In this bonus episode we focus on the question of how best to tackle the big climate issues of our time on a practical local level? Hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are joined by three guests – Jenny Phelps MBE who is Senior Farm Conservation Adviser at FWAG; Fiona Galbraith who is the Founding Director of RuralLink which helps people get into land based careers as well as a former Project Lead for the GREAT Project on Rural Facilitators, Mentors and New Entrants; and Ian Simpson who is a founder member of the community led Bledington Flood Group, committed to preventing flooding in Bledington ..read more

Ben and Will are joined by Sue Pritchard, Chief Executive of The Food Farming & Countryside Commission (FFCC). The FFCC is an independent UK charity whose mission is to find radical and practical ways to improve climate, nature, health, wellbeing and rural economies across all four of the home nations; England, Wales, Scotland and NI. The organisation commissions and conducts research and reports relating to agroecology and local food systems, hoping to influence policy reform and future policy development. Sue has also been an organic livestock farmer at Llananant Farm in the heart of Mon ..read more

Ben and Will are joined by Jenny Phelps MBE who is a senior farm conservation advisor for the Gloucestershire Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) and guest lecturer at the Royal Agricultural University. Jenny has over 30 years of experience in giving on-farm advice and has been with FWAG for 10 years. She leads many different projects, including the Upper Thames Catchment Based Approach and Defra's Payments for Ecosystem Services Pilot. Several years back, she developed the integrated local delivery framework with the support of Countryside and Community Research Institute and Natural E ..read more

Ben and Will head to Aberdeenshire to speak to first-generation farmer, grazier and NFFN Scotland Steering Group member Nikki Yoxall.  From agroecology to agroforestry, Nikki shares how an agroecological approach can go beyond food production and how building community can help manage a wider landscape. She shares her journey into farming, a decision that came after working as Head of Department at an agricultural college in England and that brought her and her husband to Scotland and their 18-acre farm, Howemill. Nikki talks about her introduction to holistic farm management as the gatew ..read more

Ben and Will head to County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to talk about all aspects of food quality with farmer, Helen Keys, and to hear about her exciting business, SourceGrow, a platform that helps farmers decide what to grow and supports local by allowing restaurants to find suppliers. Helen also shares how she, and her partner, Charlie, are working to restore locally-grown textiles by bringing Irish linen back to its roots. In the past, Belfast was known as "Linenopolis" but in recent decades linen production had all but disappeared. Now, Mallon Linen are In their fourth year of growing flax f ..read more

In this episode, Ben & Will speak with Aylwin Pillai, an environmental lawyer and partner in family-run Kinclune Estate and Organic Farm in Angus, Scotland. Aylwin shares more about her family farming history, their regenerative approaches to land use and why she's an activist for nature-friendly farming and the important role of small farms in advocating for changes in land use and subsidies. She shares how Kinclune is tackling climate change,  biodiversity restoration and carbon emissions through an agroecological and holistic approach that includes woodland maintenance, agroforestr ..read more

In this episode, we focus on the water section of NFFN’s ‘Rethink Farming’ report by speaking to Sam Kenyon in North Wales. Sam farms next to the River Elway in Denbighshire, and we hear all about how she’s taking a proactive and nature-friendly approach to water management, and how farmers should be planning for a changing climate ..read more

For World Soil Day, Ben and Will are digging into all things SOIL with William Scale, a farmer with 20 years experience of no-tillage farming in Pembrokeshire. They dive into the ground beneath our feet through the stories of William’s farming and why an ecological approach to land management matters to soil function ..read more

The NFFN podcast is back! And for the first episode of series three, Ben and Will talk to arable farmer and NFFN steering group member, Patrick Barker, all about the incredible range of environmental measures he and his cousin Brian have put in place on their farm, why it’s so important that farmers engage with the public, and the what’s, why’s, and how’s of NFFN’s new report and campaign ‘Rethink Farming: A Practical Guide for Farming, Nature and climate’ which we’ll be exploring throughout this series. All this, and lots more ..read more

In this final episode of the second series of the podcast Ben Eagle and Will Evans meet Anthony Curwen who is Managing Director of Quex Park in Kent. They learn about how Anthony's business changed from a large-scale vegetable operation to a fully diversified estate including multiple diversifications on top of the arable business ..read more