will find me in my tiny garden, getting my hands stuck in the soil!

Soil: The World at Our Feet is on at Somerset House until 13^th April.

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A busy year for the Sustainable Food Trust: Adele Jones reflects

Alice Frost — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 16:13:52 +0000

To round off the year, our Executive Director, Adele Jones, casts an eye back over 2024. Adele considers the progress that’s been made towards the food and farming transition over the last 12 months, with a summary of some SFT highlights.

As we approach the end of 2024, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on what has been another busy year for the SFT and a turbulent time for farming.

With the protests in London just a few days behind us and unrest across Europe earlier this year, there is clear disharmony in the farming community at present. As a sector, we have the potential to play a hugely significant role in solving climate change, restoring nature and promoting positive human health and social wellbeing. But with this comes pressure and weighty responsibility. We’re all expecting so much from farmers right now and yet the entire food system as it is currently designed continues to squeeze them, both financially and emotionally.

That’s why, for us, work on financing the agricultural transition remains at the core of our mission. The farming practices that deliver the most value for society must become the most financially viable. We need the government and private sector to work together to introduce a range of carefully tested ‘carrot and stick’ mechanisms that make regenerative farming the no-brainer business model. And to my mind, rather than pitching small farmers against big, we need to think about helping all farmers move in a regenerative direction.

This doesn’t mean to say that small farming businesses won’t need bespoke support in this transition. When it comes to the new farm support schemes, advice, guidance and assistance with data collection requirements will all be key. The same is true further up the supply chain – incentives and regulations must take scale into account to ensure that new rules and requirements don’t discriminate against businesses with fewer resources.

It seems to me that the best way to convince the Treasury to continue to support the food and farming sector constructively in the future, is to supply them with a clear and consistent dashboard that shows where and how taxpayers’ money is being spent on the delivery of public goods. To collect this information, mandatory reporting based on common metrics (integrated into existing schemes and tools so as not to burden farmers with yet another audit) will be crucial. We will continue to develop the Global Farm Metric (GFM) and scale up its usage through tools such as the Soil Association Exchange to help make this possible.

Going into 2025 and beyond, our focus for the GFM will be on its application and how measurement can be used to drive change. We will be using the framework to undertake on-farm true cost accounting studies, considering how common measurement should inform future eco-labelling, and looking at how common metrics can be used to aid the design of sustainable food products through our ongoing collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s ‘The Big Food Redesign’ project. But, as mentioned above, perhaps the most important use of common metrics is in informing new financing frameworks for regenerative agriculture, and we will be working within the Sustainable Markets Initiative to explore this, starting with a pilot in the east of England early next year.

Of course, all this work will only land if we can inspire and reach business leaders, government officials, school children and the wider public. Our new Beacon Farms Network will be key to this and has kick started our mission to get more people onto farms, providing farmers with the resources and support needed to enable them to host visits that will allow everyone to learn more about the story behind their food.

A few highlights of the SFT’s year:

January – We gave Oxford Real Farming Conference attendees a taste of our upcoming report on grazing livestock, which will set the record straight on the issues and opportunities around grazing livestock when it comes to climate, biodiversity and human health.
February – BASIS launched our co-created course on Farm Sustainability and the Global Farm Metric, a first step in our plans to develop educational materials to enhance understanding of the GFM and the importance of valuing and measuring sustainability.
March – The Telegraph interviewed Patrick about the challenges facing the food and farming industry, following his well-received blog on the farmer protests.

SFT CEO, Patrick Holden, introduced our session, ‘What Role For Grazing Livestock in a Warming World?’ at the Oxford Real Farming Conference 2024

April – The final episode in the fourth series of our SFT podcast saw Patrick and innovative organic grower, Iain Tolhurst, discuss the importance of drawing people out of the city and onto farms to connect them with the story behind their food, a key mission for our Beacon Farms Network.
May – Adele and Patrick travelled to Kentucky to spend time with long-standing GFM partner, the Organic Association of Kentucky (OAK), and meet farmers taking part in their USDA Climate Smart project; whilst our GFM international trial leads, Olivia Boothman and May Wheeler, oversaw Regen10 trials taking place around the world, from Rwanda to Australia.

