This is a copy of the Green Farm Collective newsletter from July 2023. To join the mailing list, please email [email protected]. To access the full range of member benefits, including exclusive articles and recordings, sign up at gfp.global.

Green Farm Collective enewsletter

Welcome to our second Green Farm Collective Newsletter. We hope that crops and livestock are growing on well in your locality and harvest has started well for those with combines rolling. Much has happened since April’s newsletter, including our second Green Farm Collective (GFC) Conference, attracting over 220 people from as far away as the Isle of Wight. We have also launched the Green Innovation Award, a £10,000 sustainability prize to help someone spark a burning idea into reality, more details below.

If you have any feedback or ideas, please get in touch. 

Find out more on our website, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. 

The Green Farm Collective regenerative farming food label

We are excited to launch a premium label, to distinctly market regeneratively produced cereals. This label will allow identification of premium produce grown by GFC members and audited with Food Integrity Assurance (FIA) as our inspection body. We have created a full constitution which was approved and accepted by FIA in June. If you would like to be considered as a supplier of regeneratively produced cereals, please complete our members harvest survey. 

The Green Farm Collective Conference 2023

At Church Farm, Boningale, we were blessed with good weather as speakers covered a range of topics.

Across two barns, visitors filled notebooks with information to digest at home, and new, professional connections were made. Eddie Bailey of RhyzoPhyllia, detailed the inner workings of soil and its multitude of microorganisms, bacteria and other synergistic flora. Globally renowned nutrition expert, Patrick Holford, highlighted the link between soils, the food we eat, and human health. Biodiversity and hedgerows, regenerative livestock production and the practicalities of applying regenerative principles were amongst multiple subjects explained to farmers and industry professionals, with thought provoking questions posed throughout. You can read more about it here, and recordings of the talks are currently being uploaded exclusively for GFC members, here. We thank our generous sponsors for helping us to make the conference happen and thank everyone for their kind donations, raffled to raise £880 for The Farming Community Network. £675 was also raised for the Addington Fund through refreshment sales and visitor donations. A special thank you, to all of you who joined us to make it such a vibrant, interesting day. We look forward to welcoming you all at Church Farm again for next year’s conference on 22 May.

GFC Founder, Angus Gowthorpe explains his regen journey

Near Escrick, York, Angus farms 500 acres, of which 400 are arable and 100 are forage, providing grazing and winter haylage for the family’s “Approach Farm” Pedigree Saler herd. Angus moved to regenerative farming methods in 2014 and has since transformed the farm, with nutrient use efficiency now at optimum levels. Angus applies foliar Nitrogen and biological brews; no synthetic fungicides have been used for over two years, and the need for insecticides, plant growth regulators and bagged P and K ended six years ago. The naturally enhanced soil is growing wheat at 10T/Ha on 66kg/ha of applied N, proving that the farm’s soils are among the best in the country for nutrient use efficiency. Read more. 

Tim's trials

Tim Parton believes that glyphosate can be a useful tool when used in the correct circumstances. To test the effects of different glyphosate management techniques, Tim is operating four trials, at the end of which, he will test the soil microbes, the plant uptake and the resulting grain, for residues. Biological treatments in use are citric acid, fulvic acid, molasses and humic acid.

The four trials are wheat, with:

1. Glyphosate at full rate (4 litres).
2. Half rate glyphosate + biological treatments.
3. Half rate glyphosate + treatments + cultivation.
4. Cultivation only.

The trials outcome is eagerly awaited. Tim has predicted his optimal method, but which option do you suspect will prove the most effective for treatment, whilst minimising soil and plant residues?

Do you know someone with an innovative farming idea?

We recently launched The Green Innovation Award offering £10,000 prize money for an on-farm innovation, which improves the farming system, will have a marked impact on the sustainability of the farm, or see significant biodiversity improvements. This award will allow us to support the winner on their journey to making their idea a reality.

Date for the diary 

The Green Farm Collective Open Day: 22 May 2024. Tickets will be available in the new year.

In case you missed it

Tim Parton talks nutrition for both soil and human health with nutrition expert Patrick Holford.

Read of the month

Nourishment, by Fred Provenza

All our members have access to Trinity Pioneers which is a private forum where ideas can be shared along with pictures and videos. Become a member. 

If you have feedback or ideas of what you might like to hear more about in the newsletter, please email us.