#95: ADOPT-Funded Innovations, Farming on Crutches, Regenerative Hospitality, and a Preview of ORFC 2027

In the third and final episode of our 2026 summer series, Farmerama speaks to two farmers currently working on ADOPT-funded projects: Emma Loder-Symons of Nonington Farms in Kent on the two-year Mill-It project to grow millet for human consumption, addressing harvesting without glyphosate and highlighting millet’s drought resilience and low-cost potential; and Bryony Graham, a fourth-generation arable farmer on the Essex/Hertfordshire border, on short rotation coppice willow for biomass and an ADOPT-funded trial to make clean, peat-free compost at commercial scale, alongside wider benefits for carbon capture and habitat. Find out more about all the ADOPT funded projects here: https://farmpep.net/adopt/live-projects We also head to Sierra Leone to hear from Mabutu Samai and farm manager Lahai Makie about Farming on Crutches, training amputees in agroecology and bokashi production while seeking funding to expand. Find out how to support their work here: https://farmingoncrutches.org/donate Geetie Singh-Watson and Philippa Hughes share details of their brand new Level 3 regenerative hospitality course, launching this month as a partnership between The Bull Inn in Totnes, Farmacy and the Apricot Centre. Find out more here: https://farmacylondon.com/pages/education And finally the ORFC Farm Practice Advisor Andy Dibben previews the diverse, practical programme of the 2027 Oxford Real Farming Conference. Tickets are on sale now: https://orfc.org.uk/event/oxford-real-farming-conference-2027/ ***** If you would like to support Farmerama to keep on sharing the stories of the regenerative farming community, there are lots of different ways you can help: Sign up for our monthly newsletter here. facebook.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?…5e20dde279 Become a community supporter on Patreon here. www.patreon.com/farmerama Show the world how much you love Farmerama by wearing one of our Farmerama caps – available here. farmerama-radio-ltd.square.site/ If you are a business who is aligned with our vision for crafting a positive ecological future rooted in the people on the land and seas, you can become a commercial supporter of the show. Read more about our mission and what we do here. drive.google.com/file/d/1yupfV514…view?usp=sharing

In the second episode of our 2026 summer series, Farmerama hears from Sheila Das, Head of Gardens and Parks at the National Trust. She reflects on regenerative agriculture’s influence on gardening, argues for less combative language (rejecting terms like “maintenance” and “ornamental”), and more focus on soil, roots, process, and seeing weeds as signals in living systems. Josiah Meldrum of Hodmedod introduces their forthcoming cookbook Whole Food (DK), framed as both recipes and a “recipe” for food-system change by “eating the rotation,” reviving stigmatized dishes like gruel and pottage, and valuing diverse UK arable crops and bi-cropping. You can pre-order Whole Food here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/hodmedods Anand Ethirajalu of Conscious Planet outlines Cauvery Calling’s agroforestry-led plan (2.42 billion trees; 140 million planted), organic nurseries, and Save Soil’s farmer training (50,000 trained; one-third transitioned), emphasising farm accounting and net profit. Finally, baker and historian Chloe-Rose Crabtree of SOURCED Journeys discusses “Sugar season,” linking sugar’s technical uses to histories of slavery and ongoing exploitation, questioning ethical sourcing, exploring unrefined sugars like piloncillo/panela. Read or pitch to SOURCED here: https://www.sourcedjourneys.com/blog *** If you would like to support Farmerama to keep on sharing the stories of the regenerative farming community, there are lots of different ways you can help: Sign up for our monthly newsletter here. facebook.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?…5e20dde279 Become a community supporter on Patreon here. www.patreon.com/farmerama Show the world how much you love Farmerama by wearing one of our Farmerama caps – available here. farmerama-radio-ltd.square.site/ If you are a business who is aligned with our vision for crafting a positive ecological future rooted in the people on the land and seas, you can become a commercial supporter of the show. Read more about our mission and what we do here. drive.google.com/file/d/1yupfV514…view?usp=sharing

