Join the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association and Groundswell for a webinar on Pasture Cropping in the UK on Tuesday 4th May at 5pm (GMT)

Join the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association and the Groundswell team, in the run up to this year’s conference, for a discussion of three different approaches in the UK to pasture cropping. Well documented in other parts of the world, we hear from the UK pioneers to understand how these practices are being translated to the UK farming landscape and climate. Andrew Brewster farms with his brother, Robert, in Forfar, Scotland and has been trialling pasture cropping over three seasons. Andy Cato farms in South West France, where he has been pioneering pasture cropping methods. More recently he has started Wildfarmed Grain in the UK to create a market for grain from pasture cropping and is working with a number of farms. Andy Howard farms in Kent and after doing a Nuffield Scholarship on the subject of companion- and inter-cropping, where he travelled the world looking at different approaches, which he is now trialling in the UK.

The session will be chaired by John Cherry, certified Pasture for Life farmer at Weston Park Farms in Hertfordshire and founder of the Groundswell Agriculture conference.

The session will be 90 minutes long and there will be ample time for Q&A. If you can’t make the session it will be recorded and there will also be follow up sessions at Groundswell on 23rd and 24th June.

Featuring:

Andrew Brewster – Farmer @ Easter Denoon Farm – Andrew Brewster and his brother, Robert, first started rotational grazing in the summer of 2009 to finish a group of fat cattle just off of grass. Since 2012 they have been mob grazing, moving their cows to fresh grass every day and back fenced to prevent them from re-grazing any new growth. They have been trialling stitching forage rye into their permanent pastures to improve winter forage.

Andy Cato – Farmer @La Ferme a Naroques / Wildfarmed Grain – Andy Cato farms at La Ferme a Naroques in Gascony where he has been trialling pasture cropping techniques for a number of years. He set up Wildfarmed Grain to bring this experience to the UK and now works with farms in Norfolk, Surrey, Sussex, Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, and Herefordshire. Andy is also developing a supply chain for grain farmed in this way under the Wildfarmed Grain banner and works with mills and bakeries across the country.

Andy Howard –  Farmer @Bockhanger Farms – Andy Howard grew up on a family farm before studying agriculture and environmental science. When back on the farm he started experimenting with minimum tillage and regenerative agriculture. In 2015-16 Andy completed a Nuffield Scholarship titled “The potential for companion cropping and intercropping on UK arable farms”, where he travelled the world visiting farms practicing these approaches, including pasture cropping by visiting Colin Seis, one of the pioneers of the movement from Australia. Andy is currently trialling various techniques on his farm in Kent. Andy is also a Groundswell Agronomist, more info here.