GFM Trials Manager, Olivia Boothman, visited Nebraska in May to oversee Regen10 trials of its Regenerative Outcomes Framework

June – Buoyed by the new Defra funding for smaller abattoirs, this year’s Groundswell Festival was the perfect opportunity for us to discuss the progress of the Abattoir Sector Group in supporting local abattoirs and livestock products, with three well-attended talks on day one.
July – Patrick launched our Beacon Farms Network with an inspiring event at Holden Farm Dairy, bringing together well more than 100 guests to learn more about the project and share ideas on how farms can best serve as educational platforms for food, health and sustainability.

At Groundswell, our Wool, Hides and Skins session was accompanied by a demonstration and skills-sharing workshop – festival goers were given the chance to have a go at spinning, weaving, carding and knitting

August – The second phase of the Local Food Plan – where the SFT is collaborating with fellow food and farming NGOs to revive local food for communities, economies and nature – kicked off, with a focus on using the findings of the initiative’s June report to form an action plan.
September – We contributed to the global conversation on sustainable farming at New York Climate Week and the Regenerative Agriculture Summit Europe, talking about how to shift the financial advantage from intensive to regenerative farming.

Patrick Holden, SFT CEO, and Darina Allen, founder of Ballymaloe Cookery School, at the Beacon Farms Network launch event in July

October – The SFT team came together at Sheepdrove Organic Farm, a member of our Beacon Farms Network, to celebrate 2024’s achievements and look forward to 2025.

November – Patrick attended COP29 in Azerbaijan, advocating for the importance of soil and sustainable agriculture in achieving global climate goals.

December – As we approach the end of year, we’re looking ahead to what’s on the horizon in 2025. We’re looking forward to sharing some exciting project developments with you soon, including updates on the GFM, our upcoming reports, next steps for our Beacon Farms Network and much more!

A huge thank you goes to everyone – farmers, partners, friends and funders – for supporting our work this year. We absolutely cannot do any of this alone, your guidance and support remain our most valuable assets.

See you in 2025!

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The value of New York Climate Week: Moving forward

Alice Frost — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 14:28:02 +0000

Our CEO, Patrick Holden, and Executive Director, Adele Jones, reflect on their time at New York Climate Week, sharing some of the impactful conversations they had, what’s now needed to scale truly regenerative farming systems and why the SFT is uniquely placed to ‘speak truth to power’ in spaces like this.

Patrick

For the second time, I’m in New York for Climate Week, an annual event bringing together people from corporate, environmental and political worlds. It offers a unique opportunity to meet many in a short period, all in one place.

I’ve been to New York several times, the first being in December 1970 when I stayed with my cousin Joey, then a student at Barnard College. I remember eating BLT sandwiches for the first time and climbing the Empire State Building, then the tallest in the world. Walking through the city today still brings back memories of that trip, fresh even after 54 years.

A key reason for my visit is my involvement in the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), set up by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) in 2020. The SMI aims to unite CEOs across a wide number of sectors to address climate change, nature loss and food insecurity.

Now four years on, the SMI has over 20 CEO-led Task Forces tackling diverse challenges. I lead the task force on measuring land use sustainability, predominantly using the Global Farm Metric, a harmonised framework for measuring the climate, nature and social impacts of farming systems.

Through the SMI, I’ve connected with a wide range of leaders from industries such as food, banking, energy and asset management. Five years ago, I couldn’t have imagined working alongside such influential figures, but thanks to the initiative, I have, and it’s remarkable.

What has struck me is the shared humanity of these CEOs. Like all of us, they face personal struggles – existential fears, the risk of losing their jobs, and uncertainty about how to solve the issues we’re all grappling with. They genuinely want to do good, but they are caught between shareholder demands for profit and the need for pre-competitive collaboration on sustainability.

“We’re in a unique position to speak truth to power – honestly, but with respect and understanding of the challenges businesses face in sourcing more sustainable products without losing market share.”

As Ken Wilson of The Christensen Fund once said, “It’s hard to keep the frogs in the wheelbarrow.” It’s incredibly difficult for companies – especially those built on competition – to act in a pre-competitive spirit that requires trust, love and openness. But progress is being made, driven by the realisation that we face existential threats.

At a panel I attended at Goals House during Climate Week, the moderator – a sustainability head at CNN – surprised the audience by mentioning that the fertility of the Great Plains was built by bison and could be restored by grazing cattle using holistic methods. He then asked representatives from Cargill and Nestlé what they thought.

