Adam Brocklehurst
Hello. I am Brock. I’m a sort of farmer working a 40-acre Demeter certified holding on the north border of somersetshire in the mendip hills. I have been involved in agriculture most of my life. Beginning at 0 in my pram in the hedge whilst my mother worked the fields.
Adele Jones
Adele is Executive Director at the Sustainable Food Trust. She has been with the SFT since 2013, and now oversees the organisation’s strategic activities. She is currently an advisor to the Scottish Government. In 2020 she undertook a part time secondment with the Welsh Government, and in 2019 she completed a part-time secondment with the UK Government (DEFRA).
Alex Adam
Head of Water Stewardship at The Rivers Trust.
Alex Mackaness
Alex is Senior Policy Officer at the RSPB where he leads on bioenergy and BECCS policy.
Ali Yellop
Ali is an agriculturist, chef & medicine maker. Born and bred in Brent, her British & Jamaican heritage influences her work deeply. She seeks to decolonise horticulture & revive our collective ancestral histories, shifting our approach to the land. Ali offers to the world, Earth Tenders; a grassroots, woman of colour-led, agricultural revitalisation and archiving project based in London.
Anders Behrend
Anders is a danish young farmer growing organic vegetables. He is member of Frie Bønder – Levende Land (FBLL) and active in the Youth Articulation of the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC). His main areas of interest is the question of access and ownership of land especially from the perspective of young farmers and establishing collaboration and knowledge-sharing among the young farmers from Scandinavian countries. Anders attended the recently held 8th international Conference of La Via Campesina in Colombia.
Andre Kpodonu
As Head of Activism for Feedback, Andre leads on broadening and deepening participation to ensure our food is good for the living planet and its people. Andre has 10+ years of experience working with and in communities grappling with marginalisation and structural disadvantage. His portfolio includes Seeding Reparations, EcoTalent, Sussex Surplus, Alchemic Kitchen, and Green Futures – all seeking to ensure that food system transformation places anti-oppressive practice at its core.
Andrew Meredith
Andrew has been Editor of Farmers Weekly since the beginning of 2021 after first joining the UK’s leading agricultural media brand in 2016. Before that he was a farmer and livestock drover in Mid Wales. He lives in London with his wife Jayne.
Angharad Wynne
Angharad has spent much of her life exploring the landscapes and lore of this land. She shares her learning and explores understanding and contemporary practice through retreats, storytelling gatherings, ceremonies, dreaming circles, writings and pilgrimages. Angharad is a member of the Wisdom Keepers: Reigniting Ancient Ways collective and creator of Dadeni, a programme that explores the native spiritual traditions of Britain. She is a founding member of ‘Animate Earth’, a new international animism collective.
Ariel Andrade Molina
Ariel is currently a Botanist, PhD student at INPA (Amazonian National Institute of Research), researching ethnobotany, edible tropical fruits, Indigenous People’s food security and sovereignty, and landscape domestication in the Amazon rainforest. He has been engaged in the CSA movement in Brazil since 2013, is a founder-member of the CSA Brasil community association that has been spreading the movement across the country and is a member of the URGENCI International Committee.
Barbara Hachipuka Banda
Barbara is the founder and director of the Natural Agriculture Development Program in Zambia. She has been working with the Mbabala Women Farmers’ Cooperative Union since 2004 and has been engaged in community development as an advocate for small-scale farmers promoting sustainable agriculture and improved livelihoods.
Barry Ferguson
Barry is of the 5th generation on a small family farm near Belfast, NI, the farm was historically a mixed, and latterly until 2022 was an intensive arable farm using modern mechanised and chemical input heavy methods. Barry has started the process of converting the farm into an alternative model of farm succession, aiming to become cooperatively owned and managed using agroecological methods for producing local food. The first step in this process was an organic veg and eggs CSA in 2023.
Ben Adams
Ben operates a suite of farm trials each year and has significantly changed the way that the family arable farm in Oxfordshire operates. Recent trials involve a three year intercropping experiment as part of winning a Net Zero Competition. Ben also works as a farm consultant during the week.
Ben Raskin
Ben has 30 years of horticultural experience. For the Soil Association, he leads on their horticultural and agroforestry work. He also coordinates the agroforestry at Eastbrook Farm in Wiltshire, writes books including “The Woodchip Handbook”, and works as an independent consultant.
Brendan Costelloe
Before recently joining the Soil Association, Brendan was working with the private sector as an Associate Director of Biodiversity, particular on corporate disclosure frameworks. He was previously a non-political advisor to the Secretary of State for Defra, and has also worked for the RSPB and the British Ecological Society.
Bríd Walsh
Bríd grew up in rural Ireland, in West Cork in the South Western part of Ireland. Farm holdings were small and local practices worked with the rhythm of the seasons with respect for the land allowing co existence in harmony with the natural environment. She is the third generation in her family to carry close communication with land and trees. The daughter of a forester, she developed a practice of spending time listening to the land – being present – holding heart at the centre of her receptivity.
Carlos Ayala
Carlos wants to promote the importance of eating premium chocolate and celebrating it as a luxurious and healthy superfood. Achieving this through sensory chocolate tasting experiences encouraging sustainable food choices.
Carol Adams
Carol holds masters degrees in Community Develoment and Agrifood Bioinnovation. She is the manager of Cardiff Farmers Markets and Food Adventure Social Enterprise (FASE). Fase runs a project helping people from the global majority in Wales to grow vegetables from their cultures and co-produces projects in Sub Saharan Africa focusing on sustainable food systems.
Caroline Coxe
Horticultural Advisor at the Soil Association. Carolyn brings vast knowledge and practical experience of growing produce for the retail and wholesale markets to the team. This combined with experience in estate management for a mixed organic farming business whilst managing the implementation of agri-environmental schemes. Carolyn has a BSc(Hons) Environmental Management and is BASIS/FACTS qualified. She has a keen interest in improving the farmed environment to produce sustainable produce suited to changing market demands.
