Welcome! Please introduce yourself

Tony Allan
I am a water scientist based at King’s College where we have an expert interdisciplinary group of scientists and professionals - including John Cherry and three other farmers. We focus on the water resources embedded in food supply chains highlighting the essential role of farmers in stewarding water. Farmers manage on behalf of society about 90% of its water consumption in producing our food and fibre. They are also society’s main managers of biodiversity, and they account for about 25% of emissions and they also play a major role in determining the quality of food nutrition.
Farmers should get prices for their production that reflect all the production costs as well as all of the costs of stewarding ecosystems. But they exist in a food system where international food prices have fallen by 1 % per year partly because consumers want affordable food and legislators know there is an imperative to provide it. Legislators do this via production and consumer subsidies. Under priced food enjoyed by consumers creates difficult circumstances for farmers to make decisions that are good for society and the planet. Food is under priced because a significant proportion of consumers - many with jobs in the food supply chain on farms, in food processing, in supermarkets and in restaurants, are underpaid. The Ourfield project is a uniquely effective way to reveal to those participating the market and environmental risks of farming. Many many more need to be informed.

Hi everyone!

It was great meeting everyone the other week and sorry this is a bit late - I'm Alex and I'm a Geography PhD student researching food and innovation at King's College London. I'm a social scientist so my work is very interested in the political and cultural aspects of the food system.

The big question that initially brought me to my research was 'how are we going to feed the world in more sustainable and ethical ways, particularly in light of growing populations and global challenges such as climate change?' My PhD has focussed mainly on recent activities within Silicon Valley where a lot of tech companies have decided to try and address this big question by developing alternative methods for producing animal proteins. So over the last three and a half years I've been following the development of technologies such as lab-grown (aka 'cultured') meat, edible insects and new types of plant-based proteins. It's been fascinating to observe the coal-face of a new sector, and in particular to (critically) reflect on how existing politics and cultural mechanisms around food have been entangled in these new technologies.

I believe that there are many ways to do 'innovation' and so I'm really excited to be part of the OurField project because to me it is an adventure into a model of innovation that is very different from the high-tech world I research, and potentially promises more useful and progressive 'disruption' of the problems that currently face our food system - for example, the co-op rather than private model, and transparency over the often aggressive IP-focus of many high-tech ventures.

I feel I'm very good at eating food and fairly ok at cooking it, but I embarrassingly know very little about how to grow it...! So I'm also very excited to learn a lot more about the decisions that go into food production and the risks farmers face. Looking forward to sharing in this journey with you all and hopefully starting something that we can go on to show could have major positive impacts on the ways we do food and farming in the UK.

Hi, I’m Seb and I am really interested in sustainability and getting involved in new and interesting initiatives such as this one to bring me back into contact with the world of farming after working abroad in the adventure travel industry.
I am sharing my vote with my dad, Dan Powell who is the Farm Manager at River Cottage and is also involved with setting up Landbase, a training initiative for current and aspiring land workers.
Landbase.org.uk

I'm James. I work in the not-for-profit sector, advising charities, housing associations and government bodies. I'm increasingly convinced that the (so-called) advanced capitalist economic model is slowly failing, as wealth and power become concentrated in ever fewer hands. That goes for the global agriculture and food industries as much as any other.

So ... I'm interested in disruptive social inventions, such as Our Field, which - if brought to scale - will help disrupt the food chain in its present form, and bring back control and involvement to the grass roots. My main concern is fighting inequality - income, health, and social. So I see this initiative as part of a wider fight-back against global corporate power, and an exciting one too.

I also realise that I've introduced myself twice, as I got chased for not responding, and assumed that my original had got lost!

I'll be sharing my vote with my daughter Alice.

