On Air at Groundswell: Understanding Social Sustainability in farming

As part of our special podcast series brought to you by the School of Sustainable Food and Farming at Harper Adams University, this episode looks at understanding and measuring social sustainability within agriculture. Tenant organic dairy farmer Sophie Gregory from Dorset, Hampshire tenant pig farmer Flavian Obiero and Leonora Meehan from McDonald's Progressive Young Farmer at Noble Foods unpick how sustainable agriculture can contribute to vibrant communities; the importance of connecting food and farming with the wider general public and how farmers can be empowered to influence public policy and change societal narrative around agriculture, food and sustainability.  

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to our special podcast series of the Farmers Garden Podcast, brought to you by the School of Sustainable Food and Farming at Harper Adams University. This session is all focused on social sustainability, and I'm delighted to be joined by three panelists. Sophie, if you could introduce yourself. Hi. Yeah, I'm Sophie Gregory, organic dairy farmer in Dorset. and yeah, so sustainability is probably overlooked quite a lot. And on farm we have loads of school visits and lots of apprentices which come through, which is actually a massive part of our business and really important to us. I think. Laura, Leonora, I'm one of McDonald's progressive young farmers this year, based with an egg company, Natural Foods. I think it's so important because without sustainability, it wouldn't be an industry in a few more years. I'm Fabian Flavin, a beer, tenant farmer in Hampshire. And I think farming has a big role to play. And so show sustainability. Perfect. So, big question to start off. to what extent do you think farmers have to play a role in improving public health and nutrition and diet? It's a big question. It's a very big question. And, Rachel, I think, you know, we, sometimes it feel differently about this, and sometimes I do think it is it should we just act to our skillset and be the farmer and focus on that and leave that to the experts? But actually, more and more through actually through social media, I feel it is actually really important for us to share a positive story of farming and positive impact of our food nutritionally. because, you know, it is such a powerful story. and yeah, we're the best people to tell it really, but it's not really our skill set. So it's a bit of a conundrum on that part. I think food's nutritional when it leaves the farm, sometimes the prices it goes through afterwards are out of the farmer's control. Are the things that make it maybe less nutritional, more processed, more levels. So farmers do have a play that play in their role that creating it, but I'm not sure how much they can do after that farm game. I mean, would you say government policy has a role to play as well? Okay, give me the government question. I think they definitely do. But whether they do it or not is a different story. And I think back to, Sophie saying about farmers sharing their experiences and stories on social media, it's not so much about being an expert and giving a document about how milk is good to you, or how much is good for you, or how keen was good for you. It's more about just showing the public what where the food comes from. Because sometimes even when you look at marketing and advertising a big company, a lot of it isn't in your face. It's just subliminal stuff, and it's that thing of little and often and doing it for a long, prolonged period because we're in a situation where we're trying to fix long term problems, just short term solutions, and not have a lot. So we just need to, as farmers take take that responsibility and say, okay, we want, sort of people to see food in a in a high regard. Let's put ourselves out there, open our doors on file with schools or, the need for open farm Sunday. Let the public see where the food is coming from, because there's a difference with this country compared to like Europe, let's say, let's say France, how people are so connected to their food and their communities compared to here. So I think that's a really good point. And something that doing that we're not doing. And as farmers, we can't just sit back and say pay our subsidies, we're doing our job. You do the rest because it will never happen. The sector has a part to play in that in terms of that disconnect. Do you think we are making strides for that with good consumer? I think we probably are. But I think more steps. Yeah I would take that is definitely stats. But I think also it's giving like people the confidence to share their story as well, because not all of us want to like some of some of my all, you know, I spy on a lot of my members would not be confident about telling the story of their farm and interacting even on a, on a on farm level. They just wouldn't be comfortable with that. So why do you think that is a I think they are scared of being pulled up on things. I think that there probably I don't want to go down the vegan route, but that but they're scared of the threat