While we can’t physically meet at FarmED at present, Jonty has been staying connected and keeping the debate going and discussion flowing by taking part in a series of webinars.
First up last week was ‘An Introduction to Regenerative Agriculture for Vets’ hosted by Vet Sustain, a collective of veterinary professionals aiming to integrate sustainable practices into their working lives. Jonty talked about his experience as an organic regenerative farmer on his farm in the Cotswolds. He noted how, ‘animal health improves dramatically when you stop feeding concentrates and offer varied grazing. This also dramatically reduces veterinary costs and medications and also improves soil health, so a win-win-win.’ You can find out more by listening to a recording of the webinar at https://www.thewebinarvet.com/webinars.
Earlier this week Jonty was one of the speakers at the RuRALink’s Online Careers Insights Day, joining other speakers who included Lewis Trelaor MBE, Waterways and Recreation Officer from the Broads Authority, Stephen Ensell, Education Officer from the British Association of Landmark Industries, and Andy Lee from RuRALink. Jonty introduced the concept of regenerative agriculture and highlighted the range of employment and rural enterprise opportunities that exist in a diverse agroecological farming and food future. The next Military Families Rural Insight Day is due to be hosted at FarmED later this year (Covid-19 permitting).
Have you tuned in to Land Management 2.0 yet? This excellent weekly webinar series is dedicated to ‘Transforming the Future of Land Management’. Jonty gave a 'Brief Introduction to Regenerative Agriculture' with Henry Edmunds talking about 'Regenerative Farming on the Cholderton Estate'. It was very informative and stimulated some good debate. Listen here:
We hope to see many of you before too long at events we will be hosting here at FarmED, but in the meantime if you’d like Jonty, Ian Wilkinson or any of the FarmED team to take part in your webinar or podcast, please do get in touch.