Iain Tolhurst on 40 years of organic horticulture: Lessons, trials and triumphs (part one)

Bringing the fourth series of the SFT podcast to a close, Patrick Holden caught up with longtime friend and one of the pioneers of the UK’s organic farming movement, Iain ‘Tolly’ Tolhurst. “We need to bring farming back into society. It’s become completely divorced from society.” Tolhurst Organic, located on the Hardwick Estate between the Chilterns and the river Thames, is a model of sustainability, and one of the longest running organic vegetable farms in England. For over 40 years, Tolly has been producing a wide range of seasonal, organic fruits and vegetables, which are sold to the local community through a box scheme. His farm was the first to attain the “Stockfree Organic” symbol in 2004, and there have been no grazing animals and no animal inputs to any part of the farm for over 30 years. To build soil fertility, Iain uses green manures as part of a crop rotation, as well as using vegetable and woodchip compost from waste materials. With his extensive knowledge and experience of organic food production, Iain also delivers educational talks across the UK and beyond, and runs a consultancy service giving advice on organic conversion and production, helping to train and educate farmers and growers for the future. During this episode, Patrick and Tolly explore the economics of farming and what it means to pay the ‘right price’ for our food. Tolly also talks about the productive capacity of Tolhurst Organic and how they’re feeding the surrounding community through their veg box scheme. Patrick and Iain delve into the current state of the UK farming sector amidst the changing policy around farm subsidies and how this is affecting both organic and conventional farmers, before closing with a conversation on the importance of demonstration farms for informing and educating people about the story behind their food and the need to incentivise farmers for this. To find out more about Iain and Tolhurst Organic, follow @tolhurstorganicveg on Instagram, or visit www.tolhurstorganic.co.uk. This conversation has been split into two episodes – for part one click here, or find the episode wherever you get your podcasts from. To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to our main podcast page. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, X or Facebook.

Bringing the fourth series of the SFT podcast to a close, Patrick Holden caught up with longtime friend and one of the pioneers of the UK’s organic farming movement, Iain ‘Tolly’ Tolhurst. Tolhurst Organic, located on the Hardwick Estate between the Chilterns and the river Thames, is a model of sustainability, and one of the longest running organic vegetable farms in England. For over 40 years, Iain has been producing a wide range of seasonal, organic fruits and vegetables, which are sold to the local community through a box scheme. His farm was the first to attain the “Stockfree Organic” symbol in 2004, and there have been no grazing animals and no animal inputs to any part of the farm for over 30 years. To build soil fertility, Iain uses green manures as part of a crop rotation, as well as using vegetable and woodchip compost from waste materials. With his extensive knowledge and experience of organic food production, Iain also delivers educational talks across the UK and beyond, and runs a consultancy service giving advice on organic conversion and production, helping to train and educate farmers and growers for the future. During this episode, Patrick and Iain recount how they first met in 1981 when the UK Organic Farming movement was still in its infancy, and Iain shares the origin of his passion for horticulture, including his earliest influences. They also discuss the impacts of World War II on agriculture in the UK and what lessons we can learn from this, before digging into Iain’s farming practices including the use of wood chip, as well as a discussion around the the role of livestock. To find out more about Iain and Tolhurst Organic, follow @tolhurstorganicveg on Instagram, or visit https://www.tolhurstorganic.co.uk. This conversation has been split into two episodes – tune in for part two on Wednesday 10th April. To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to our main podcast page. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, Xor Facebook.

Julius Roberts – a first-generation farmer and chef with a passion for seasonal cooking and self-sufficiency – joins Patrick Holden for this episode of the SFT podcast. After studying sculpture at university, Julius worked as a full-time chef in London before moving to a smallholding in Dorset where he now farms. He keeps a range of livestock, including goats, sheep and pigs, and grows a wide variety of vegetables. He’s also amassed an online audience of over one million followers, where he shares delicious, seasonal recipes, inspiring people to think more about the seasonality and provenance of their food. In 2023 he published his recipe book, The Farm Table, which is now a Sunday Times bestseller. During the conversation, Patrick and Julius discuss a range of issues, including the pressured but inspiring time that he spent working as a full-time chef in London, the role of restaurants in providing a “home for good farming”, and humans’ responsibility to ensure a good life and death for the animals that provide our milk, cheese, meat and more. Talking about his animals, Julius comments, “I feel very privileged to be so close to my food. When you rear animals on the scale that I do, they become companions… and they should be respected… What has happened to the world of meat to make it cheap for us and an everyday commodity is a scar on humanity.” They also explore the power of storytelling and social media in connecting people with the story behind their food, as well as touching upon the current farmer protests taking place in Europe and the UK. To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to our main podcast page. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, X or Facebook.

In this episode of the SFT podcast, Patrick Holden sat down with John and Alice Pawsey, pioneering organic farmers of Shimpling Park Farm in Suffolk. As well as farming 650 hectares of arable land and 1,000 New Zealand Romney breeding ewes, Shimpling Park also farms an additional 980 hectares of land for neighbouring farmers, all of which are managed organically. Diversifications on the farm include an extensive environmental scheme to support nature-friendly farming and various renewable energy projects, and the farm regularly hosts school visits and events. During the conversation, John and Alice discuss their journey from conventional to organic agriculture, as well as their decision to re-integrate livestock into their mainly arable system. They also touch on the role of farms as educational centres to help connect people with the story behind their food, before finishing with a discussion on agricultural policy and what the future of farming looks like for organic farmers, following the introduction of new environmental land management schemes. John and Alice also feature in the SFT's Feeding Britain from the Ground Up report, as an example of what future farming could look like. To find out more about their farm, watch this video. To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to our main podcast page. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, X or Facebook.