It seemed that neither company had seriously considered reintegrating livestock into their farming rotations. During the discussion, I suggested they need to rethink this, not least because continuous commodity cropping won’t sequester enough carbon to meet their Scope 3 emission targets.

This is just one example of the type of intervention we, at the Sustainable Food Trust, can make at events like Climate Week. We bring deep practical knowledge to discussions about sustainable food systems, especially when many attendees, including those from NGOs, are disconnected from the realities of agriculture. We’re in a unique position to speak truth to power – honestly, but with respect and understanding of the challenges businesses face in sourcing more sustainable products without losing market share.

I am excited to see the potential of the SFT’s contribution when it comes to influencing others and creating the conditions for scaling truly regenerative farming systems. And I think being in New York for these few days does make a difference. I look forward to seeing what further opportunities arise during my time in this extraordinary city.

Adele

As I head home at the end of another New York Climate Week, I find myself reflecting on the value of weeks like this. Is it worth the time and carbon involved in traveling across the globe to discuss the same challenges and initiatives with many of the same people, year on year? The question often runs through my mind. Yet, despite those doubts, I know that I am very fortunate, and spending time in person with the people and organisations we’re working with on major projects, as well as providing the opportunity to learn from new initiatives, continues to be absolutely vital.

Although as an organisation our work is global in scope, we don’t have offices all over the world, instead choosing to work with ‘fellow travellers’ and likeminded partner organisations who can provide the important local knowledge and context. Moments like this, therefore, allow us to connect with those friends and partners, and ensures that everything we do is relevant, both to the broader global conversations and to the specific local contexts where we’re having an influence. At the moment our work is focused in the UK, the US and Australia, as well as regions where we’re testing the harmonised metrics framework through Regen10, which includes countries in Africa, South America and Asia.

“Climate Week, the COPs and other such events provide incredibly valuable moments in time to reassess what we’re contributing to the wider conversation on accelerating the transition to sustainable, regenerative food and farming.”

Perhaps the biggest theme this past week has been ‘financing the regenerative agricultural transition’. It’s been encouraging to see so many different perspectives contributing to this conversation, as solving it will require an entirely new way of thinking about what we perceive as the ‘value to society’ that farming for nature, climate and health can bring. At the moment, we’re working closely with the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) which is focusing a lot on bringing together a range of food companies, retailers and members of the finance community to co-evolve solutions to this challenge. However, I’ve learnt a lot this week about what’s happening within the ‘innovative’ impact investment world, which is extremely encouraging. Financial practices are emerging based on new models which can help drive the transition to regenerative farming in places like the US, Brazil and India. One of my follow-ups from Climate Week is to work on aligning new approaches to investment with corporate supply chains, ensuring they couple together for maximum impact.

This has reminded me that while it’s exciting and necessary to focus on future innovations and the next big project, we must ensure that the foundational work we’ve done is solid, authentic and rigorous. To take an example, the conversation around harmonised, holistic metrics has gained significant traction over recent years, with many people now assuming that the metrics are now agreed and being rolled out. While on the one hand this could be seen as a success, the reality is that we still have a fair way to go in getting final agreement on the high-level architecture of the metrics, and even more importantly, embedding this framework within the tools that all farmers, food companies and governments are using on a daily basis. With limited real-world application at this stage, our priority within the Global Farm Metric over the coming months, will be to turn this around.

My final thought is that we need to become better at storytelling. At times, it can feel like we’re engaging in lofty ‘50,000ft’ discussions which never really land on the ground. If we’re working with farmers on projects, they should be ones standing on these panels telling us how it’s impacted them and what more they need next. This is definitely missing from Climate Week – I hope that the SFT could play a role next year in supporting some of our farmer partners to ensure their expertise is heard on the global stage.

Climate Week, the COPs and other such events provide incredibly valuable moments in time to reassess what we’re contributing to the wider conversation on accelerating the transition to sustainable, regenerative food and farming. Delivering on revolutionary big ideas is not always straightforward and requires us as a team to walk the fine line between sticking to our guns and adapting to the ever-fluid global conversation. But I’m pleased to report, we’re very much in thick of it and look forward to continued work with our close allies to keep the conversation and activity moving forwards.

Featured image courtesy of Climate Group multimedia hub.