In the first episode of our 2026 summer series, Farmerama hears from Sam Sivapragasam and Summayah Zannath, part of the core collective at Land in Our Names, about the progress of their Land Project for Black and people of colour. Plus Julia Kirby-Smith, executive director of Better Food Traders shares how this membership network is supporting independent sustainable food retailers. Thanks to the Six Inches of Soil podcast, we’re sharing Sheila Dillon talking about her long-time work in the food and farming broadcasting world and Abby Rose’s reflections on Cereal Revisited. And finally we’ve got a couple of voice notes to share from our Cereal Revisited Digital Soundmap. Find out more about the Land Project and donate to LION. https://landinournames.community/projects/land-project Find out more about becoming a Better Food Trader. https://betterfoodtraders.org/join-us/ Find Baking a Better Tomorrow here. https://www.sustainweb.org/news/feb26-new-magazine-baking-a-better-tomorrow-grain-changers/ You can listen to the full episode of Six Inches of Soil here. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/unite-bringing-together-podcasters-ideas-in-the-field/id1773830638?i=1000774217772 Listen to all the voicenotes on the Cereal Revisited Digital Soundmap here: https://farmerama.co/cereal-revisited/ *** If you would like to support Farmerama to keep on sharing the stories of the regenerative farming community, there are lots of different ways you can help: Sign up for our monthly newsletter here. https://facebook.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8278bad33b1ec2d4fc1203af0&id=5e20dde279 Become a community supporter on Patreon here. https://www.patreon.com/farmerama Show the world how much you love Farmerama by wearing one of our Farmerama caps – available here. https://farmerama-radio-ltd.square.site/ If you are a business who is aligned with our vision for crafting a positive ecological future rooted in the people on the land and seas, you can become a commercial supporter of the show. Read more about our mission and what we do here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yupfV514a-cjVDbWrBM6_8HQiL22ppb6/view?usp=sharing

Hello, and welcome to Farmerama. Today, we’re sharing an episode from our friends in Australia. SOIL: Rewilding the Underground is a 6-part documentary podcast that follows the farmers, scientists, Indigenous custodians and communities who are turning degraded dirt back into living soil. We’re sharing episode one, which traces our relationship with soil over millennia, to understand how humanity impacts the living, breathing universe of soil hidden beneath our feet, and the role that we play in their ecosystems. The series is told by Freya Mulvey, a lawyer and environmental enthusiast, so it’s a slightly different and wider ranging perspective on soil than we usually cover on Farmerama - we think you’ll really enjoy it. If you do, go ahead and listen to the rest of the six-part series, and stay up to date with the amazing work that Jess and Freya are doing by following them on socials, adding your voice to their impact survey, or checking out the resources on their website - links below. As for Farmerama, we recently celebrated our 10th birthday! Thanks to all of you who’ve tuned in over this time - it’s a real privilege that we get to share the voices, knowledge and practical learnings of people on the land and seas and as ever we are so grateful for all of you out there doing the work on the ground to build a more ecological farming future for us all. For those of you in the UK, we will be at Groundswell on the 1st and 2nd of July, and will be hosting evening drinks on July 1st, where we will hear from some Cereal Revisited contributors as well as more celebrating a decade of storytelling with Farmerama listeners. Keep your eyes out for us in the Groundswell Programme! And stay tuned as we release our Summer season of episodes starting next month Enjoy episode one of SOIL: Rewilding the Underground. SOIL links: Follow the journey @soilpodcast on instagram Head to the website to listen to further episodes at https://www.thesoilpodcast.com/podcast and respond to the impact survey as well as find further resources!

