Groundswell Agriculture 2024
The sun has shone on us for one weekend in the first half of the UK summer and luckily it was while we were at the Groundswell regenerative farming festival.
8,000 people talking about just one thing…regenerative farming. Wow, just wow.
We learned so much. And we made such good connections. What an incredible reset.
John Kempf was there too – his first ever visit to the UK!
We spent a lot of time hanging out at the stand of Vinescapes, courtesy of our trustee Alistair Nesbitt – thanks Alistair 🙂
We hosted a panel on regenerative viticulture with Joel Jorgensen of Vinescapes. So many questions they had to turn our mikes off at the end! Such interest from farmers considering planting vineyards. Great to get the opportunity to talk about regen techniques from the get-go.
We also hosted a regenerative cheese and wine event in a tent in 28C heat. The wines were lovely and cool – thanks to Stephen Cronk for Maison Mirabeau, Ben Walgate, Luke Spalding for Everflyht and Vinescapes for their Regeneration wine made by Sarah Stott. The cheeses however were trying to melt their way off the tasting mats. But they were good – thanks to Angus Birditt. They were mopped up by Wildfarmed bread, the groundbreaking regen scheme from Andy Cato of Groove Armada (later to be found DJing and teaching the daughter of Regen Ben to DJ – what an amazing experience!)
So much to explore and experience – including a compost windrow turner demonstration, cover crops, chats with people including: Soil Food Web teacher , the Soil Association, agroforestry experts, the amazing Abby Rose of Sectormentor, Baker consultants listening to microbes in the soil with probes, biochar innovators, the incredible Vix Mason, the fab people from Berry Bros & Rudd, the great Wine Society folk, Tamlyn Currin, Tom Owtram of The Vine Strategy, Jessica Villat, the fab Ian Beecher-Jones, Luke Spalding of Everflyht on a panel with Will Mower of Vineworks and Belinda Kemp of NIAB…The list could go on for ever. It was mind blowingly good and you should all go next year if you can…
As Anne Bikle said last year, the great thing about this movement is it’s not based on despair, it’s based on hope. Hope to see you all there next year!