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An interview with Bronwen Percival from Neal’s Yard Dairy

Alice Frost — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 14:25:12 +0000

Bronwen Percival is the Buyer and Technical Director at Neal’s Yard Dairy. She’s been engaged with artisan cheese since she started as a cheesemonger at the Dairy. Not a native to the UK, she grew up in San Diego, California, where her grandfather was a dairy producer. She works with over 40 cheese producers across the UK and Ireland and has co-authored ‘Reinventing the Wheel: Milk, Microbes and the Fight for Real Cheese’ with her husband Francis Percival.

SFT: Many people are aware of the leadership that Neal’s Yard Dairy (NYD) have shown not only in convening the artisan cheese making community of the UK but also in developing markets for named artisan cheeses based on the story behind their production – not just in the UK but throughout the world. What are the motivations that inspire you and your team to do this work?

Bronwen Percival: I think there are a number of different ways to answer this question, because we all have many, many motivations. The whole idea of connecting a name and a story to a cheese as it gets to the market, is quite transformative for British cheese. In some ways it’s antithetical to commodity production which is all about taking interchangeable raw materials and turning them into interchangeable non-differentiated cheese – along that path, a lot of those farmhouse cheeses lose the identity that is associated with the producer.

It’s not enough to just sell cheese; what’s really important is to sell that cheese connected to an individual identity that meets the market and where excellent quality is therefore rewarded because people will come back and ask not for Neal’s Yard Dairy cheddar but for Hafod cheddar or Montgomery’s cheddar. That was pretty radical in the late 1970s and early 80s when Neal’s Yard Dairy got started in Covent Garden. It’s less radical today, but I still feel it’s fundamental to what we do. We’re the bridge between the individual small producers and the market and we are tasting every batch and talking to customers about how each batch is different and trying to match the right cheese to the right customer. It’s that simple.

There’s also another way to answer that question, which is that diversity is an important thing. We talk about the importance of diversity in a field with different types of plants or the diversity of the genomes of the cows that [make our cheeses], but we live in a world of rapidly reducing diversity and the same applies to the market. Losing that diversity, as businesses scale up and we get fewer options, is a real risk to our food system and it’s a risk to taste and flavour as well.

So, the work that we do is really about protecting that diversity. Championing that within the market sometimes means selling tiny amounts of cheeses that are made in [small-scale] production. I don’t know how financially viable that is, because, at the end of the day, they’re only a minute fraction of what we do, but it’s still a really important part of our mission and it’s what will set us apart.

“We’re the bridge between the individual small producers and the market and we are tasting every batch and talking to customers about how each batch is different and trying to match the right cheese to the right customer. It’s that simple.”

SFT: We know that your operation includes retail, wholesale and export, but what is the ratio of sales in each area and which countries buy cheeses from NYD?

BP: That’s a very good question! It’s split – about 25% of our sales are through our retail shops in London. We have three shops and another one possibly on its way and we have an ecommerce department, which is a form of retail as well. Fifty percent of our sales go through our domestic wholesale to shops and restaurants all over the UK, and the final 25% is on export. That’s as a percentage of the volume of the cheese.

Which countries buy cheese from NYD? We ship cheese all over the world. We sell cheese to the US, throughout Europe, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and some goes to Peru and Japan. It’s kind of an eclectic mixture.

But when people flippantly say, ‘oh, we’ll find other markets abroad’, I think they are forgetting that [continental] Europe is an incredibly sophisticated market when it comes to cheese consumption. People eat cheese seriously, more seriously than we do here in the UK.

Bronwen takes notes during a selection visit to Montgomery’s Cheese, one of Neal’s Yard Dairy’s cheesemakers who produce Montgomery’s Cheddar

SFT: What are the key motivations of the customers who buy your cheeses? It is clearly taste and provenance but are there other drivers?

BP: I would say that each customer brings their own set of values and interests to the transaction. One of the skills of the monger in the shop is to be able to identify what’s driving somebody to be interested in our cheese, even if they might not necessarily be able to articulate it themselves. Taste is one of the big things in our shops and we encourage our wholesale customers to set up systems where people can taste the cheese they are going to buy – before they actually buy it. It means that they are going to go home with the cheese that they like the best, but it also means that they’re making their buying decisions holistically, not just by the price, not just by the label. Really, it’s about what’s delighting them. We don’t apply different margins to different cheeses in our shop, so, hopefully, people – even if they like the more expensive cheese – can buy a small piece if their budget is limited. I think that’s really critical.