of people pulling them off. But you know, that one's not got to eat it. All of those things, they're scared. They just want to get on with. And also some of it we talked about this yesterday. It's actually they haven't got the hours in the day to do it. That's the thing. We are so busy and like prioritizing our animals. Obviously that has to come first. So I think we you know, we are under pressure as an industry to get a good income from, from actually what we're doing. Finding that extra, extra time is very difficult. I mean, I don't know about you too, but I find the extra time on farmers to where do you think that the responsibility lies in with the farmers obviously working the hours. Who else can kind of help with that disconnect? I think, the media have a role to play in as well. I don't know, the reason why farmers don't want to share is because of previous instances where people have opened their doors and have ended up getting pulled up, and it's sort of like a double edged sword, because I feel that as a farmer, like for us, we don't have insurance because I'm not selling to someone a supermarket, but I sell direct to customers. And I'd say to people, if you want to come and pick your pig that you want to be taken out, but we'll come and do that, come and see what I'm doing on the farm. If you don't like something, tell me and I'll tell you why it's happening. Or I can change it. And I think because of the way the food system is, not all farmers have that ability or time or infrastructure to sell directly. So you have to rely on the sort of well-rehearsed supply chain that already exists with supermarkets and buying goods. because because they, they obviously, doing a business and have to manage their public face, face or whatever. They do things differently. So I think that's why things like social media or if farmers could work with the media, something like just farmers, which empowers farmers to have that confidence. And even if it's like a one minute video, some people prep like, initially I used to, but now I'm just like, I need to hear you get what you're giving me. And I think it's that thing. It doesn't always have to be polished. Nice. I don't know what polish is or what polish is. The issue sometimes is farmers who pull down on the farm, which is another story about it day. It doesn't make any sense to me. We're all fighting for the same goal. I think education has a big part to play until people know how to cook again. I know that a chip comes from a potato because I was talking to a lady in a supermarket. They've had to move the chips from the frozen section away from the spud section because people don't connect. The I'm looking for a chip. Let's go to the potato. They're just not getting it. And that's something that you're passionate about, safety in terms of, you know, the national curriculum and that kind of an early age, getting that understanding of where your food is coming from. You know, how that food gets to the plate, the farm to fork. You know, we talk about this narrative every all the time. How do we cut through and how do we get that next generation? Because it's also enticing people into the industry. Exactly. It is. You're so right there, too. And I think the thing is, is that where is our next generation of farmers, too? So I think part of that is we've been so good at sort of pushing the ones that struggled at school into the industry, but we need the bright ones too. You know, we really do now. It's a it's not you can't just be, you know, practical now you have to be everything from an accountant to a mechanic to every, you know, and all farming systems, but also from a young age, we need to know where our food comes from, because how can we expect them to make good food choices? They actually have no idea. And I think that needs to be from two four upwards. I definitely some of the school visits we have shocked me massively by just having an eye open. It's a massive eye and these are rural kids. We live in a rural environment and so I just dread to think what's in the city. So I just it's such a it's such a shame because we've got so much as an industry to offer. but we need government support to do that. I think we can help with social inclusion within communities. What what role can farming play within that? Another big one as well. Well, I think things like Ethan Farm Sunday are amazing because they're a strategy that's already there and you get support and marketing through that. But giving people the connectivity as a cluster, great. So we've got a cluster. Great. But we actually share open from Sunday because it's a massive thing to do and responsibility. So many people come now and we rotate it round the farm, round the cluster. Great. But it's yeah, just having even just speaking to people in the sitcom, you know, if you've got that past coming through your farm, you know, you had people come to come and help the other day, it's not. Yeah. And just letting them get involved. And it's that element of, being approachable because when I was looking for jobs on farm. I was just driving from farm to from locking the door. But