Catherine McAndrew
Catherine is the coordinator of the Landworkers’ Alliance’s Migrant Worker Solidarity Campaign, which aims to hold supermarkets to account for conditions on their supplier farms both internationally and within the UK. She is the lead author of the LWA’s recent report Debt, Migration, and Exploitation: The Seasonal Worker Visa and the Degradation of Working Conditions in UK Horticulture.
Charlotte Dufour
Charlotte has been working on food systems internationally since 2000 with NGOs and the UN (FAO, SUN, Food Systems Summit with 4SD). She presently works with the UNDP-hosted Conscious Food Systems Alliance Secretariat. She co-founded the non-profit Listening Inspires and Listening to the Earth campaign. She is an Ananda Yoga and meditation instructor.
Charlotte Steel
Charlotte is Social Investment Programme Manager at the Real Farming Trust and has 11 years’ experience working within the UK agroecology movement. She has worked in project management roles for two community farms, as a grant manager for an agroecology fund and on operations and governance at the Landworkers’ Alliance.
Cheryl McIntyre
Cheryl is a crofter on the Isle of Skye. She keeps a flock of 200 North Country Cheviot sheep and a pedigree fold of Highland Cattle – as well as pigs, hens, bees, and dogs. A former primary school teacher and Agricultural Officer with the Scottish Government, she has most recently been a lecturer with the University of the Highlands and Islands on the Countryside skills course. With an interest in regenerative farming, Cheryl is keen to promote active crofting and education to keep people working with the land.
Chris Smaje
Chris is a writer, smallholder, grower, social scientist and former academic. He is the author of the books ‘Small Farm Future’ and ‘Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future’.
Chukki Nanjundaswamy
Born into a family of farmer-activists in India, Chukki has been involved in the farmers’ movement at local, national, and international levels. She is the Executive Chairperson of the Karnataka State Farmers Movement and a co-cordinator of the All India Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements. She heads the International Center for Sustainable Development, Amrita Bhoomi (Eternal Earth), which hosts the South Asian Agroecology School of La Via Campesina.
Claire Ratinon
Claire Ratinon is an organic food grower and writer who has grown edible plants in a variety of roles including growing produce for the Ottolenghi restaurant, Rovi. Claire has shared her growing journey in talks and writes a gardening column for the Guardian’s Saturday Magazine. She co-wrote the pamphlet, ‘Horticultural Appropriation’ for Rough Trade Books with artist, Sam Ayre and her latest book, ‘Unearthed’ is out now.
Clare Beaumont
Claire and Sam run Gowbarrow Hall Farm on the south-facing shores of Ullswater in the Lake District. They are passionate about the natural beauty of the landscape and caring for the environment and are conscious of how farming fits within the wider global issues that our planet is facing. They run a Pasture for Life certified beef herd, as well as pastured pigs. Claire has recently started producing leather goods made from the hides of their cattle, creating a more circular system on the farm.
Clare Carlile
Clare is a researcher and reporter for environmental news outlet DeSmog, which investigates the vested interests eroding action to address environmental breakdown. Focused on food and farming, Clare’s work looks at the lobbying and tactics of Big Ag – from the pesticide lobby to Big Meat and Dairy.
Courtney Scott
Courtney is Director of Policy and Research at the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, a food and nutrition policy expert and a Registered Dietitian. She is passionate about ensuring everyone has access to healthy, sustainable food, and has led FFCC’s work on the National Conversation About Food, the UK’s biggest dialogue about food. Prior to joining FFCC, she was Research and Policy Advisor at the Food Foundation and has worked in the US and Belgium.
Dan Crossley
Dan leads the team at the Food Ethics Council and is responsible for strategy and fundraising, plus management of the overall work programme. Dan has worked on food sustainability issues for around 20 years, leading work on a range of issues, from our relationship with meat to tackling household food insecurity to power dynamics in the food system. He writes a regular monthly column for the Grocer, a leading food sector magazine.
Daniel Stanley
Daniel is CEO at non-profit research institute the Future Narratives Lab, a Director at economic development co-operative Stir to Action, and a strategic communications consultant. He has a background in community organising and social psychology, and writes and speaks on framing, narrative and social change strategy.
David Bollier
David is an American activist, writer, and blogger who is focused on the commons as a paradigm for re-imagining economics, politics, and culture.
Deirdre (Dee) Woods
Dee is the Food Justice Policy Coordinator at the Landworkers’ Alliance and a food actionist and campaigner for good food for all. She advocates for a more just and equitable food system which is in the hands of communities rather than corporations, and campaigns for this both on a UK level with the LWA and Right to Food campaign, and internationally through her work with the Civil Society and Indigenous People’s Mechanism for the Committee on World Food Security.
Denise Walton
Denise has a background in ecology and is transitioning Peelham Farm into an agroecological system with improved habitat infrastructure. This has involved going certified organic, agrochemical free and to a Pasture-for-Life certified cattle grazing system. They manage a low input, low impact farm sustaining nature and a productive livelihood.
Donald Macsween
Donald is a crofter, local (independant) Councillor and broadcaster from Ness, Isle of Lewis. Born and raised in a crofting family, he took over the family croft in his early twenties and has his own tv series, An Lot/The Croft on BBC Alba, following his crofting adventures. Always looking for innovative ways to make a hard way of life a wee bit easier and make sure that the perspective of those in the Highlands & Islands is not ignored.
Dorn Cox
Dorn is the research director for the Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment in Maine, USA and farms on 250 acres in New Hampshire. He is the author of the new book ‘The Great Regeneration’, a founder of the farmOS software platform and Farm Hack, and is active in the soil health movement.
Doug Wanstall
Doug is an innovative regenerative farmer in Kent and is passionate about the reversal of climate change and biodiversity collapse.
Dustin Benton
Dustin is policy director at Green Alliance, leading our work across energy, resources, and the natural environment, with a particular focus on getting on track to net zero emissions. Between 2020-21, he was on secondment with Defra, where he was chief analytical advisor to the National Food Strategy.