“Each customer brings their own set of values and interests to the transaction. One of the skills of the monger in the shop is to be able to identify what’s driving somebody to be interested in our cheese, even if they might not necessarily be able to articulate it themselves.”

A counter full of cheese at the Neal’s Yard Dairy shop in Bermondsey, London. The selection of cheese changes week to week; on display in this photo, from left to right, is Harbourne Blue, Pevensey Blue and Ragstone

SFT: You have recently undertaken a pilot with the SFT’s Global Farm Metric. What motivated you to do this?

BP: This goes back to the last question about the diversity of farming systems that are being used by the suppliers of our cheeses. We were acutely aware that we’re not farmers and we don’t have the capacity to make minute judgements about the environmental impacts of different farming systems, even though we visit the suppliers that we buy cheese from all the time.

We don’t have all of the data in front of us and we don’t have the eye to necessarily see what’s important and separate it from what’s just visually apparent. We thought it would be really interesting for the people who are farmhouse cheese makers and are making the milk as well as the cheese, to participate in the Global Farm Metric (GFM) trial, for a number of different reasons.

First, to get a better sense of the diversity of the farming systems and how they measure up next to one another, [but also] so that we could help people to understand what the opportunities and risks within their own systems are, encouraging their own path towards progress in whatever form it takes. Clearly there are customers who are interested in this, and, if we had the data to back it up, it would be great to do some experiments, perhaps putting filters on our ecommerce platform on the website. So, if people wanted to buy cheese that comes from a high biodiversity system, you hit the filter and 10 cheeses come up that have actually demonstrated that they are excelling in this area. There are some exciting opportunities around that, but first we need the data to get started.

SFT: How many of your cheese makers are participants in the GFM trials?

BP: We invited all 25 of the farmhouse cheese makers that we work with and about 20 of them signed up. We’re right in the middle of the trial now, so obviously it’s a big ask to get people to spend 4-6 hours completing forms online when they are busy running a farm. It’s hard to carve out extra time when you’re exhausted at the end of a long day. It will be really fascinating to see how many of our cheese makers complete the process and the feedback that they give to the GFM team – I think one of the outputs of this is to actually help the GFM team make their metric better and easier to use and more relevant, and to make sure that the information is actually good for farmers. It’s a two-way process.

Another one of Neal’s Yard Dairy’s cheesemakers, Curlew Dairy in Yorkshire, where Ben and Sam Spence make Yoredale Wensleydale

SFT: The best cheese making represents a combination of the quality of the raw milk and the art and science of the cheese maker. What would you say is the right balance of these two features for the best artisan cheeses?

BP: Such an interesting question – is it the milk or is it the making? Is it the nature or the nurture? They’re both really important. Right now, we have a collection of cheeses where the farming is really excellent and maybe the cheese making leaves something to be desired; and on the other hand, we have a collection of cheeses where maybe the farming is a little bit more intensive and a little more conventional but the cheese making is superlative. It’s been really amazing to me how you can, in general, with some exceptions, really taste the quality of the raw milk in the finished cheese, even when the cheese making isn’t great.

On the flip side, there’s a lot to be said that with amazing cheese making you can actually bring a lot of quality, character and interest to very boring milk. Really, what we’re aiming for is to help both of those parties to discover the missing half. I can’t point to very many places where they’ve got everything.

“Is it the milk or is it the making? Is it the nature or the nurture? They’re both really important.”

SFT: Have you had any feedback about the interest of your customers in knowing more about the story behind their cheese?

BP: This is one of the reasons that we’re so interested in participating in the Global Farm Metric trial. We’re going to have some data from the trials, and we can then test a hypothesis. I couldn’t tell you with any certainty what the most important factors are to our customers – it may be that there are different groups of customers who would rank them completely differently from one another. By making that information more readily accessible, either on our website or on the labels in our shops or by being able to train our team to talk about them more fluently, we’re going to find out a lot more and we’re going to be better at hooking up the right customer with the right cheese for them.