not everyone can do that. And I've spoken to young people like, we've got a lady leaving the Navy to go into agriculture. She's knocking on doors, farmers attending a give me a, send me an. And I reply, they don't reply. And it's like we're in an industry struggling to attract people. You've got that power. And yet we're pushing people back. So sometimes I feel like I'm the country needs to suffer even more to realize what we are, what good we have out there that can come and help us. Because I think, yeah, sometimes we are an enemy to industry. I think that's like, how do we get rid of those barriers? How? Because, you know, the labor shortage is it is a conversation that I've been having with people, you know, over and over and over again, and we just can't seem to be going in at 360 around it. It's just it's that I don't know how you guys feel about it, but we as an industry, we're very good at saying how long hours we work. And I think sometimes we aren't like, that's a negative thing to put out there. Yes, it is hard work, but it I worry about my kids looking at me and Tom working and saying, maybe we're not. It's not a job they want to do because we're just showing, you know, we're not having a work life balance at all times. So I think, the thing about long hours, which I'm guilty of a lot of the time, is, are we working long hours because we need to or we work long hours because that's the same. That's a done thing standard that we just, like, even here. Yeah. It's like, oh, you're there messing around the farm working. And I find sometimes you don't just have to be on a farm. And whether there are systems out there that you could do to reduce them on to maybe like cows, you can milk once a day, I don't know, but I think it's external social pressure of like, if you dare to go off farm. Yeah. You're not working hard. I love being outside. I'm like, yeah. And then the energy you get back from being allowed to go back into a business like tomorrow will be. I'm excited to get back to the farm on this stuff you can take back. It's a mindset thing. A farmer said to me, you should get a farm once a day at the village once a week, the county once a month and out the country once a year. And he was out. That's the only reason he's been farming for 50 years and carried on himself. Really good advice, because just get out your bubble. Talk to someone that you might not agree with, get something out of it and come back. And that will then ties in with resilience and sustainability and being able to kind of keep going with your farm business in a very positive way. Yeah, yeah. And taking a step back in terms of technology, how do you think we can use technology to leverage support for sustainable farming without exacerbating social inequalities? So difficult? We're not a very technology. I mean, there's some things around farm like SAP testing, you know, Tom's doing SAP testing on the arable crops and things like that. But in terms of reducing weight, because tenant tenants, I don't I it's the same. I don't want to heavily invest in things because we're short on movies. Exactly. I don't want to investigate. Exactly. And that is a real barrier. A real barrier. I mean, yeah, I do, and I am seeing owner occupiers definitely investing in, you know, bits of their power. I can't take, you know, nine years time I might not be there. And all these things are big investments. Financially critical point to mention that it is a different ball game with tenants because, you know, we spoke so much today about innovation and technology and are the sessions. But actually it's it's more of a challenge for tenant farmers. And it's that time frame, like you said, know how long is your tenancy. It's ten years. But when one is five one's ten one seven. It's they're not even the same length. So we're we're seven with the extension to ten. but when you start a farm empty, you got to buy a truck, a trailer and all sorts to then. Yeah. So you've got seven years. So luckily we farm pigs as our main one, so I didn't have to wait two years. Yeah. so for me, everything we've done, like having a catering business, I can put on a trailer and take it. And the butcher we put in, I've got a neighbor to hire. Lift it onto a lorry, take it. So everything we're doing, I'm trying to do things I can breed with. we're hoping to build, like, a, Like a kitchen area to do all our prep for catering. And I'll also be a container ten years time. I'm going. It's coming with me. So it's it's good to invest. What are you investing in? I'm even things like fencing. I think once you to spend money on stock fencing, I'm just put electric. I move it with me. So some of the smaller nology. So like there's soil ups now and stuff just so you don't have to have a scrap of paper, walk back to the computer, things that you can have in your pocket and you can think, what did this look like a year ago? Yeah. Keeping it with you. The data side of it, I'd say is a massive and it's not as expensive as the big kids taking pictures as well. A lot of people, I think observe about recordkeeping. Samantha actually pictures. If some someone asked