Cereal Revisited is a new podcast, report and digital soundmap documenting the extraordinary actions listeners took in response to Cereal – our six-part series uncovering the polarised world of bread. The project explores how grassroots storytelling can become an engine of change and celebrates all those working to reimagine a more diverse and hopeful bread future – from the ground up. Find out more https://farmerama.co/cereal-revisited/ In Cereal Revisited, host Katie Revell explores the ripple effects of the original series and asks how the new grains movement has evolved in the years since. We hear from original contributors about how their thinking and priorities have shifted, alongside new voices – people who were inspired to redefine their work and lives after listening. We return to Cereal to ask what has changed, and what still feels stuck? What kinds of structures, relationships, and resources are needed to take this work further? And how can grassroots storytelling help more of us to recognise our own role within the system that sustains us? If Cereal has resonated with you in any way, or sparked a shift in how you think or work with grain, we’d love to add you to our soundmap. Send us a voice note via the Farmerama WhatsApp +447466301300, telling us who you are, how you came across the series, and how it inspired any change or action – big or small.

We are the bread system. If you eat bread – or any grains – you are part of it. >> This series was first released in Nov/Dec 2019. We are re-releasing it now 6 years later as we are digging back in to document the collective impact of the series and to celebrate the work of those continuing to build the new grains movement. As part of this project we are collecting voice notes from anyone who listened, inviting you to share a bit of how Cereal impacted you and whether the series sparked any change or action, big or small - maybe it made you think differently about something, or maybe you completely changed career - we want to hear both and all stories! The voice notes will form part of a new Farmerama episode and digital soundmap. We are collecting these stories now, so if you would like to send your story our way, then you can send us an audio message on: WhatsApp +447466301300, or via our instagram messages. Please let us know who you are, where you are based and then whatever part of your story you would like to share. We are excited to hear from you! >> So how can we all get involved, and what can we do to usher in the new grains movement to build joy, nutrition and resilience in all of our communities? In this final episode, we explore what a more efficient, nutritious, regenerative and joyful bread system might look like. We hear some of the ways people are coming together and building networks to strengthen the movement in the UK and further afield. It’s clear that in this beautifully complex, entangled system, even just a conversation can spark much wider change. This is a story of hope and a blueprint that has the potential to cause reverberations far beyond bread. It turns out that bread is political – and you, too, can take a stand for the world you want to live in. This might be our final episode of Cereal, but it isn’t the end – it’s just the beginning! Join the new grains movement. Talk to your local bakers, seek out local millers, thank your farmers, be open-minded, be curious. A huge thank you to everyone who’s contributed to Cereal. As well as the voices you hear in this episode, many more conversations have helped to shape the series. Thanks to Andrew Whitley (Scotland the Bread), Kim Bell (Small Food Bakery and UK Grain Lab), Mark Lea (Greenacres Farm), Fred Price (Gothelney Farmer), Steven Jacobs (Organic Farmers & Growers), Ben MacKinnon (E5 Bakehouse), Anne Parry (Felin Ganol), Rupert Dunn (Torth y Tir), Josiah Meldrum (Hodmedods), Tomaso Ferrando (University of Antwerp) and Fintan Keenan. Thanks also to the Lost Revellers and everyone who came to the Nottingham Cereal launch harvest party and lent their voices to make the Flour Ambassador's Pledge. This series was made possible thanks to the generosity of the Roddick Foundation. Please listen, share, review and subscribe, and support the farmers instigating change. All six episodes can be found on Soundcloud and all podcasting platforms. And if you’d like to support Farmerama, visit patreon.com/farmerama. Cereal is produced and edited by Katie Revell, with support from Abby Rose and Jo Barratt. Suzie MacCarthy and Hanna Söderlund also worked on the series. Our theme music is by Owen Barratt. Voices: Andrew Whitley, co-founder of the Real Bread Campaign, and Scotland the Bread Kimberley Bell, founder Small Food Bakery, Nottingham Steven Jacobs, Business Development Manager, Organic Farmers and Growers Ben MacKinnon, founder E5 Bakehouse, London Anne Parry, Felin Ganol Watermill, Wales, and Welsh Grain Forum Rupert Dunn, Torth y Tir Community-Supported Peasant Bakery, Wales Josiah Meldrum, co-founder Hodmedods Mark Lea, Greenacres Farm, Shropshire Fred Price, Gothelney Farm, Somerset Tomaso Ferrando, Bread as a Commons Fintan Keenan, farmer, miller and engineer, Denmark/Ireland