Ella Sturley
Ella is the stakeholder engagement lead at Câr-Y-Môr, Wales’ first regenerative seaweed and shellfish farm. I have always been passionate about both social and environmental issues and am excited about the work we are doing for both people and planet. There is huge potential in nature-based solutions and the collaboration of different industries to work together against these most prevalent matters.
Emile Frison
Emile is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. He is also Senior Advisor to the Agroecology Coalition and a member of the Africa Europe Foundation Strategy Group on Agriculture. He is the lead author of the IPES-Food report From Uniformity to Diversity
Eric Ngang
I am an environment, social, and governance specialist with demonstrable skills and experience in project writing and management. I am passionate about community outreach work that engages communities to define what development they want and to facilitate processes to enable them to achieve this. My work explores how communities, especially smallholder farm communities in Africa, develop and use their local indigenous knowledge, practice, and technologies (LIKPTs) for climate adaptation and as a source of (disruptive) innovation.
Esther Stanford-Xosei
Esther is a legal specialist and an international expert on reparations, offering bold alternative thinking to reparatory social justice. Esther is a community advocate, educator, environmentalist & ‘Ourstorian’ of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR).
Ferdinand Wafula
An agroecology practitioner,farmer, trainer and director of Bio gardening Innovations, based in Western Kenya. Special interest in farmer experimentations and trials, indigenous food and seed systems, whole farm designs, soil fertility management and policy dialogue. Has over 15 years work interactions with smallholder farmers at grassroots level and keen on collaborative engagements at organizational, national and continental levels.
Fidelity Weston
Fidelity is Chair of C.L.E.A.R. the food labelling alliance and Hon. Vice President at Pasture for Life, alongside managing her family’s 80ha farm outside Sevenoaks in Kent, running Hereford cattle and Lleyn ewes to Pasture for Life and Soil Association standards. Fidelity is actively involved in local conservation projects and the cattle are increasingly being used to graze land away from the farm as the local interest in “wilding” has grown. Fidelity has been trained as a mentor as part of the project.
Gareth Morgan
Gareth’s passion for food, growing and nature started early, and he’s now lucky enough to combine these interests in his role as Head of Landuse and Farming Policy at the Soil Association. Previously he worked as a policy advocate at the RSPB, English Nature and at the Wildlife Trusts, and he pursues these things outside work on his allotment, in his kitchen and with the Bath Organic Group.
Gavin Fletcher
Gavin coordinates Good Food Leicestershire for the County Council’s Public Health Department. In this role, he has engaged across food providers, growers, educators and consumers with a focus on sustainable procurement. Leicestershire has brilliant farmers supported by an agricultural college and research specialists – we aim to celebrate this.
Guy Singh-Watson
Guy founded Riverford, going from one man and a wheelbarrow delivering homegrown organic veg to friends, to a national veg box scheme delivering to around 80,000 customers a week. Converting the business to employee ownership in 2018, enabled Guy to buy a small farm, founding Baddaford Farm Collective. At Baddaford Guy continues to grow for Riverford, supports a diverse array of horticultural enterprises and explores the potential of perennials.
Guy Standing
Guy is Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London and co-president and co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). His recent books address policies to meet the needs and aspirations of the growing precariat, including basic income, revival of the commons and a new politics of time.
Hannah Thorogood
Hannah is a permaculture and regenerative agriculture farmer, consultant, teacher and senior tutor from Lincolnshire. She runs The Inkpot Organic Farm as a single parent along with her twin teenage daughters, where they rear native breeds of cattle, sheep and poultry. She has an MSc in Organic Agriculture a diploma in Permaculture design and is the Pasture for Life Regional Facilitator for East Midlands.
Harriet Bell
Harriet is the Regenerative Farming Lead at Riverford Organic Farmers. Having started her career focussing on mobilising people to action, Harriet’s been taking a “learn by doing” approach to agriculture since 2011, working, largely in the organic sector, on farm diversification, innovative estate management and ELM, before joining Riverford. Agroforestry seems to be a prevalent theme in her work but Harriet’s overriding interest is in building resilience to climate change within agriculture.
Hazel Healy
Hazel is UK Editor of the award-winning environmental investigations outlet DeSmog. She specializes in climate and food politics stories that uncover conflicts of interest, double-dealing and greenwashing. Her work has also featured on BBC radio, in The Guardian, New Internationalist and the LA Times.
Helen Keys
Helen farms alongside her husband, Charlie, in Northern Ireland. They are the first commercial producers of Irish-grown linen in forty years. Helen is a co-founder of Source Grow, an online platform to help farmers decide what to grow to suit their soil and local market demand. She is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Queen’s University Belfast and an Innovation Broker for the Water Innovation Network. Helen is Vice Chair of NFFN NI.
Henrietta Inman
Henrietta is a baker, cook, and founder of Wakelyns Bakery, where the abundance at Wakelyns Agroforestry is transformed into bread and meals for the local community. With agrobiodiversity at its core, she is an advocate for agroecological food and farming and its ability to create systems change and social justice.
Holly Silvester
Holly is a commercial vegetable and seed grower based at Trill Farm Garden in Devon. Alongside growing food, she also works for The Gaia Foundation Seed Sovereignty programme, educating & empowering commercial and community growers to produce and save local, open pollinated seed.
Hugh Blogg
Hugh focuses on small scale systems, supply chain, innovation and diversity within the sector. After studying at the Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Hugh has held a variety of posts at the Soil Association spanning the press office, certification, and more recently grower-facing research and advice. Hugh leads on improving ED&I within the horticultural sector aspiring to champion produce and people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures.
Iain MacKinnon
Iain researches the governance of land and natural resources at Coventry University. His work examines the impacts of colonial disruption on indigenous land-based practices and belief systems of the Scottish Gaidhealtachd. He is also a crofter on the Isle of Skye.