me, what did you do for this? I go, one picture I look at when I took that picture and, you know, they've been here two months because I didn't really write many things down. I put stuff on my calendar. But I think pictures are such a good way to look for the in terms of policy frameworks, what do you think is needed on a on a local, national level to support sustainable farming? I think there needs to be a rather than each government coming in and everyone coming out with their own idea. We all, we all know we need to. We we all know we need to be healthy. Why is there not like a ten year plan? Whether you're green, blue, red, orange, reform, whatever it is, you come in and you follow that. You can do a few tweaks, but the main one, the core strategy, is just there. Yeah, because if someone's if a term is someone's in for five years, they've wasted three years round tabling and messing around. Yeah. just have a thing that someone comes and slots in. I say no, why? We don't have that is it gives fear to farmers to commit things long term. If we can't, if we're changing the whole time, we can't. You know, farming is not a short term game, is it? You're making decisions now for three years time. Five years time, breeding wise, the same you want to. We need to know where we're going with things. Going back to sustainable farming with if you're not kind of investing in innovation and technology savvy, how are you implementing those practices on farm I space we valuing our soil. I bet you guys are the same like we just that that is something that we can do without spending too much money on it. And we'll see results quite quickly. A long term too, but quite quickly. like like reseeding and things we can do that. But where instead of investing in like big drills and things, we've done a whole building ourselves. One on myself, Tom is definitely the one who does that. But, we yeah, we'd much rather get things. We're trialing things a lot more. but yeah, like like you were saying about the apps, I use quite a lot of apps for things, you know, from medicine records to, measuring plate metering, which is measuring graphs. That's, that's a cheap, easy, efficient way to invest in the farm by knowing where the grass is, why we need to reseed grass, where we need to cut silage, where they're going to graze, all of those things. But I big investments, unless you have a long term tenancy, it's very difficult to to do. But earlier on. So you mentioned about cluster groups and partnership and collaboration. Have you found like more and more this is becoming a bigger thing and helping and supporting that kind of resilience within your farm business? Joining up and collaborating? Yeah, I'd say so. especially like what, WhatsApp groups. I'm going to talk about this today. And also like where I am, there's a fair few Hampshire County farm tenants. So apart from, the rapeseed milk shot, all our pig feed ingredients come from three miles away. So I would say farmers. So in the long term, like, now we've got, I've got an online shop selling our produce. I've said to my fellow tenants like, look, if I don't have any sheep, I don't know how to keep sheep. You can keep sheep. And I'll set them to the shop so it's not working together. I'd rather give them money rather than go to a big company. Give another company money when they're in the same position as me. So yeah, the collaboration definitely helps. And sharing ideas. And in terms of that interaction with the the general public within your local community, how are you getting them involved in the farming practices that you're doing? mine is mainly hello, your pigs in my garden. Yeah, yeah, yeah. but I think again, a lot of the people around us know the farm existed. Now, we sort of got the online shop, slowly building up. I think people are wising up to it. We're going to put a sign where the pigs are hopefully at the. We can get people coming in and having a walk around. So it sounds ridiculous, but like, you could be on a farm and people just don't know that you're there. If you just stood there and you don't actually actively go out, you don't have a shop front. Do it again. We're not very good at doing that. Yeah. And the idea of being open to the public, I think is so important. And like you said, so already about Open Farm Sunday initiatives like that, I think more and more helps to kind of bridge that gap with the general public and the community. It's in our interest, isn't it? I mean, especially if you're direct selling. It's just so important. Yeah. Do you think that is a direction that we should be going more towards that kind of one direction, like Sophie said? Yes. So 2,000,000l within a few days. Okay. You could have a vending machine, but even that you're not unless you put it on a dual carriageway or like yeah. Yeah. Right. There's I think personally supermarkets should just be there for bleach. So things we can't produce. Like we should go back to having markets and set up vending machines, a train station group to buy that stuff, because then that's the only way we're going to go back to the public appreciating. it's interesting you