>> This series was first released in Nov/Dec 2019. We are re-releasing it now 6 years later as we are digging back in to document the collective impact of the series and to celebrate the work of those continuing to build the new grains movement. As part of this project we are collecting voice notes from anyone who listened, inviting you to share a bit of how Cereal impacted you and whether the series sparked any change or action, big or small - maybe it made you think differently about something, or maybe you completely changed career - we want to hear both and all stories! The voice notes will form part of a new Farmerama episode and digital soundmap. We are collecting these stories now, so if you would like to send your story our way, then you can send us an audio message on: WhatsApp +447466301300, or via our instagram messages. Please let us know who you are, where you are based and then whatever part of your story you would like to share. We are excited to hear from you! >> The UK is the fifth largest economy and has some of the cheapest bread in the world - is that something to be proud of, or is it a convenient outcome of a system that prioritises shareholder profit, fobs off economically deprived people with poor quality food, and throws away a third of what it produces? It’s so ingrained in us that cheap food is better for everyone, but in this episode we ask you to stop and really think - are we supporting a system that is efficient for lining the pockets of a few, whilst impoverishing everyone else? What if the real cost is our collective health, and the health of the planet? Bread is not just money, bread is nourishment, deliciousness, companionship, connectedness, pride, politics. In this episode we hear from bakers up and down the UK who are redefining the value of bread. Bakers who are making a stand for their communities and the planet. Bakers from some of the most economically deprived areas who are bringing meaning, intention and joy to their baking. Bakers who are being recognised for their craft and sharing the benefits with their local communities. This is about food networks, not food chains -- this is about reaching true efficiency that takes into account the whole system (health, environment, waste, community, joy), not just the financial balance sheet. The radical changes that bread has undergone are revealing of much wider truths about our relationships with food, to farmers, with the land, the environment, and with each other. If you eat food, you have a stake in this story. Voices: Chris MacCormack, Govanhill bread man Theo Laffargue, Riverside Bakery, Stirling, Scotland Ben MacKinnon, E5 Bakehouse, London Catriona Milligan, High Rise Bakers,The Gorbals, Glasgow Rupert Dunn, Torth y Tir, Wales Kimberley Bell, Small Food Bakery, Nottingham

>> This series was first released in Nov/Dec 2019. We are re-releasing it now 6 years later as we are digging back in to document the collective impact of the series and to celebrate the work of those continuing to build the new grains movement. As part of this project we are collecting voice notes from anyone who listened, inviting you to share a bit of how Cereal impacted you and whether the series sparked any change or action, big or small - maybe it made you think differently about something, or maybe you completely changed career - we want to hear both and all stories! The voice notes will form part of a new Farmerama episode and digital soundmap. We are collecting these stories now, so if you would like to send your story our way, then you can send us an audio message on: WhatsApp +447466301300, or via our instagram messages. Please let us know who you are, where you are based and then whatever part of your story you would like to share. We are excited to hear from you! >> Last year the majority of wheat grown in the UK went to feed animals. And of the wheat that did become flour in our homes and bakeries, most of that flour had to have nutrients added back into it - by law - because it was almost nutritionless by the time it came out of the mill. In episode 4 we ask how did the milling process lead us to producing flour with almost no nutritional value? And why would the majority of the wheat grown in the UK go to animal feed? We meet millers around the UK who are doing things differently, providing flour with terroir, flour that is fresh and filled with nutrition, using locally grown heritage varieties that are benefiting people and planet. The radical changes that bread has undergone are revealing of much wider truths about our relationships with food, to farmers, with the land, the environment, and with each other. If you eat food, you have a stake in this story.