Iain Tolhurst
Iain has been at the forefront of the UK organic farming movement for almost 50 years. His 8-ha farm has won many awards and he has written several books as well as countless articles. In June 2023 The King’s Birthday Honours awarded Iain an MBE for his services to agriculture.
Ian Horsley
Ian is a first-generation sheep and beef farmer from the Malvern Hills, running a small diversified regenerative farming estate. Transitioning over eight years from “modern/best practice” conventional 100% sheep farming to a regenerative AMP approach with 80% cattle, 20% sheep; focussing on improving soil health, biodiversity, and 100% pasture-fed meat. Ian has been mob grazing sheep and/or cattle for over five years, and has out-wintered cattle for two years using ‘bale pods’.
Ian Steele
In August 2006 Ian Steele returned to the family farm from working in London and abroad in the Petrochemical Industry. So began a journey to revitalise a small-scale, hillside farm that had been in the family since 1904. The aim was to prove that small-scale agriculture can indeed be environmentally aware, promote biodiversity and remain viable in the modern world.
James Robinson
James farms 300 acres of organic land in Cumbria with his family. The farm is home to 250 head of organic Dairy Shorthorn cattle and the land is made up of a mix of pasture and meadow, interspersed with a range of habitats, such as hay meadows, wetland and ancient hedgerows and woodland. The family won the 2022 FWAG Silver Lapwing Award in recognition of their commitment to farm conservation.
Jessica Milgroom
Jessica’s (she/her) research focuses on settler colonial studies, specifically gastrocolonialism in the USA, as well as ‘development’-forced land dispossession globally. She explores what decolonial and feminist perspectives reveal for collective construction of powerful, generative narratives. Jessica works at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University (UK).
Jessica Stokes
We need a humane and sustainable food system fast. Farmer-led research and innovation, where farmers play the central role in the generation of knowledge is a crucial part of that transition. We need processes which mobilise communities of practice which provide belonging, autonomy, empowerment and sharing of expertise. Jessica brings experience from a number of UK and EU projects featuring a farmer-led approach, such as PATHWAYS for sustainable food.
Jimmy Woodrow
Jimmy is the Executive Director of Pasture for Life, a non-profit that champions the restorative power of grazing animals on pasture. Pasture for Life helps livestock farmers transition to profitable, agroecological farming practices through evidence-building, peer-peer knowledge exchange and better routes to market and has a certification that verified 100% pasture-fed meat, milk and fibre.
Jo Hunt
Jo is a crofter at Knockfarrel, near Dingwall. Over the past 11 years Jo has transitioned 45 acres of seasonal grazing land into a large market garden feeding 200 local families; and created a productive woodland, orchard and soil carbon store
Jo Kamal
Jo (they/them) works within the Landworkers’ Alliance Campaigns team on food sovereignty movement building, working to embed an intersectional and radical lens within the agroecology movement. They are also a food grower at a market garden in North London. Jo has a background in decolonial research and organising towards racial justice. In their spare time, they are a folk herbalist with a rootedness in liberatory healing practice.
Johnnie Balfour
I champion the restorative power of grazing on pasture in my role as chair of Pasture For Life and as managing partner at Balbirnie Home Farms with a herd of 200 suckler cows.
Jono Hughes
Jono was trained by a retiring couple in 2013, then worked at Tyddyn Teg (the co-op that adopted their veg business) until moving to Gwent in 2022 to establish a new farm. Besides ecological horticulture, his interests include institutional development and food system history, open-source technology, and teaching.
Josephine Marchandise
Josephine is a chef, fermenter and grower. As head of the creative and regenerative kitchen at OmVed Gardens, she works symbiotically with their rewilded urban gardens to create nutritious and healing food with an emphasis on fermentation. She is involved with various community and school projects, as well as the UN World Food Programme and Chefs Manifesto.
Julia Cooper
Julie is a soil scientist and Head of Research at the Organic Research Centre. She has expertise in soil carbon and nitrogen cycling in agricultural systems and uses a range of field-based and modelling approaches to optimise crop rotation design for supply of nutrients to crops while minimising negative environmental impacts.
Julie Brown
Julie is Director of Growing Communities: a London-based social enterprise. Their box scheme, farmers’ market, urban farms, wholesale arm and Better Food Traders network, work to transform food and farming through farmer-focused trade. Julie is active in the Bridging the Gap programme, LEAP investment committee and Farming the Future.
Jyoti Fernandes
Jyoti is Campaigns and Policy Coordinator for the Landworkers’ Alliance. Jyoti is an agroecological smallholder farmer based in Dorset, UK. The farm produces a wide range of products from vegetables, fruits and meats to wool blankets, juice and preserves. The farm is part of a local smallholders cooperative that shares collective processing facilities. Jyoti is an active advocate for La Via Campesina, promoting agroecology and food sovereignty across the globe.
Karl Williams
Coming from a farming family Karl has over 38 years of agricultural experience, working on, and managing livestock operations in the UK. Since 2007 Karl has worked for the sustainability consultancy business FAI Farms, supporting clients to define and deliver against their sustainability commitments, and working with farmers to support a transition to regenerative practices.
Kate Bradshaw
Kate began farming in 2018, determined to transition to a more purposeful professional, and is a certified Pasture For Life farmer in North Pembrokeshire. She is also the Interim Head of Operations for Pasture For Life having also contributed to their marketing and comms, and general in-house entertainment. She spent most of her career in editorial and strategy roles for the BBC, ITV and Discovery. She is a certified executive coach and facilitator, and marketing consultant.
Kate Hughes
An award-winning journalist and bestselling author, Kate farms on Exmoor. A mixed hill farm, the 450 acre agroecological holding includes 150 acres of new broadleaf woodland and 150 acres of agroforestry – pasture and arable – through which pigs, chickens and a Red Devon beef herd graze on rotation with heritage and population grains.