Check back in a year or two when we’ve completed the trial and put some of the stuff to the test and we’ll see if we can identify what the main drivers are for people who care about the provenance of their cheese. If there’s good data that shows people are making buying decisions according to the provenance of the cheeses, that’s a much more powerful agent for change.

Photos courtesy of Neal’s Yard Dairy.

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Against the grain: Uncovering Nebraska’s regenerative transition

Alice Frost — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 14:23:43 +0000

In this article, Global Farm Metric Trials Manager, Olivia Boothman, shares her experience of visiting Nebraska on behalf of Regen10. Regen10 is a coalition of organisations working together to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture. Alongside partners at the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU), the GFM team are leading Regen10’s trials of its Regenerative Outcomes Framework. The trials are an opportunity to test the usefulness of the framework to farmers and test the feasibility of data collection against a holistic set of outcomes, and ultimately to improve the framework based on farmers’ feedback. Trials are taking place in 11 countries across the globe.

I am fascinated by satellite imagery of landscapes. Mostly, I’m looking for clues about the footprint of agriculture in a place – what can it tell us about its past and present. I pore over Google Maps and Google Earth, examining the irregularity of field boundaries and the sizes of fields; crane my neck to see out of the window when my plane makes its descent to land in a new place.

Drop a pin anywhere in Cornwall, England and you are likely to find a higgledy-piggledy arrangement of small green fields separated by wiggly lines of dark green hedgerows, hinting at the pastureland for the livestock-based agriculture which predominates there. Drop a pin in Norfolk and you’ll likely find a neat patchwork of gold, green and brown rectangles separated by largely straight hedgerows, giving us clues of the large-scale arable farming that takes place there.

And so, when I dropped the red pin randomly in the state of Nebraska in the US to get a feel for the place before my trip there as part of the Global Farm Metric’s work with the Regen10 initiative, I was aghast and enthralled in equal measure at what I found. Perfectly square patches of farmland cover the entire southeast of the state. If only my attempts at patchwork quilting looked as neat as this, I thought. If Nebraska is a quilt, the seamstresses are its farmers – agriculture has defined the landscape of Nebraska to such an extent that you can literally see it from space.

As my colleague set off on an equivalent work trip to beautiful Borneo, I wondered if being immersed in the industrial agriculture of Nebraska might tip me from a state of optimism for the future of food and farming, to one of complete despair.

Of course, when I arrived it didn’t take me long to find out about the curiously perfect squares. Graham, a fifth generation farmer, who has recently started converting the farm to regenerative practices, filled me in. A typical Nebraskan farm consists of four equal squares, together making up a big square, with the homestead (farmhouse) located in the middle. Dead straight farm tracks separate the farms and link up to railways where farmers drop off their grain to be transported to large processing units.

Agriculture is clearly the industry of the state – and industrial is the agriculture! As depressing as this might sound, this is also what made this trip fascinating. We met with four inspiring farmers who are going against the grain (pun intended – Nebraska’s main crop is corn) and adopting regenerative agriculture practices. In a sea of conventional (read ‘intensive’) farms, what made these farmers turn their backs on the practices which they know work well to produce high yields?

It’s not economic incentives – most of them still sell their produce into commodity markets, which are not yet set up to offer farmers a price advantage for producing their food using more sustainable methods. Nor is it driven by policy – unlike in the UK, farmers in the US do not receive subsidy support to convert to regenerative systems. Each farmer that we met described an intrinsic motivation for change – whether that be to look after the land so that in return it looks after them, or to hand down a resilient, thriving farm to the next generation.

If the result is that farmers are shifting to regenerative farming practices, why does it matter what their motivations are? Well, for long-term, sustainable change, regenerative agriculture must, in my view, become a social movement, driven by coordinated grassroots action and facilitated by supportive policy and financing.

Farmers’ resolve to change will inevitably be tested. This was evident in Nebraska as the farmers I met told me of the challenges they faced: pesticide drift from neighbouring farms; the genuine risk of falling out with family and friends for farming against the norm; and the lack of infrastructure to support diversification of products. Despite this, they were steadfast in their commitment to farming regeneratively.

“Each farmer that we met described an intrinsic motivation for change – whether that be to look after the land so that in return it looks after them, or to hand down a resilient, thriving farm to the next generation.”

