A Conversation About Innovation in Farming
Peter Byck, Producer, Carbon Nation
Graham Harvey, Pasture Promise TV
Tim May, farmer, Kingsclere Estate
Peter Byck presented a viewing of his new short film Soil Carbon Cowboys, which you can see here. Excellent!
Graham Harvey gave a great talk about the history of pastured grazing in the UK and explained about the forward-thinking Arthur Hosier, a farmer/engineer from the 1920s. Hosier developed a mobile milking system (‘outdoor dairy’) to follow his cows around, rather than bringing them back to the farmyard to be milked, thus leaving the manure to fertilise the worn out pastures. Hosier was eventually bought out by Express Dairies. Graham also explained about the campaign driven by dairy companies to get all milk pasteurized.
Graham talked about the lack of small-scale dairies and in particular mentioned the work of farmer Nick Snelgar – see here. He also suggested looking at the work of Tom Chapman – see here and Rob Richmond – see here.
You can read more about Graham Harvey’s work here.
Tim May gave a really inspiring talk about his work as Estate Manager on Kingsclere Farm. He stressed the need to shift from ‘Mono to Multi thinking’ when it comes to land use, biodiversity and people .
There had been a problem with soil quality on the farm and nothing had seem to work so Tim appointed Mike Harrison to look at soil quality.
Tim was also granted a Nuffield Scholarship and travelled to the US, Brazil, Kenya and Tanzania to study successful farming systems. Sustainability was the one factor across all of them.
Tim stressed the need for a surplus of time and energy to concentrate on the future economy.
‘Is grazed grass the most essential arable crop? Yes!’
Kingsclere is currently selling pork and lamb online.