The Glasto of farming
I’m standing in a field surrounded by tents. There are hundreds of people around me drinking beer or coffee, laughing, and eating from one of the food vans nearby. Smoke is drifting across the field carrying the smell of roast lamb, curry, homemade pizza and open charcoal fires. Someone, somewhere, is playing the guitar and singing “easy like Sunday morning.” It is the evening of Wednesday 22nd June.
I know what you’re thinking: I’m at Glastonbury. But I’m not in Somerset, I’m in Hertfordshire for the first day of Groundswell. Part festival, part country show, part farming conference; it has a very similar atmosphere to Glasto, but the stages host rather different acts. At Groundswell, scientists, environmentalists and farmers share their wisdom—or in my case, mistakes.
For my presentation— or perhaps I should say my “set”—I decided to give a talk about my path from conventional farming to regenerative farming. Instead of claiming to be a “guru” (there are plenty of those), I shared pictures of the errors I’ve made along the way, and explained what I’ve learned about reducing tillage, increasing biodiversity and incorporating sheep grazing into our arable fields.
The pictures weren’t pretty: I shared images of flooding after I failed to correct drainage issues, of weeds outcompeting my crops and of soils compacted by the passage of sheep across them at the wrong time of year. Each represented a difficult time and a lesson learned. I asked some well-known farmers to share pictures of their own farm failures with me, and many replied with images from across the UK and North America.
The hour-long seminar, which at 5.30pm I had assumed would be the graveyard slot, was enthusiastically received by a packed tent of farmers and food producers. The audience was in exceptional spirits, although some of the jovial atmosphere may have been attributable to visits to the stand selling local beer. But the vibe was of respect not ridicule—we’ve all made mistakes; we’re all here to learn.
Now in its sixth year, Groundswell attracts thousands of farmers from across the UK and beyond. Over two days, hundreds of talks cover topics from composting, robotics, cheesemaking and the processing of wool, to managing veteran trees, dung beetle identification and there is even a moth safari. A standout session for me was delivered by an expert mycologist. His talk about fungi filled the tent to the brim with several hundred people sitting, standing—occupying any
space possible in the 30°C heat.
It was refreshing to be with other farmers choosing positivity over negativity and proactivity over lethargy in difficult times. There was a palpable desire to work together to restore the countryside that we love and to bring to life our deepseated, instinctive vision for a green and pleasant land.
In 2015, when I came home to the family farm after a stint in the film industry, half the people I spoke to said, “what a bloody awful time to come into farming.” The other half said, “what a great time to come into farming.” I know who I agree with. ♦