So how can the ‘regen ag’ movement harness the intrinsic motivations of farmers, as well as pushing for fair policy and economic incentives? As agroecology researcher, Dr Nathan Einbinder, shares in his Wicked Leeks column, “I’m a strong believer in farmer-to-farmer approaches as a vehicle to empower producers to experiment and share.” Connecting farmers to each other acts as a vehicle for knowledge sharing, but also provides community to share common goals and challenges. This is something that the Sustainable Food Trust is currently working on through its Beacon Farms project – an initiative to build a network of farms that can serve as educational platforms.

Although the number of farmers employing regenerative practices are low, US supermarkets seem to be jumping on the bandwagon, with sections of the shops dedicated to regeneratively produced food – an indication that there is an appetite among consumers for food grown in harmony with nature. As we continue our work with Regen10 to define the social, environmental and economic outcomes from regenerative agriculture, we will also work to ensure that the policy and economic conditions actively support the small but growing community of farmers who are making brave steps towards changing the status quo.

Reflecting on how centuries of agriculture have shaped the land that I see from a plane window, I wonder what will we see in the future when regenerative agriculture becomes the norm? Not only visible changes from the sky I hope, but also strong, connected and healthy communities.

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Labour has an opportunity to sow the seeds of change in farming and food

Alice Frost — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 09:59:42 +0000

SFT CEO and organic farmer, Patrick Holden, outlines his key food and farming policy recommendations for Sir Keir Starmer and the new Labour Government, and the need for a ‘revolutionary vision’.

As a farmer in Wales and CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, I have both a bird’s and worm’s eye view of food and farming, and from this uncommon vantage point it feels that they could be defining issues for Sir Keir Starmer and his Government.

Labour has a history of driving radical change in this area. At the end of the Second World War, Clement Attlee’s Government made food and health central pillars of his efforts to rebuild the nation and create a better future. With our current food and farming systems impacting ever more negatively on the health of people and planet, we need a similarly revolutionary vision now – and Keir Starmer’s personal leadership is critical to this.

I feel strongly that food and farming are central to achieving many of this Government’s most important goals, from the preventative health agenda to action on climate change, reviving our nature and rivers, the Green Growth agenda and national food security.

By shifting to regenerative farming systems that operate in harmony with nature, Britain could become a world leader, pioneering a new approach that combats climate change and protects nature, while delivering food security and helping to tackle poor health and poverty.

An investment in truly regenerative farming is undoubtedly an investment in the nation’s health. Today, the NHS is spending billions treating the symptoms of declining public health, including many previously uncommon diseases such as obesity, diabetes, food intolerances and cancer, all of which have been exacerbated by industrial farming methods and foods.

An investment in sustainable agriculture is also an investment in combatting climate change. By using regenerative practices to draw carbon down from the atmosphere and back into the soil, some estimates suggest we could sequester more than half of total annual greenhouse gas emissions globally.

But to transform our food and farming system and enable it to engender impactful change, we need a shared bold vision and an interconnected strategy that goes beyond any one ministry.

The Government should convene a ‘Food and Farming Council’, which would bring together the Chancellor, Secretaries of State and Ministers from various departments with a broad spectrum of stakeholders from the food system, including businesses, farmers and NGOs.

This Council should then demonstrate the same level of leadership in transitioning towards sustainable agriculture, as witnessed in the energy sector. In the early 2000s, the German government ingeniously convinced major fossil-fuel energy companies to subsidise feed-in tariffs, thereby overcoming the initial cost barrier until economies of scale eventually made renewable energy more affordable than nuclear and fossil-fuel power. Our Government urgently needs a similar approach to jumpstart the transition in agriculture, and the solution is within reach.

The food companies, retailers and other businesses who have a vested interest in ‘testing the waters’ of a transition, have the combined resources to create new models and templates for sustainable food production, and together can help shift the balance of financial advantage from extractive to regenerative production.

There are already instances of this transition in action, visible right on my farm in West Wales. Castell Howell, one of the largest food wholesalers in Wales, has recently initiated a pilot project to introduce organic vegetables into schools. They are funding the production and distribution of these vegetables, in my case carrots, using profits from their conventional trade. They are investing in this initiative because they recognise the long-term financial benefits of being pioneers in this area.

Many other players in the corporate world can support the transition by working together in new alliances. For example, members of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), which was launched by the then Prince of Wales in 2020 and includes banks, asset managers, insurance companies and water companies, are now partnering with food companies and retailers to co-finance new initiatives that reward farmers for delivering on climate, nature and health.

