Wildfarmed co-founder, National Trust tenant farmer, and one half of the iconic duo Groove Armada, Andy Cato is coming to the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) next month to deliver the first in a series of six lectures celebrating the institution’s 180th anniversary.
Andy, who sold his music rights to buy a farm in France in 2013 after hearing about the horrors of the industrial food system, will be joining the RAU’s Professor of Agriculture Nicola Cannon for their lecture ‘Cerealsly’ Rethinking Arable Growing Systems where they will discuss how research and practical farming is moving towards regenerative, agroecology, farming systems.
They will explore the opportunities of bi-cropping, reducing the intensity of tillage, grazing cereals with sheep, and different weed control techniques, as well as looking at the opportunities and challenges of trying to reduce reliance on external inputs in agriculture and how this can become an integrated into agricultural practices to help develop environmentally acceptable farming solutions.
Professor Cannon said: “We want to look at the reasons why agriculture has developed into its current format as well as the many different management techniques which can offer an alternative to current arable farming production methods.
“Farmers have experienced so many opportunities, and probably even more challenges, during the last 25 years of research within this area and we want to consider how farming can now be viewed through an alternative lens. For many years, high yields were used as the indicator of success whereas now it is vital that farms consider long term soil health, profitability, and climate resilience.”
The free ‘Cerealsly’ Rethinking Arable Growing Systems lecture, which takes place in the University’s Boutflour Hall at its Cirencester campus, is from 6pm to 8pm on Wednesday 2nd April and is open to all. Please visit https://cerealsly-rethinking-arable-growing-systems.eventbrite.co.uk to reserve your free tickets.
Having toiled, tested, and developed farming methods for years, in 2018 Andy joined forces with Edd Lees and George Lamb to form Wildfarmed, a regenerative food and farming company focused on bringing quality food from nature rich landscapes to the high street.
Andy explained: “Perhaps the reason why well-applied regenerative farming – a solution to so many of our problems – is being embraced more slowly than it should, is because it’s a system not a practice. After centuries of scientific advances based on reductionist methodology – a single variable in a controlled environment – our collective ability to think systemically is compromised.
“System-based science sits outside familiar disciplines. Analysis of a regenerative system needs to include, at the very least, an agronomist, an economist, a hydrologist, a soil scientist, an entomologist, a nutritionist, and a botanist.”
In the past seven years, Wildfarmed has gone from strength to strength and now partners with bakeries, restaurant chains, and big-name supermarkets, working with more than a hundred growers.
Andy added: “Over the last 15 years, beginning as a novice farmer trying to produce nature rich food on degraded soils, I have conducted untold numbers of experiments, built generations of prototypes, and stared failure in the face time and again.
“Looking back on this long road to today’s Wildfarmed community, it’s a lesson in the dangers of dogma, of the importance of focusing on the system rather than the practice, and the challenge of delivering to consumers a nuanced message in an increasingly binary world.”
Originally established in 1845 as the Royal Agricultural College – the first agricultural college in the English-speaking world – and with just 25 students, the Royal Agricultural University gained university status in 2013.
To celebrate its 180th anniversary, the institution – which now has more than 1,100 students at its Cirencester campus as well as more than 3,000 studying worldwide with its many international partners – has a calendar of events taking place throughout the year including these special 180th anniversary public lectures, of which this will be the first.
Other events include the unveiling of a new sculpture made especially for the anniversary, and the opening of the University’s new £5.8m land laboratories, as well as a Community Open Day and a global online party for the University to celebrate with its international partners.
Professor Peter McCaffery, who became Vice-Chancellor of the RAU in 2021, said: “As we celebrate our 180th anniversary this year, we can reflect that our University is as relevant today as it always has been.
“Founded in 1845 to help meet a national emergency – how to feed the country at a time of burgeoning urbanisation and industrialisation – we are immensely proud of the contribution our world-wide family of 17,000+ alumni have made as leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators in agriculture and the land-based sector.
“Today we seek to equip a new generation of graduates to help address the global challenges that face us – climate change, food security, sustainable land use, biodiversity loss and heritage management.
“Building on our historic purpose – to care for the land and all who depend on it – we are now driving new frontiers as the leading specialist university in England for research, ‘top-of-the-class’ in our cluster of STEM universities for knowledge exchange, and sponsor of our £140M Innovation Village project to develop sustainable solutions for food production that will be ‘a first for the UK’.
“The RAU is also an exemplar of best practice in Trans-National Education, as recognised by UKRI and the British Council, and, in just the last three years, we have co-founded two brand-new universities – the International Agricultural University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and the University of Al Dhaid in Sharjah, UAE.
“Our influence and impact continue to be felt locally, nationally, and globally, and we fully intend to continue to punch above our weight in the future as we have done for the past 180 years.”
For more details of all the RAU’s 180th anniversary events, and to book a place at one of the 180thanniversary free public lectures, please visit https://www.rau.ac.uk/about-rau/why-rau/180-years.
Picture caption: Andy Cato, Wildfarmed co-founder
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