>> This series was first released in Nov/Dec 2019. We are re-releasing it now 6 years later as we are digging back in to document the collective impact of the series and to celebrate the work of those continuing to build the new grains movement. As part of this project we are collecting voice notes from anyone who listened, inviting you to share a bit of how Cereal impacted you and whether the series sparked any change or action, big or small - maybe it made you think differently about something, or maybe you completely changed career - we want to hear both and all stories! The voice notes will form part of a new Farmerama episode and digital soundmap. We are collecting these stories now, so if you would like to send your story our way, then you can send us an audio message on: WhatsApp +447466301300, or via our instagram messages. Please let us know who you are, where you are based and then whatever part of your story you would like to share. We are excited to hear from you! >> Intensive chemical (or conventional) farming systems can be incredibly efficient in perfect conditions, but in a global climate emergency this method of farming is out of date. We hear how soil health, biodiversity and regenerative farming are enabling farmers to move to a new system of farming that is nutritious for humans and the land. What is the experience of farmers growing the wheat, that’s ground to flour, that makes our bread? We explore why farmers are moving away from intensive chemical systems to more ecological approaches, why farmers are reclaiming their autonomy, detaching themselves from exploitative commodity markets, re-building connections with seed breeders, millers, bakers, and consumers – and once again finding reasons to celebrate diversity and distinctiveness. The radical changes that bread has undergone are revealing of much wider truths about our relationships with food, to farmers, with the land, the environment, and with each other. If you eat food, you have a stake in this story.

>> This series was first released in Nov/Dec 2019. We are re-releasing it now 6 years later as we are digging back in to document the collective impact of the series and to celebrate the work of those continuing to build the new grains movement. As part of this project we are collecting voice notes from anyone who listened, inviting you to share a bit of how Cereal impacted you and whether the series sparked any change or action, big or small - maybe it made you think differently about something, or maybe you completely changed career - we want to hear both and all stories! The voice notes will form part of a new Farmerama episode and digital soundmap. We are collecting these stories now, so if you would like to send your story our way, then you can send us an audio message on: WhatsApp +447466301300, or via our instagram messages. Please let us know who you are, where you are based and then whatever part of your story you would like to share. We are excited to hear from you! >> Today, wheat covers an estimated 218 million hectares of the planet – more than any other food crop. The quality of a loaf starts with the wheat. Most bread we eat today is made using modern varieties of wheat that were bred for yield at the expense of everything else. These seeds produce a monoculture of plants that can yield a lot in a good year, but are reliant on chemical inputs and extremely vulnerable in the face of climatic extremes. Most shockingly international legislation dictates that trading any wheat seeds that don’t fit the modern wheat breeding criteria is essentially illegal. We hear from a top scientist about new findings showing we need to dramatically rethink the seeds we sow if we want to feed the planet in years to come, re-focusing on diversity and quality. And there’s real hope – stories of people all over the UK who are finding ways around these oppressive laws, building up a seedbank that supports diversity, low-input ecological farming and nutritious grains to feed people. This is just the beginning. The radical changes that bread has undergone are revealing of wider truths about our relationships with food, to farmers, with the land, the environment, and with each other. This if the second episode in a 6 part series, Cereal, uncovering the hidden truths behind our bread and the people who are building a new grains movement. Cereal is written and produced by Katie Revell and made possible by the generous support of the Roddick Foundation. Featured in this episode: Andrew Whitley, Bread Matters, Chairman of Scotland the Bread, currently based at Bowhouse Fife Rupert Dunn, Torth y Tir, community supported peasant bakery, Wales John Letts, Heritage Harvest Martin Wolfe, Wakelyn’s Agroforestry (previously Professor of Plant Pathology at Cambridge) Mark Lea, Green Acres Farm, Shropshire Kimberley Bell, Small Food Bakery, Nottingham Josiah Meldrum, Hodmedods