Katherine Wall
Katherine is an organiser in the land justice movement. She is currently working on a PhD exploring what happens when we do racial justice work in the land justice movement, seeking to understand how emotions shape this work and are shaped by it. Katherine also works for Resource Justice – supporting people with access to wealth, power and land to redistribute it to social movements.
Katie Allen
Katie is a farmer running a Pasture for Life certified livestock system under organic conversion. In 2021, she launched a knitwear collection handmade using the fleeces from her flock. Her work has won multiple awards and achieved South West England Fibreshed accreditation and has graced the catwalk at London Fashion Week 2023. Katie is in the process of establishing a market-garden scale dye garden at the farm alongside a community dye kitchen.
Katie-Jo Luxton
Katie-Jo is the Global Conservation Director for the RSPB, leading the charities’ mission to save species, protect habitats and restore landscapes to help end the nature and climate emergency, in the UK and internationally, with the Birdlife Partnership.
Kelly Parsons
Kelly is a Research Associate in the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge. Her research area is the intersection of food systems and policy, with a particular focus on policy processes and governance structures, and efforts to achieve more connected policymaking on food. She has a PhD in food policy and a Masters in food and nutrition policy, from the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London.
Kyle Lischak
Kyle is an internationally qualified and experienced lawyer with over twenty years of experience in the private, non-profit and government sectors. He is currently the Head of UK at the environmental law NGO ClientEarth, where he pursues a special focus on promoting more sustainable agricultural practices in the UK. Prior to ClientEarth, Kyle held legal positions at the Met Office and Natural England.
Lesley Mitchell
Lesley is Policy Director for the Sustainable Food Trust. Her work focuses on sustainable food and farming, leading major collaborations on regenerative agriculture and future of healthy, affordable food for all. She has worked to influence major corporates, international institutions, NGOs and food innovators to support a just transition to a regenerative future.
Leticija Petrovic
Leticija is a Local Food Policy Lead at the Food Foundation. She works with local authorities, cities and universities on development and implementation of local food action plans and strategies. Specifically looking at Food Sourcing and the role of local food hubs in supporting food system transformation.
Lindsay Whistance
Lindsay is a Senior Livestock Researcher at the Organic Research Centre focusing on how farming systems can offer farmed animals a ‘life worth living’. This includes enriched landscapes which offer valid choices to fulfil animals’ wants and needs, offering some autonomy from the human and respecting their fundamental role in ecological systems.
Liz Bowles
Liz is the Chief Executive of the Farm Carbon Toolkit. Her career spans roles with ADAS, English Food and Farming Partnerships and most recently the Soil Association, where for nine years she led all the farming-facing work which the organisation delivered. Liz has a specialist knowledge of farming within a climate change context.
Lizzie Dyer
Lizzie is originally from a mixed farm in North Somerset and now lives in Cricklade and runs Just Kidding, Cotswold Kid Meat with their partner Jamie. Lizzie is also the project manager for Feeding Gloucestershire and has served as deputy vice chair of Gloucestershire NFU.
Loa Niumeitolu
Loa Niumeitolu, a Tongan poet, community organizer and educator, is a farming teacher and lead farmer at Tennyson High School Farm in Hayward, California. She trained in planting foods of Moana Nui under Tura Koronui in Atiu, Cook Islands; and worked as a land steward at Sogorea Te Land Trust, and facilitates a Pasifika Planting Group at Filoli Historic House. She lives in Berkeley, United States, Lisjan Ohlone Territory.
Lord Deben
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 and Valpak Limited. He was the longest-serving Secretary of State for the Environment the UK has ever had (1993-97). His 16 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.
Lydia Collas
Lydia is a Senior Policy Analyst at the environmental think tank and charity Green Alliance. Lydia’s work considers the changes needed within farming and land use to maintain food production, restore nature and meet net zero. Lydia has a PhD in Conservation Science from the University of Cambridge.
Manchán Magan
Manchán writes occasionally for The Irish Times, and presents the Almanac of Ireland podcast for RTÉ. He has made dozens of documentaries on issues of world culture for TG4, RTÉ, and Travel Channel. His best-selling books include Thirty-Two Words For Field and Listen to the Land Speak.
Mandy Barber
Mandy owns a business and experimental growing space called Incredible Vegetables. Mandy is passionate about sustainable food crops that have built-in resilience, as well as wild edibles that have the potential to become future staple foods. Incredible Vegetables aims to create a diverse reserve of useful perennial edible plants, as well as supplying perennial vegetable seeds and plants to small-scale growers and agroforestry projects.
Marianne Fisher
Marianne is Sustainable Food Projects Manager at Monmouthshire County Council. She coordinates Monmouthshire Food Partnership and is also currently managing projects on regenerative agriculture and local food enterprise. Alongside her work, she is studying for a Masters in Rural Estate and Land Management at Harper Adams.
Mark Hunter
As the Strategic Lead of Food and Facilities, I oversee the daily operations, including catering across our schools, early years establishments, and community food services. As a continuous development initiative, I lead our Community and Dignified food program within the local authority. Close links with Ayrshire Food and Drink, we support and develop sustainable best practice shaping local procurement within the local authority.
Martin Lines
Martin is a farmer and contractor in South Cambridgeshire, growing mainly arable crops on a regenerative system on his family farm and rented land. He has a special interest in farm conservation management and has Countryside Stewardship schemes on his home farm and land he rents and manages. He also supports the delivery of Stewardship schemes for many other farmers. Martin is also the CEO of the Nature Friendly Farming Network.
Matt Smee
Matt works for the Organic Research Centre, focusing his time on the Agricology website and sharing knowledge within the farming community about agroecological practices. Prior to his role at the ORC Matt spent thirteen years building and running organic market gardens in the northwest of England.
Meerabi Chunduru
Meerabi Chunduru is a natural farmer in Andhra Pradesh. She joined the Women’s Self-Help Group in her village in early 2000. She is a master trainer with the AP Community-Managed Natural Farming. Her model using 30 types of seeds helps with cyclones and other disasters, reduce water usage, improve yields and health.