mentioned about markets. I feel like there is a bit of a south north divide because I was listening into one lecture and, you know, I'm from up north, like more and more markets, actually, farmers markets are closing down and which is a really sad reality. And, and that's losing. And it makes me think, why is that thing food does? It's even worse in rural communities because you'll be driving past veg field off the veg field. But is there a shop to buy any of it? No, it's so we're getting shipped off to distribution dungeons to be distributed out, to drive back and be shipped out on the road. Yeah. Because you have, let's say, supermarkets that pride themselves in having good animal welfare, and all sorts. And they've got a farm in the South, the cows will get taken an eight hour drive to the central abattoir north and then get slaughtered. They get brought back down, which is it's not it's nonsense. There's no justification for that whatsoever. In terms of consumers, do you think they value obviously, you know, high animal welfare. You know, how your milk is produced, you know, through sustainable organic practices. Do you think consumers are willing to pay for that? Personally, I would say no. From a city point of view. I've grown up in London my whole life. I couldn't tell you. My friends know what tractors would look for an RSPCA logo, any of the logos and I'm not sure they know. I think that know I'm not blaming. That would just I just don't think they know. Yeah, I know phones have to go through so much to get all these stamps and all the audits. If you've only got a really small herd, is it worth having five different audits or you'll find out why I'm not doing it. When it went on, auditors coming on and telling me that the pigs have got too much space when I free range, that's what I know. I'm dealing with. Not. Yeah. So I'm not going to bother. It is a rule, I think. Hey, over here. It's a real class system. There is a certain class that do look at certain different. Yeah. So you go to different different countries and that class system's not there so much. Denmark's a great example is that there's they every type of person buys organic as part of their shop. because there's a huge government drive on it. It's just part of how they shop. Whereas in the UK they we see it. It's not the posh. Right. And I think that is a very valid but how it's perceived perception. But also you know, food poverty in this country is a big thing. And also I find the issue here is we're targeting or we're talking about food here now and sustainable food production and stuff, and if people can't afford it, we're forgetting we're we're dealing with people that are paying stupid on some money in rent rather than trying to pay estates to grow flowers. How about subsidizing people's rent? Train tickets are stupid. Subsidize out of those people can afford to pay themselves properly to reduce the strain on NHS. If we talk about it here like it's not a simple thing, but I don't know. It's such a complex pitch and so intertwined. I think flash should be prime Minister. I would, I would also. Like, put it here first. Yeah. Just one more question I've asked all panelists is where do you see the future of British agriculture? I think as I was saying at the beginning, it's going to be small stats. but I do think events like this, I come home and I think we're getting somewhere, and then you get pushed back until we need more of this throughout the year to keep us going, because I feel like we go home with this energy and we change things. Everyone wants to change things, but we do need. I'm afraid some people don't like something. I think we need good. If government want cheap food, they will have to pay for it and they will have to pay for it. And it's a good subsidy that makes it affordable. We cannot produce food in this country at the level they want us to without subsidy. It's really sad. We shouldn't have to be like, you shouldn't be in that situation. I think we should just be safe, you know, paid fairly. So we have to get this next bit right. But I haven't much faith at the moment on that. But we need small steps and things like this really help. Yeah. Fairness in the supply chain has been brought up a lot over the last few, conversations. I'd hope it's more of a holistic approach. If people are eating right, it's less strain on the NHS. All of that. If farming isn't such an agricultural issue, it's a food issue. It's an everyone issue. It isn't an isolated conversation as much. Great. These conversations are. It needs to be an open conversation with not just food producers and the supply chain. It needs to be consumer led as well. More joined up policy within government departments, so might be a good way forward, I think. I think the future's bright. I think farmers can do it, but we can't control the outside i.e government. And I don't hold my breath in them changing anything. So I just keep plugging away. And I'm so sorry for yourself and many other farmers here. We'll keep plugging away and hopefully we'll get somewhere. Let's see how the next six months go. Yeah. Thank you so much to everyone.