Leading global brands need to get better at working with farmers if they are to meet their commitments to regenerative agriculture supply chains, according to the findings from Nuffield scholar Alastair Trickett. Farmers Guardian finds out more.
Having been brought up on a family arable farm in Yorkshire, Alastair Trickett was always encouraged to explore other options off-farm. A degree in philosophy was followed by a move to London to work in management consultancy, helping companies like Google and Royal Mail commercialise big data.
However, it was a change in career which fuelled his interest in brand power and how that relates to food production. After working for an agency with the likes of Adidas, Samsung and BMW as clients, developing their brand strategies, and then a move to Associated British Foods, Alastair realised the importance of marketing and the role farmers play in the grocery sector.
He says: Working at that level in the supply chain gave me a real insight into how big brands and companies view the commercials of the grocery market. Having thought farming was not for me, I saw how the food industry was increasingly reliant on shaping farming practices. Discussions about farming and supply chain sustainability were being elevated to the board room of multinationals.
This felt like an exciting time to get back to my roots, to an industry that deep down felt part of my DNA.
In 2016, Alastair left his job in Cambridge to spend a year traveling, including working on sheep farms in New Zealand with his wife Katherine. This helped him gain valuable work experience but also get a global perspective on agricultural markets.
Returning home to the farm
On his return, Alastair worked alongside his father, Peter, to review the direction of the farm business.
The door has always been open for me, or either of my two brothers, to return home. But it was working off-farm that helped me realise I had a real passion for the farming industry.
Alastair and Peter farm a mix of rented and owned land in Wike, near Leeds, Yorkshire, totalling more than 420 hectares of wheat, barley, oilseed rape, oats, herbal leys and grassland. Returning home, Alastair looked for new enterprises to add to the business portfolio.
We did try various options: Christmas turkeys and adding a dog walking field, we even looked at establishing a wedding venue but I did not find anything I was passionate about. I think that is key for a successful business.
We also strongly believe the core business should be profitable in its own right.
I had strong beliefs in the benefits of mixed farming and had grown fond of Romney sheep in New Zealand.
In 2017, 270 New Zealand Romneys were bought locally and added to the farm rotation.
The sheep are run on a rotational grazing system with no concentrates. They scan around 178 per cent on a short 21-day tupping cycle. They are kept outdoors through winter and lamb in the paddocks, mainly unassisted. Roughly 70 per cent are sold deadweight, this year averaging just over 17kg, lighter than usual because of the dry summer.
We have added 50 acres of grass leys, some under option GS4 [Legume and herb-rich swards] on the Countryside Stewardship Mid-Tier scheme, says Alastair.
This is a good fit for our farm; it pays well, is low input and improves soil structure and biological health. We were due to add more but have held off because of rocketing finance costs.
Within mid-tier, we also made use of opportunities to increase our environmental management.
This totals 127 acres of land under options and 22km of hedgerows. This includes rotational hedgecutting, wild field margins, adding waterway buffers, planting winter bird food crops and herbal leys.
Nuffield Scholarship
This was the right time for me. I had the freedom and energy to make the most of this incredible opportunity.
"Nuffield opens lots of doors and gives you the chance to become an expert in something you feel genuinely passionate about.
Coming home and linking the practical aspects of farming with the supply chain and brand retailing experience I had meant I could join the dots of the whole system.
It was apparent to Alastair that global brands were making claims and commitments that affected the daily life of working farms.
These claims can have a significant bearing on how food is produced. I felt there was a huge risk that farmers would be sidelined if they did not take a leading role in the conversation. To put it into context, just the headline organisations alone who have made commitments to regenerative agriculture have a combined turnover above US$1.4 trillion. The huge commitments from them have the potential to influence farming systems on a significant scale. For example, Pepsico has committed to seven million acres of regenerative farms in their supply chain by 2030.
Accepted for a scholarship to study the role of brands in scaling regenerative agriculture, he travelled to Australia in March 2020 to the Nuffield Contemporary Scholars Conference, an event attended by 2020 Nuffield scholars from all over the world, but the trip was cut short due to the emerging global pandemic.
It was clear lockdowns were imminent and I had to get back for lambing.
Alongside his role on-farm, Alastair has also taken some off-farm consultancy work since 2020, focusing on regenerative farming. This complemented his Nuffield studies and gave him time to consider the direction of his research, with a topic that was niche in 2019 and now mainstream in 2022.
Commenting on the change in direction, Alastair says: It is amazing how awareness and attitudes to farming practices from non-farmers have changed in such a short time and makes the need for the farming sector to recognise this and take advantage even more important.
Creating a new business
In 2020, a phone call from Precision Grazing farm consultant James Daniel led to the establishment of Grassroots Farming. Together with award-winning beef farmer James Evans, they work with the food chain to connect brands with farmers who have a commitment to regeneratively-raised beef.
This gives me the ideal platform to put my previous work experience and what I have learned through Nuffield into practice, says Alastair.
Grassroots Farming was initially approached by Honest Burgers, a national burger restaurant that wanted to source beef from farms that were making strides in regenerative farming. Alastair and his partners worked on creating a network of farmers who could supply dairy cross finished beef throughout the UK. These farms have to agree to be audited on specific aspects of their farm management. In return, Grassroots Farming links them to a buyer that will pay a premium. They simply have to send the animals to an abattoir as agreed and Grassroots Farming arranges for the beef to be delivered to the customer.
The process includes creating a baseline of where each farm is in terms of ecological health. Then the farm owner and the Grassroots Farming team works through a regenerative toolkit to discuss practices that could benefit that individual farm. A checklist is devised and an independent ecologist is appointed to follow up on progress, which can involve measuring sward density or taking water samples and worm counts. This forms part of the audit which is used to illustrate to buyers that progress is being made.
Having proved the system works, we are now seeing increasing interest from businesses in the food chain who want to source from farms that are improving their ecological footprint. Grassroots Farming is seeing fast growth and I hope to see more farmers get on board. Currently, we are only working with beef, but I see this extending to other products as the demand increases, he says.
Nuffield helped me see that the principles and toolkit of regenerative farming is common to each farm, but the application is very different. We are all striving for the same outcomes, but how we get there depends on many different factors. For me it may be reseeding with herbal leys, or it could be improving parasite treatments, or introducing rotational grazing. But for my neighbour it could be direct drilling or using companion crops in your rotation. The strength of regenerative farming is in its flexible approach alongside demonstrating the outcomes in improved soil health, biodiversity and carbon footprint. That can then be rolled out, from the bottom up, on a large scale to meet market demands.
Alastair goes on to stress corporate organisations often do not understand the differences in farming systems and without involvement from farmers, the industry is in danger of being forced to meet requirements that are not practical or financially viable for individual farms.
With effective leadership, we can bridge that gap and capitalise on the huge opportunities that will be presented to us. The big corporates need farmers, because we are now selling more than what we produce we are also selling how we produce it. However, in their attempts to work with us, they are still not taking enough of a farmer-centric approach. I see too much top-down thinking from corporates and not enough genuine engagement in understanding farmers on the ground. That is because this is difficult to do cost effectively at scale, but this is the most critical thing in regenerative farming, because it is so contextual to each farm.
On my travels in Australia I witnessed first-hand the effects of climate change on farming businesses, with flooding, droughts and wildfires causing havoc. It is absolutely vital current and future generations are helped to farm more responsibly by their customers, using newly acquired new skills and technology that is available. The next 10 years are critical.