Hi all, I'm Ben Carr and currently reside in Norwich, NR2, though am originally from Ipswich. My Masters was in Conflict, Governance and International Development (actually I interviewed you Tony for my thesis!). I've worked/volunteered/consulted for various NGOs in the UK and abroad, on projects that recognise the 'oneness' of livelihoods and natural stewardship (Oxfam, WWF, Innovations for Poverty Action). I have many different though overlapping interests (jack of all trades frequently comes to mind!), but beginning 3 years ago I ventured out to learn more about the practicalities of living sustainably/positively. That's involved lots of volunteering on farms and projects, a lot of reading, attending the Oxford Real Farming Conferences 2017&2018 as well as workshops and courses (for example the Organic Research Centre/wonderful woodchip event held at Tolinghurst near Reading last month) and joining the Landworkers Alliance and the Organic Research Group. I have biases/inclinations in terms of organic, no-till and small scale (I know more about horticulture than I do about arable certainly), and have therefore joined the collective to see and learn how challenging growing proves to be in practical, financial, and environmental terms and what difficult decisions have to be made. I continue to visit and volunteer my time on projects in return for learning, with the eventual aim that I one day find my niche/land of my own for 'back to the land' living. Looking forward to sharing in some discussions and group visits as we help steward ourfield. Cheers!

Hi Ben and welcome to ourfield :)

Hello Everyone I’m Rosy, I’m a teacher and baker at e5 Bakehouse helping to spread the message of real bread which we know importantly starts in the field; in the soils health, in the diversity and resilience of the farm and the diversity of the grain. Having worked at the doughy end of the production line I wanted to be part of the OurField project to gain a better understanding of growing field scale and learn how we can grow good quality diverse grains organically in the UK for human consumption and at the same time help to regenerate that soil (possible? hopefully!). The other challenge being how to get local bakeries to access that grain and if the project proves to be a success could it be to replicated? Through working for a year at e5 I’ve been very fortunate to work with freshly milled organic grain daily and been inspired by the determination of the bakery to support UK organic grain production and create a thriving community bakery, but realise there is still a long way to go to help everyone to access good food, and support a sustainable supply chain, challenging the current model and demonstrating the vision seems a good place to start. I hope to learn more from John the farmer and you all and I hope to share my understanding. I am part of a growing number of bakers and customers who are engaged and are demanding better for the future of our environment and our health. Over the years I’ve been to a few events held by the the Organic Research Centre, Landbase, Brockwell Bake, ORFC and e5 perhaps covering some of the issues we will be facing so hope that will help in my contributions to the discussion. Where our grain currently comes from, the diversity of grains we could stone mill and how we ferment those grains to produce some potentially delicious real bread has been an obsession of mine and kept me totally engaged in bread making for the last 5 years. This has led me to work at e5 so far but still hoping to find more answers which may point me onto the next step - perhaps growing grain and baking. Though that might be a little exhausting! On a side note, I have a background in Permaculture having done the Shift Bristol year long Practical Sustainability course covering group work, community resilience, horticulture, roundwood timber framing, and welding… to name a few skills. I also apprenticed in woodworking before baking. I like to spend my time enjoying woodlands/craft, food, music and cycling. Looking forward to meeting you all soon!

Hi Rosy......Bread is always a major worry when we rescue food for The Real Junk Food Project in Northamptonshire....not just the quantity (around 250kg a week) but the quality....cheap flour, grown in highly fertilised soil, flown half way round the world and then put into landfill.....plus all the bread thrown away in the home because it is so cheap no one cares!!! Rant over.....and if I lived in London I would get my bread from E5!

Thank you Ben and Rosy for sharing the information on your interests and priorities. It is very helpful.

Hi everyone, I'm Oliver and have been following this project for a while, so it's great to finally get involved. I'm an agricultural sustainability consultant, with a particular interest in soils. Previously, I worked for the Organic Research Centre, where I did some work on assessing the potential to market bread from their composite cross wheat population, amongst other things. I also covered organics at the NFU for a while and spent a season growing organic vegetables at Daylesford too. I grew up in Cambridge and although we're surrounded by some of the most fertile land in the country, it worries me to see how little people understand about what's going on in the fields around them, so this is a fantastic project from that perspective.