The Soil Association which is the UK’s leading membership charity campaigning for healthy humane and sustainable food, farming and land use is staging a FREE on-line talk featuring Andy Cato, Groove Armada music legend turned farming innovator-in-chief, along with Soil Association Chief Executive Helen Browning OBE and Joseph Gridley, Director of new digital platform Soil Association Exchange.
The event is taking place online on 19th January, 6:30 to 8pm, and focuses on the question ‘Can innovation unlock an agroecological farming future?‘. Click HERE for FREE tickets
The Soil Association believes that agroecological farming needs to be at the centre of the innovation agenda for agriculture and food, not in the margins as it has been to date. The Soil Association’s farmer-led innovation programme, Innovative Farmers, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year which has connected farmers and scientists in designing over 100 field labs to date. Now, the new service for farmers, called Soil Association Exchange, utilises powerful tech innovations to ensure farmers get rewarded for agricultural practices that protect climate and nature.
Government has a key role to play in unlocking agroecological innovation to achieve the goals of net zero, nature restoration and resilient food production. Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy called on Defra to redirect its £280m innovation fund towards “the agroecological methods that have been starved of investment up to now. It should draw on the experience of successful independent initiatives such as Innovative Farmers…” However, the Government’s ‘Food Strategy’ response has so far made no new commitments in this area.