Born on 23 December 1970, I was raised on my family’s farm in Yorkshire and have a love of farming, food, the countryside and the environment coursing through my veins. I am a passionate and committed advocate for change with a long track record of involvement in campaigns and change management programmes within the sector. I am currently working as Programme Director of the Year of Food and Farming. This role involves leading an industry-level umbrella campaign to reconnect children with where food comes from and how it’s produced. We currently have close to 3,000 organisations involved with an estimated in-kind investment of up to £20m. My commitment to this agenda started early. After school I studied for a degree in Rural Resource Management at Reading University, leaving with a 2:1 and a passion for environmental economics in particular. I spent a brief spell trying to make my way in the City with GAN plc, which failed dismally, primarily because I didn’t find anything real and worthwhile pursuing there. I returned home to the farm to take over the day-to-day management in 1994. Despite enjoying the experience of hands-on farming tremendously, I became increasingly frustrated by the lack of empowerment felt at a farm level. I came home at a time when farm prices were sliding ever lower, with profitability going the same way. It seemed that despite our best efforts things were going in the wrong direction. I could see so many things that needed to change at a macro level before things would ever improve at a farm level. I became drawn to be involved in campaigning within the industry for change. This started with baby steps, the first being becoming involved with LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming), a national charity whose mission is to promote sustainable farming techniques within the reach of all farmers through a network of demonstration farms. To my surprise, they considered our efforts at home to be worthy of recognition and we were invited to become a LEAF Demonstration Farm ourselves, which we did in 2000. Ever since, we have derived huge amounts of pleasure from showing a wide range of visitors around the farm: farmers, politicians, conservationists, schools and others. I will remain indebted for life to the fantastic team at LEAF for their encouragement, support and undying enthusiasm – it is a constant source of inspiration to me. There is an art involved in explaining the complex job of farming in simple language for the leyperson to understand. It’s a curious job as it’s a subject that many people have an interest in, but it’s never ceased to amaze the amount of urban myths and half truths floating around. Needless, I’ve revelled in putting the record straight, and enjoyed the role as an ambassador for the industry, even at a local level. In time, our reputation for high standards of sustainable land management and environmental stewardship grew, and with it came awards, winning the FWAG Tye Trophy for Farm Conservation in 2003. I was developing a growing interest at this time in the wider environmental agenda and agriculture’s role within it. I was also keen to learn about the role of farming in shaping the character and identity of the countryside as I had come to identify this as the touchstone that members of the public most identify with. To pursue this area further, I returned to college at Leeds Metropolitan University on a part-time basis to study a Postgraduate Diploma in Landscape Architecture. I fell just short of completing the course sadly, mainly due to the really bad timing of twins arriving in our household, which completely threw our world upside down (and I’m not sure it’s recovered since!). Nevertheless, the course gave me an entirely new insight and perspective on the role of farming in the wider world and I was keen to share my learning. Speaking engagements started to come more regularly too, with invites the length and breadth of the country before long. I also spent some time writing columns for a number of agricultural and environmental publications. This was all good experience, which helped my communication skills tremendously. In early 2003, I was invited to join a steering group for planning a regional response in Yorkshire & Humber to something called The Curry Report. This was a Policy Commission investigation into the future of food and farming following the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001. Initially, I felt I was being invited along as ‘the token farmer’, but this view changed when I was asked to chair the emerging Regional Implementation Group for Sustainable Farming and Food (SFFS) in July 2003. I was chuffed, to say the least! The following five years since the decision was taken to accept this have been the most fulfilling and rewarding years of my professional life so far. It has led to dramatic changes being instigated on our own farm (including radical restructuring to partner with two neighbouring farms). It has helped me to meet the most remarkable collection of people who have been anything from inspiring to incredibly frustrating to deal with and most importantly, it has felt empowering to be part of driving the much needed change in the industry. I still felt frustrated however by the lack of progress in the public arena. Little effort had been made to engage with the general public in an imaginative and inspiring way. However in November 2006, Sir Don Curry, who heads up the SFFS nationally, invited me to lead a new national initiative called the Year of Food and Farming, which was conceived to be an industry level response to the central theme of reconnection (i.e. reconnecting the public with where their food comes from) of the Curry Report. I leapt at the chance. For me, it made sense of everything that I had done to date. I realised that the common demoninator in all of it had been a deep desire to help food and farming to be better understood by the public. It seemed that everything I had done to date had been a preparation for this role. It has been to date the most incredible privilege to work with the most eclectic but consistently enthusiastic collection of people on this most worthwhile project. The question I now ask myself is what is the involvement in Year of Food and Farming preparing me for next?
