Sophie Paterson explores how a movement founded in France is connecting communities to local farmers and food makers across Britain: enter The Food Assembly. But does it really offer the best deal to producers, hosts and customers alike? Read more

The Fair Trade movement was set up to secure better prices for struggling small farmers and craft producers in poor countries, and to provide funds for various improvements in their communities. It has, however, come in for some criticism for various reasons. Read more

I’ve heard several people say they love going to the Oxford Real Farming Conference because it fires them up for the farming year, and I couldn’t agree more. ORFC is so inspiring to people like us because it was set up by a group frustrated at the lack of representation for organic and small-scale producers… Continue reading My reflections on the Oxford Real Farming Conference 2018 Read more

All over Europe, for a long time there has been a trend towards larger, monoculture farms and industrial agriculture. Smaller farms have been swallowed up and farmers have been leaving the land in their millions. Read more

I recently interviewed Dhara Thompson of the Sailboat Project for our new sailboats topic introduction. He told me that they are one of many new organisations that are working to bring back sailboats for cargo and passenger transport – using the power of the wind to move people and goods around the planet. Read more

Nicola and Richard Eckersley, founders of Earth.Food.Love, share their journey to pioneering the UK’s first zero-waste shop in Totnes, Devon. Read more

This is the last in a series of posts about how to run a small dairy herd without separating the calves from their mothers. This final article is about preparing the cows and calves for a stress-free weaning. Read more

We take a look at the food it may take to fuel the great Human Power Plant, an experiment in the making where students of Utrecht University in the Netherlands will power their very own carbon-neutral accommodation block. Read more

Are you feeling like you need a change of scenery for a little while? Feel like you would like to be out in the countryside more? Well how about staying in a cosy yurt with a log burner by the river Avon Read more

The Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC) is a social enterprise based in Brighton, East Sussex. They exist to create affordable access to land for new entrants to ecological agriculture and mixed farming. Read more

When a lamb or calf suckles, they bunt their mum’s udder with their heads to stimulate release of more milk. If you are share-milking, as a calf grows this bunting can quickly become so strong that it can easily knock the cluster off the other three teats. Read more

I want to investigate at what size meat production becomes unsustainable (in terms of acreage, number of animals etc.) – i.e. whether it can be sustainable at all, and if so, whether there’s an upper limit, above which it can’t be sustainable Read more

I have found that the first few days after a heifer has calved are critical when it comes to creating a positive association with feeding her calf and being milked by machine.  Read more

Are you eating GM food? The fact that you are mostly* not is down to 20 years of inspiring direct action and pressure by anti-GM activists. Read more

This is where we get to the nitty-gritty of cow-calf dairying, looking at creating a bond and the first milking; but it’s important that you have understood the whole series so far (see right or click here) before reading on, as much of what is covered here relates to points made before. Read more

Welcome to part 4 of this series on cow-calf dairying, focusing on udder development. By now you will be starting to understand that keeping calves on dairy cows is a fine art; that it is a case of balancing the emotional and physical needs of both cow and calf; and why there are no set… Continue reading Cow-calf dairying part 4: udder development Read more

Here, in part 3 of our series on dairying without removing calves from their mothers, we look at the importance of managing a calf’s nutrition in order to support the effective calf rumen development, essential to her long-term health and productivity. Read more

The 10th annual West Midlands Vegan Festival is set to be a feast for your palette as well as your eyes. Taking place in Wolverhampton on 28th and 29th October, the event will feature a wide range of global vegan foods, the latest innovations in alternatives for dairy lovers plus the hottest vegan fashion, footwear… Continue reading Omelettes, sticky ribs and Scotch eggs at the Midlands vegan festival next weekend Read more

In this second post in the series from the Smiling Tree cow-calf dairy we focus on how milk is synthesised and, importantly for cow-calf dairying, what triggers the release or ‘let down’ process. Read more

This is the first in a series of articles looking at the practicalities of producing ethical, cruelty-free milk by allowing dairy cows to keep their calves. In this post we cover why conventional dairy cows don’t keep their calves and why humanely-produced milk using cow-calf dairying is rare and costs much more to produce. Read more