Michael Lee
Michael is an expert in sustainable livestock systems, defining their role in securing global food security at the same time as protecting environmental health (livestock’s role in human and planetary health). He is Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Harper Adams University, England’s Premier specialist agriculture and land use University.
Mikaela Loach
Mikaela is the best-selling author of It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action To Transform Our World, a climate justice activist, co-host of The YIKES Podcast, writer and former medical student based in Brighton. In 2021, she was one of three claimants on the “Paid To Pollute” case who took the UK government to court over the huge public payments they give to fossil fuel companies every year.
Million Belay
Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) General Coordinator. Million has been working for over two decades on intergenerational learning of bio-cultural diversity, agriculture, the rights of local communities to seed and food sovereignty and forest issues. He has a PhD in environmental learning, an MSc in tourism and conservation, and a BSc in Biology, and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).
Miriam Rose
Miriam is a global solidarity activist and researcher on the mining and metals industry as a core member of Foil Vedanta, and also manages Hardwick Estate in Oxfordshire which is owned by her family. Miriam and her brother have pioneered the Estate’s transition from private ownership becoming England’s first community-run Estate.
Miss Divine
My name is Miss Divine. I am a Environmental Community Engagement Consultant,DJ, music artist manager, compère and radio broadcast journalist from Bristol UK. With the use of my platforms, I am able to collaborate with community leaders and organisations within Bristol to actively highlight some of the environmental work being done locally and globally through the mediums of art, culture, music, community gardens and recycling.
Morgan Ody
Morgan is a peasant farmer in Brittany, France. She grows vegetables for a CSA. She is a member of Confédération Paysanne, a member of the coordinating committee of ECVC and the general coordinator of La Via Campesina.
Naomi Terry
Naomi Terry has researched on racial justice in UK farming, cultural dynamism within a global food system, and relational approaches to unfolding crises. She is a vegetable grower, decolonial educator and researcher.
Natasha Pencil
Natasha is the founder of Black Farmers Market CIC tackling British agriculture’s race problem, the power of growing your own and battling gentrification. She is an entrepreneur running a Caribbean sauce business called Taino and also a philosophist. In her day role she works for Children in Need and has experience working in the government administration industry and sales and non for profit; fundraising and coaching.
Nick Chappell
Nick is a hydrologist at Lancaster University (UK). He has 30 years of research experience on hydrology and water quality within temperate woodlands and tropical rainforests. Over the last 7 years, he has focused on quantifying the effectiveness of nature-based solutions for flood mitigation with partners including the Woodland Trust.
Nick Jacobs
Nick is the director of IPES-Food. He is a specialist in agri-food, trade and development policy, with a background in media, communications and political research.
Nikki Yoxall
Nikki is Head of Research at Pasture for Life, and a first-generation farmer based in NE Scotland, where she co-runs Grampian Graziers – working with local landowners to graze cattle for ecological and biodiversity benefit, whilst selling 100% pasture and tree-fed beef to the local community. Nikki is currently undertaking a PhD in Agroecological Transitions and has interests in Holistic Management, agroforestry, and connecting folk with their food.
Pàdruig Morrison
Pàdruig is a musician and crofter from Grimsay, Outer Hebrides. He took over the family croft at a young age and has continued to develop through the making of haylage and the reintroduction of cattle to the croft (after a 50-year absence). He keeps small traditional cattle along with pedigree Hebridean sheep, Blackface sheep, hens, and ducks. Pàdruig is a director of the Scottish Crofting Federation and has a huge passion for traditional crofting practices, as well as for the Gaelic culture and language. Pàdruig has just completed a PhD in Composition.
Patrick MacManaway
Patrick is a third-generation practitioner of psychic and healing arts. Past president of the British Society of Dowsers, with a degree in Medicine and clients in the US, UK and Australia, he has been working as a land whisperer since 1994, with domestic, commercial and agricultural clients.
Paula Gioia
Paula is a peasant farmer in a community farm in Germany and member of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft (AbL). Currently they facilitate the small holder farmers constituency in the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism (CSIPM) for relations with the Committee of World Food Security (CFS) and are also member of the Facilitation Committee of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC). Since 2015 Paula has been playing an active role in shaping the food sovereignty movement at European and global level.
Pearl Costello
Pearl works for Food Sense Wales, leading the Food Cardiff partnership and supporting national work to influence how food is produced and consumed in Wales. She previously led sustainability initiatives at the Royal Agricultural University and the NUS.
Peter Brooks
Peter is an investigative researcher who uncovers spatial violence using multimedia and architectural techniques. His practice looks at multispecies health, tying together environmental violence, animal rights, and public health. Peter’s current focus is on factory farming and nutrient pollution, with previous investigations into advertising and deep sea mining.
Peter Leeson
Peter trained as a Surveyor and worked on urban projects in London and Manchester before realising that the natural world was his thing. Peter has been at the Woodland Trust 30 years most recently working with farmers and landowners on agroforestry. Peter’s podcast “Tree Amble” is all about positive land management, people and wildlife.
Phil Carson
Phil is the NFFN policy lead, supporting farmer members to have their voices heard in key policy discussions. Prior to joining the network, Phil was a senior policy officer with the RSPB and before this, he worked as an environmental advisor to farmers in County Down, Northern Ireland.
Phil Scott
Phil is Head of Purpose & Sustainability for Lake District Farmers and has worked in the meat industry for 8 years. Working in collaboration with Lancaster University, Phil is the business lead on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership project called ‘Towards net-zero meat production’.
Rachel Fleming
Rachel is a founder of Animate Earth Collective, providing education and events that remember and restore our intimate relationship with the land. Originally an ecologist and government advisor, she has been curating and directing in this area for the last 12 years.
Rashka Mistry
For 10 years Raksha has successfully managed Food for Life in Leicestershire. The programme, funded by Leicestershire County Council is changing the culture of food in schools, extending to the wider community and generating the largest concentration of Food for Life gold and silver awards in the country.