The Government must also play its part by removing barriers to change. Here are three actions that Government could take:

Back a large-scale pilot of a new approach to finance regenerative agriculture: through the SMI, the Sustainable Food Trust is working with a group of CEOs from some of the UK’s most influential companies, including McDonald’s, McCain, Pepsi, Waitrose, Lloyds Banking Group and Lloyds of London to develop and run this pilot. The support of the Government and Defra could greatly boost the impact of this work.
Link farm subsidies to measurement: the Environmental Land Management scheme has some positive attributes, but not enough money has been allocated to enable systemic change of the farming system. More money, combined with the use of common, holistic metrics, must underpin these schemes and determine what they can achieve. The Sustainable Food Trust has incubated the Global Farm Metric, a common framework co-created across the food and farming sector, which is now being deployed in trials across the world.
Introduce a stronger regulatory framework: apply the polluter pays principle to those who buy inputs that contribute to climate change, pollute water and damage human health. This would create a level playing field for farmers who are doing the right thing.

If the Government acted on these fronts and enabled a shift from chemical to biologically based food production, they could rightly be seen as world leaders in this great food and farming transition.

This article was originally published by Goals House on LinkedIn.

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Letter to Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Alice Frost — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 11:32:32 +0000

SFT CEO, Patrick Holden, recently wrote to the Secretary of State for Defra, The Rt Hon Steve Reed, to express the critical need for finance to accelerate the regenerative farming transition and the use of common metrics to measure and report on progress towards meeting our climate, nature and social goals.

I am writing to congratulate you on your historic victory and the energy and optimism you have brought to the challenges we face as a country. 

I am both a farmer in Wales and the CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, so have a bird’s and worm’s eye view of food and farming. From that perspective it feels to me that food and farming could be a potentially defining issue for this Labour Government and for you as Secretary of State. The last time this was the case was at the end of the Second World War, during the Attlee Government, when food security and health were centre stage and seen as central to our nation’s future. With your personal leadership, it could be again.

Food and farming go to the heart of your Government’s preventative health agenda, Green Growth agenda, action on climate change, nature and rivers and are core national security issues, as Ukraine has proved. I believe it is something the public are desperately looking for leadership on. Britain could be a world leader on regenerative food and farming, pioneering a new approach that combats climate change, protects nature, builds food security and fights ill health and poverty. But to achieve this, we need an interconnected strategy that goes beyond any one ministry, linked to a big and bold vision.

To drive this integrated approach forward, a first step could be convening a ‘Food and Farming Council’, to bring together the Chancellor, Secretaries of State and Ministers from across departments, alongside a diverse set of voices across the food system from business to farmers. This forum could then shape and drive the integrated approach we need.

Linked to this, I wanted to suggest two key practical actions to take progress forward:

1.  An at scale pilot of a new approach to financing regenerative agriculture developed and run with farmers, business and government. We are working through the Sustainable Markets Initiative, initiated by His Majesty the King, with a group of CEOs from some of the UK’s most influential companies, including McDonald’s, McCain, Pepsi, Waitrose, Lloyds Banking Group and Lloyds of London, to put this in place. It would be brilliant to bring Defra into this process to help design and implement a blended finance approach which complements the ELM scheme. 

2. Impact measurement for environmental schemes such as ELMs: the SFT welcomes your continued commitment to schemes that support farmers to undertake environmental action. However, the major question underpinning these schemes, and public investment in them, is do they deliver? The SFT believes that common, holistic metrics are needed to underpin these schemes and determine what they can achieve. The SFT would welcome the opportunity to discuss with Defra and other relevant departments, the potential to develop a core framework and assessment that would enable the Government and farmers alike to measure and potentially value, environmental and social gains – and to identify major risks such as pollution. The SFT has incubated the Global Farm Metric, co-created across the food and farming sector. It is now being deployed through Defra trials, by major assessment organisations and adapted to be trialled across the world through the international collaboration with Regen 10. If Government were to mandate the use of this common framework as part of ELMs, it would help unlock a more joined up approach to finance and transparency. 

The SFT would welcome the opportunity to discuss these ideas further with you. We are ready to enable ambitious change to accelerate the shift to regenerative food and farming.

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