Nature Friendly Farming Podcast

The new season of the Nature Friendly Farming Network Podcast is dedicated to exploring the big issues around agriculture in Northern Ireland, in association with Danske Bank and recorded at its headquarters in Belfast. In this episode, NFFN NI manager Cormac Dolan speaks to Stephen and Hannah Alexander of Ballyboley Dexters, a family-run farm in County Down producing Pedigree Dexter cattle. Stephen and Hannah discuss the benefits and challenges of cutting out the middle man and selling their beef directly to customers. They explain why producing a high-quality product is only part of the journey, and why good marketing and building relationships with customers are increasingly important for farmers looking to add value to what they produce. Stephen and Hannah share how direct sales can help strengthen the connection between farmers and consumers, while supporting animal welfare and helping to limit the environmental impact of their farming system. Packed with practical insights on diversification, direct sales, marketing and producing food in a more sustainable way, this episode offers an honest look at how farmers can take greater control of the journey from farm to fork.

The new season of the Nature Friendly Farming Podcast is dedicated to exploring the big issues around agriculture in Northern Ireland, in association with Danske Bank and recorded at its headquarters in Belfast. In this episode, NFFN NI manager Cormac Dolan is joined by farmers Bronagh O'Kane and Jonny Blair to discuss soil health, low-input farming and the journey towards reducing reliance on artificial fertiliser. They explain how growing grass with little or no fertiliser is possible, why cutting back needs to happen gradually, and how healthier soils can improve both farm resilience and financial performance. Bronagh and Jonny also reflect on the challenges of changing long-established farming practices, including the role of succession and the pressures of doing things differently from previous generations. Packed with practical insights and honest experiences, this episode offers valuable advice for farmers considering their own journey towards lower-input, more nature-friendly farming.

The new season of the Nature Friendly Farming Podcast is dedicated to exploring the big issues around agriculture in Northern Ireland, in association with Danske Bank and recorded at its headquarters in Belfast. In this first episode, NFFN NI manager Cormac Dolan is joined by NFFN NI steering group farmer Helen Keys and Chris Shannon, who runs a software company and co-founded an organisation supporting entrepreneurs to meet social and environmental challenges. They discuss what it means for farmers to see themselves as entrepreneurs, how innovation in techniques and practices can be encouraged within the sector and how issues such as launches and risks should be managed. Helen and Chris also talk about the cultural and practical barriers that still exist and prevent farmers trying out new approaches and offer some practical tips for farmers on how they can create time and space for thinking about innovating and changing the way they work. Helen farms with her husband Charlie just outside Cookstown in County Tyrone. Having previously been home to mixed, dairy and suckler beef farming, the main output is currently flax which is grown in nature-friendly ways and sold under the name Mallon Linen. She also works to encourage entrepreneurship with universities and businesses and has supported a number of start-ups in their journey.  Chris co-founded Stardium, a software company that helps organisations to modernise in ways that support entrepreneurship, and is also a co-founder along with Helen of Venture Folk, a social enterprise that delivers projects tackling societal and environmental issues. The Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN) is a UK-wide, farmer-led membership organisation which supports thousands of farmers in their journeys towards working in ways that reduce their dependence on artificial and chemical inputs and put nature at the heart of food production. It hosts knowledge sharing events for farmers to learn from their peers while lobbying for food and farming policies from governments across the UK and the supply chain which support farmers to work in nature-friendly and regenerative ways.

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, a Cotswold village on the border of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Integrated Local Delivery websiteAnimation about integrated local delivery frameworkRural Facilitator TrainingRural Link websiteFWAG South WestIn this episode we look at the catchment based approach and how you could train to be a facilitator to bring local people, farmers and organisations together in your local area to tackle the issues that your area faces as a result of climate change. 

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 Monmouthshire, Wales for over twenty years. Having an extended family full of agricultural workers and smallholders in the Welsh Valleys, Sue had spent many years dreaming of owning a farm before joining forces with her miner father to make the move into agriculture in 2001. She has a herd of Hereford suckler cattle that she uses to produce high-quality, pasture-fed beef. This episode focuses on the final section of the Nature Friendly Farming Network's Rethink Farming report: Prosperity. Will, Ben and Sue discuss the importance of professor Tim Benton's statement from the report; "over the next decade, the profitability of sustainable agriculture will become increasingly apparent – especially in the UK as public monies invested in agriculture change, where perhaps only those farms that truly value natural capital will survive". Sue also shares her opinions and experiences on valuing a "generative" mindset over an "extractive" mindset to help run a flourishing, profitable and sustainable farming business that reduces reliance on fluctuating input prices, while nourishing the environment that feeds into it.

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 England. The framework puts the emphasis on local knowledge and draws together funding and support from multiple sources to put into projects that improve the environment and make local communities more resilient for the future. This big picture thinking episode looks at managing land across the wider landscape and Jenny shares her experience of how landscape-scale projects rely on local communities and their resource, knowledge and connectivity to the land.

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 gateway to owning Shetland heifers through pasture-fed, low-input systems and her experience of entering the sector as a new entrant farmer.    

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 for linen as the first commercial producers in over 40 years.Helen's Rethink Farming Q&A:https://www.nffn.org.uk/rethink-farming-helen-keys/

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 her family's farming history, their agroecological approach, why she's an activist for nature-friendly farming & the important role small farms have in advocating for changes in land use. She shares how Kinclune is tackling climate change,  biodiversity restoration and carbon emissions through a holistic approach that includes woodland maintenance, agroforestry and conservation grazing. Join NFFN as a free public or farmer member. 

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.Support Sam's crowdfunding campaign: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/natural-flood-management-wet-woodlandSam's Rethink Farming case study: https://www.nffn.org.uk/rethink-farming-sam-kenyon/