Rebecca Laughton
Rebecca has been combining practical work as an organic grower and farmer, with research and campaigning for over twenty years. She is the Horticulture Campaigns Co-ordinator at Landworkers’ Alliance, and facilitator of a Defra Horticulture ELMS Test and Trial, “Growing the Goods”.
Rebecca Mayhew
Rebecca is a Farmer and Farm Shop owner in Norfolk running a 100% Pasture Fed cow with calf dairy and suckler herd on 500 acres with her husband Stuart, and two children Isobel and Jack.
Rebecca Tully
Rebecca is founder of Kids Kitchen Collective (from-scratch, savoury, family food), lives/works a mixed collective farm and coordinates Herefordshire Food Alliance. This year the Alliance forged diverse partnerships towards sustainable food -including between farmers of many kinds, citizen scientists, consumers – bringing farming methods into both river pollution and food conversations.
Rhoda Meek
Rhoda is a digital consultant and crofter in the Isle of Tiree. She wears many hats including; Chair of Tiree Trust, owner of Tiree Tea and founder of Isle Develop CIC. She runs 6 Luing cows and 80 Hebrideans / HebTex crosses, producing knitting yarn, tweed and mutton.
Rhys Evans
Rhys works with the NFFN as Cymru Sustainable Farming Lead, and helps run the family farm in North Wales. They have a flock of Welsh Mountain sheep and pedigree Welsh Black cattle. Rhys is eager to demonstrate how nature and farming can, and must, go hand in hand.
Richard Gantlett
Richard farms at Yatesbury in Wiltshire, on silty clay loam soil over lower chalk. Diverse leys of 23 species are used to grow the soil life, together with an Aberdeen Angus suckler herd. Rotationally grazing, with silvopastoral agroforestry is a critical element of cattle welfare. The farm is around 640ha also growing cereal crops.
Richie Walsh
Richie is the Lowlands Scotland Coordinator for the Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty Programme. He has an academic background in amenity horticulture, market gardening and plant conservation, and works professionally in the field of horticultural therapy. He has a passion for community food growing and over the last decade he has set up and run community gardens in Dublin, Amsterdam and Glasgow.
Robert Barbour
Robert is a researcher at the Sustainable Food Trust, working on a range of topics, including the SFT’s recent modelling of the land use and food production impacts of a UK-wide transition to regenerative, agroecological farming practices. He comes from a hill farming family in Highland Perthshire.
Robert Fraser
Robert is an Executive Director of the Real Farming Trust and is passionate about supporting people to develop a resilient, agroecological farming system which treats people, animals and nature with dignity, and has justice at its heart. Much of Robert’s time is spent exploring and developing novel ways to support food and farming businesses, both in terms of financial support and business mentoring. Robert is also a livestock farmer so has a broad and deep understanding of the sector and the challenges it faces.
Rochelle Diver
Rochelle, Anishinaabe, is a citizen of Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, an Indigenous Nation in Northern Minnesota. The Anishinaabe are water bearers, freshwater fishers, small-scale farmers, hunters and traditional stewards of the Great Lakes of the US and Canada. She is the UN Environmental Treaties Coordinator at the International Indian Treaty Council where her work focuses on the interconnectedness between food sovereignty, environmental toxics and the holistic health of Indigenous Peoples and future generations.
Rosie Boycott
Rosie was made a crossbench peer in 2018. She is currently Chair of Feeding Britain and Veg Power as well as a Trustee of the Food Foundation and a patron of Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming. She is a founding member of Peers for the Planet and formerly held the post of Chair of the London Food Board while editing, writing and campaigning on food issues.
Rosina Al-Shaater
Rosina is an environmental community engagement consultant, workshop facilitator, researcher, radio presenter (Ujima Radio) and creative. Her career in environmentalism formally began as a Black and Green Ambassador. She specialises in intersectional climate justice, nature connection, and intergenerational and intercultural healing through community arts, multimedia storytelling and skill exchange.
Ruth Westcott
Ruth campaigns for good food to be included in local and national policy and action on climate change, including for public sector food that reflects a planetary health diet. Ruth created Planning for the Planet, a campaign to halt pollution from factory farms through planning.
Sam Hayward
Sam is a campaigns officer in the Food for the Planet team at Sustain. He works alongside local government to develop better food and farming policy. Recently, he has been focused on the role that factory farming has played in the UK river pollution crisis.
Samantha Kenyon
Sam farms lowland fertile floodplain and ancient steep woodland on the banks of the River Elwy in North Wales. She believes that a biodiverse and regenerative approach to farming is key to mitigating the effects of the climate crisis and works year-round for soil resilience, reduced erosion, and increased carbon sequestration.
Sam Lee
Folksinger, songwriter, author, song collector, conservationist, and founder of The Nest Collective Sam connects British folksong with nature awareness in projects like his Singing With Nightingales concerts and nature pilgrimages. Through his music, writing, and public platforms Sam’s creativity campaigns for a renewed love of nature through the arts
Sandra Salazar
Sandra is a horticulturist/farmer and founder of GoGrowWithLove C.I.C, an indigenous melanin rich women-led organisation. Sandra teaches food growing and land/food sovereignty to children and families in nurseries, schools, and community projects and is the facilitator of a project called Women Leading With The Land, which focuses on empowering Women of African and Caribbean heritage to become SOILSISTARS and develop skills in land cultivation, food production and enterprise.
Sarah Pullen
Sarah leads the Food System Team at Birmingham City Council and develops strong city-wide partnerships to deliver the co-produced Birmingham Food System Strategy. Using her skills and experience in behavioural science and food systems, she overcomes barriers and generates innovative solutions to tackle the biggest challenges we face.
