Fred Price
2023
Gothelney is a 250 acre family farm just outside Bridgwater, Somerset. We also rent 130 acres on a 6 year FBT. I took on the farm in 2007, initially embracing the mainstream narrative of commodity agriculture. Ironically this early focus on productivity lead me to think more deeply about soils and fertility, and set in motion a steady reimagination of our practices on farm that is possible when we also reconsider the logics of our current industrialised food system.
Identifying with agroecology and has been transformative both practically and psychologically, a process of self-discovery and self-preservation. Why are we told we must ‘turn here for nature, or continue straight for food production’? I believe in the productive grey areas in between these binaries from which a more beautiful, complex & diverse human-scale food system based on trust, relationships & community can emerge. Gothelney is an altogether more woolly and happier farm for it.
My Sessions
Genetic Diversity of Grains
Michael Marriage
Dr Ed Dickin
Fred Price
Dr Phil Howell
This house believes that genetic diversity is key to profitable cereals production in the UK.
Doing the Time: Working Towards the Decriminalisation of our Seeds
Josiah Meldrum
Fred Price
Dr Ed Dickin
Rosy Benson
Charlotte Bickler
Steven Jacobs
John Turner
It’s increasingly well understood that crop diversity holds the answer to many of the pressing problems we face, from resilient food production in the face of climate change to chronic diet-related ill health. But one of the most potent tools at our disposal is currently illegal: the trade in genetically diverse cereal seeds. By their […]