For this episode of the SFT podcast, Patrick Holden travelled to the Cotswolds to catch up with Dame Prue Leith – renowned restaurateur, cook, novelist and judge on the hugely popular Great British Bake Off. Prue recounts the incredible life she has led, from growing up in South Africa during Apartheid, to living in France where she discovered her passion for cooking. Prue and Patrick’s far-ranging discussion takes in everything from the value of cooking from scratch and the insidious rise of ultra-processed foods to the importance of connecting chefs with the provenance of their ingredients and the role of economics in enabling widescale uptake of organic and regenerative farming methods.  Prue Leith’s Cotswold Kitchen launches on ITV1 and ITVX on Saturday 24th February, and you can find out more about autobiography I’ll Try Anything Once here. To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to our main podcast page. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, X or Facebook.

As we reach the halfway point in this current series of the SFT podcast, Patrick Holden becomes the interviewee in a conversation with Dave Chapman on all things organic. Dave is the co-founder of the Real Organic Project, a farmer-led movement based in the US which aims to strengthen people’s understanding of the organic movement, including the traditional values and practices. Dave has devoted much of his life to organic farming and is also the co-founder of Vermont Organic Farmers. In this episode, Patrick and Dave both share how they came to be involved in the organic movement in the UK and US respectively, and reflect on how the movement has changed over time and continues to develop across the world. Later on in the episode, they discuss the challenges associated with commercialising organic standards and how in doing so this risks diluting the philosophy and basic principles behind the movement. Speaking from the US, Dave also talks about how organic standards there have deteriorated in recent years with the rise of so-called organic CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) and hydroponics, and how this could influence the organic standards of other countries around the world. To find out more about the Real Organic Project, visit https://realorganicproject.org. This episode is also available to listen to on the Real Organic Project’s website here. To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to our main podcast page. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, X or Facebook.

Kicking off the new year and marking our fourth episode in the latest SFT podcast series, Patrick Holden meets with Ian Wilkinson at this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference. Ian is the Managing Director of Cotswold Seeds which boasts a bespoke seed catalogue, supplying 15,000 farmers across the UK with green manures, cover crops, herbal leys and more. He is also the co-founder of FarmEd, an organisation based at Honeydale Farm, a diverse 107 acre mixed farm in the Cotswolds, operating as a space for education and connection around sustainable farming and food systems. During the episode, Patrick and Ian discuss the history behind events like the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) and the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC), recalling earlier iterations of both and how each has developed over time. Ian delves into the origins of organic seed, the evolution of Cotswold Seeds and the importance of demonstration farms as beacons for knowledge-sharing and on-farm education. Patrick and Ian also take a moment to highlight the potential of true cost accounting to reveal the hidden costs behind so-called ‘cheap food’ and why good quality, organic food appears so expensive. To find out more about Cotswold Seeds, visit cotswoldseeds.com and for more information about FarmEd, visit farm-ed.co.uk. This episode doubles up as a dual podcast, in which Patrick and Ian both take turns interviewing one another. You can also listen to the episode on FarmEd’s spotify channel here. To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to our main podcast page. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, X or Facebook.

For the third episode of the SFT podcast, and closing out 2023, Patrick Holden caught up with Sarah Langford – a criminal and family barrister, turned organic farmer and author of the critically acclaimed book, Rooted: How Regenerative Farming Can Change the World. Sarah spent 10 years as a barrister living in London, during which time she also wrote her debut book, the Sunday Times bestseller In Your Defence: Stories of Life and Law, to highlight the stories of those she represented and the legal system she was once a part of. In 2017, with her husband and two sons, she decided that it was time to leave the city and get back to the land in Suffolk, where she and her husband took on the management of his small, family farm. In this episode, Sarah shares with Patrick her journey from barrister to farmer, as well as her love of the land and belief in the power of farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange in driving the transition to more sustainable systems. Finally, Sarah reflects on the life of her farming heroine, Lady Eve Balfour. You can find out more and keep up with Sarah by following her on Instagram (@sarahlangfordwrites) and X (@wigsandwords), or by visiting her website: www.sarahlangfordwrites.com. To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to our main podcast page. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, X or Facebook.

While in Dubai at COP28, Patrick caught up with Helmy Abouleish, who – through his work as CEO of sustainable development initiative, SEKEM – has launched a soil carbon credit scheme in Egypt, bringing together around 40,000 farmers who are mainly smallholders farming biodynamically and organically.  With food and agriculture a central theme at this year’s COP, the SEKEM model, which honours farmers for their ecosystem services, including saving water, improving soil carbon, planting trees and increasing biodiversity, is a focus of conversation.  From reclaiming desert land to natural pest control, cattle management and composting, Helmy describes how SEKEM has brought life to the desert in Egypt.  The initiative is about much more than just farming, with schools, a university, medical centre and arts department serving the local community. “It’s not only about the tractor” says Helmy, “it’s also about the music.”  “The spirit of COP needs to be about collaboration, synching our differences and acting in the common interest.” To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to the main podcast page on our website at sustainablefoodtrust.org. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, X or Facebook @SusFoodTrust.

In this first episode, Patrick Holden meets Sophie Gregory – one of the UK’s most prominent first-generation dairy farmers. With a passion for connecting more people with the origins of their food, Sophie talks to Patrick about how she first got into farming, her plans for her Nuffield scholarship on the future of organic, and why she feels education on food and farming is so essential. Want to find out more about Sophie and her farm? Find her on Instagram: @farmer_in_training To listen to more SFT podcasts, featuring some of the biggest names in regenerative food and farming, head to the main podcast page on our website at sustainablefoodtrust.org. And to keep up with our news, you can subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter or follow us on Instagram, X or Facebook @SusFoodTrust.