Satish Kumar
Satish is the Founder of Schumacher College. He was Editor of Resurgence magazine for 40 years. A former Jain monk, Satish Kumar went on an international pilgrimage for peace walking 8000 miles from New Delhi to Moscow, Paris, London and Washington. Satish is a lifelong activist in the cause of environmental sustainability, social justice and world peace. He is the recipient of Goi Peace Prize 2022.
Selma James
Selma is founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign and co-ordinator of Global Women’s Strike, which campaigns for a care income for all those caring for people, the land and the natural world. She is the author of Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet.
Shinya Imahashi
Shinyai is the Natural Agriculture farmer for the Shumei Yatesbury farm in the UK. As a long-time practitioner of Natural Agriculture, Shinya offers educational courses to gardeners and farmers wishing to learn more about seed-saving and cultivating crops and healthy soil without the use of any additives.
Silas Hedley-Lawrence
Silas is FAI’s Farm Manager, overseeing the commercial farming enterprise and coordinating the farm with its research obligations. Silas has eight years of experience managing farms regeneratively, with an emphasis on organic year-round grazing systems. With ties to New Zealand through his family dairy farm and kiwi fruit orchards, he maintains an emphasis on lean, profitable farming systems that also deliver on increasing biodiversity and soil health gains.
Simon Fairlie
Simon worked for twenty years variously as an agricultural labourer, vine worker, shepherd, fisherman, builder and stonemason before being ensnared by the computer in 1990. He was a coeditor of The Ecologist magazine for four years until he joined a farming community in 1994 where he managed the cows, pigs and a working horse. He now runs a micro dairy at Monkton Wyld Court, a charity and cooperative in rural Dorset
Sofía Monsalve Suárez
Sofía is a member of the IPES-Food panel, and the Secretary General of FIAN International. She has extensive advocacy experience in the UN human rights system, FAO and the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) contributing to the development of human rights standard setting.
Sofia Parente
Sofia provides strategic oversight, programme and staff management to local action projects and campaigns at Sustain. She grew up on a farm in the north west of Portugal and has a degree in Agronomy from the Technical University of Lisbon.
Sofie Quist
Sofie is a researcher and PhD candidate at the Arctic University of Norway, where her work focuses on ocean law and food sovereignty. She is also involved with the Tromsø community farm, growing herbs and vegetables in a short season under the midnight sun.
Sophie Gregory
First generation organic dairy farmer from Dorset Devon board. Passionate about getting the next generation into farming as well as shouting about the positive message of dairy farming. Recently awarded a Nuffield scholarship to investigate “the future of the organic dairy industry”.
Stephen Ware
Stephen is a farmer at MM & JE Ware & Sons.
Sue Pritchard
Sue is Chief Executive of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission and leads the organisation in its mission to bring people together to act on the climate, nature and health crises, through fair and sustainable food systems, and a just transition for rural communities. She is also a Trustee of CoFarm Foundation, an independent Governor at Royal Agricultural University, and a farmer based in Wales.
Swati Renduchintala
Swati Renduchintala is a development professional working in sustainable food systems, climate change and scale thinking. She is an Associate Scientist with World Agroforestry Centre, and programme manager for Andhra Pradesh community-managed natural farming, overseeing its national and international partnerships.
Tara Wight
Tara is a scientist and activist working on agroecological transitions and land justice in Scotland. She coordinates the Agroecology Research Collaboration and works in advocacy for the Landworkers’ Alliance. She has a background in crop science and is currently facilitating a farmer-led research project investigating the holistic benefits of agroecological practices.
Theona Morrison
Theona is a Crofter, Scottish Rural Action Chair and Director of CoDeL a social enterprise which focuses on young adults and their contribution to rural and island communities. A member of the Scottish Food Coalition led the development of curriculum materials in crofting, local food production and community land ownership. She lives in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, a crofting and Gaelic speaking community. She sees the ‘indigenous knowledge of crofting as key for the future.
Thin Lei Win
Thin is an award-winning multimedia journalist specialising in food and climate issues. She is Lead Reporter for the Food Systems Newsroom of Lighthouse Reports, a collaborative European news outlet, curates her newsletter Thin Ink and was an international correspondent for over a decade.
Tim Parton
Tim is a Farm Manager in South Staffordshire where he farms in the heartbeat of Mother Nature using biology and nutrition to eliminate a lot of synthetic inputs such as fungicides, insecticides, growth regulators, seed treatments and pre-emergence herbicides, while still achieving high yields, soil always being at the centre of any decision.
Tom Adams
Tom manages an organic fruit tree nursery in Shropshire using regenerative methods in an agroforestry system. He specialises in hard to find heritage apple varieties from the English/Welsh borderlands and is building a collection of local varieties from all over the country, helping to protect plant biodiversity and ensure this living heritage continues to be enjoyed for generations to come.
Tom Hartley
Tom studied horticulture with global plant use at Duchy College, Cornwall before gaining extensive practical experience at Farrington’s Farm Shop. There he was responsible for growing veg and running the box scheme, as well as ensuring the supply of vegetables to local Food for Life award-winning schools. He has been a Certification Officer since 2010 and looks after many horticultural licensees, as well as a number of seed mills and the certified inputs scheme. Outside of work, Tom can often be found on his allotment experimenting with unusual vegetable varieties.
Vijay Kumar
Vihay is Executive Vice Chairman of Rythu Sadhikara Samstha Andhra Pradesh (a government organisation for farmers’ empowerment). As CEO for the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, he implemented a state wide programme of poverty eradication based on women’s self-help groups, enabling the largest transition to agroecology in the world.
Will White
Will is Sustainable farming Coordinator at Sustain. He has a background in implementing Agroecological farming methods and managing vineyards. Will has also previously worked on issues surrounding food poverty, having coordinated food bank campaigns in Bristol and Manchester. Will is a dedicated advocate for nature friendly farming and fairness across the entirety of the food supply chain.
Yali Banton-Heath
Yali is the Campaigns Communications Coordinator at the Landworkers’ Alliance and has previously written freelance on topics of food policy, neoliberalism and land justice.