Outgoing Ambassador Vicki Hird reflects on her time with Farming the Future and shares reflections on the policy work she's been part of and her hopes for the future.
Our collective began in 2019 in the aftermath of Brexit – and now, as ever, is still a time of flux in farm policy. So, what has been achieved and what future priorities should we keep in mind?
What resonates with you about Farming the Future’s approach?
Vicki: It's an old, but good, cliche 'if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together'. I was drawn to the collaborative approach at the heart of Farming the Future because I've seen all too often the failings of narrow, isolated projects and campaigns. These run the risk of failing to recognise false solutions, of missing opportunities for a much louder voice, of favouring simplicity of messaging over genuine change.
That's not to say everything should be a collaboration. Lord knows that's hard and the budget is often not enough. But farming and food is such a painfully complex system whatever way you look at it - biologically, demographically, geographically, economically, ecologically, culturally - so we really do need more collaborative approaches and system thinking, or we won’t shift the whole system.
What area of the work we have funded has really felt like it changed something?
Vicki: I’m in the business of policy change – forcing change to local, national and international policies on farming, food, land, supply chains, corporations - because without that we can’t fix anything big. So, one Farming the Future highlight for me would be the collaborations around the post Brexit Agriculture Bill campaigns and lobby. Alongside others, FTF funded me to do my stuff as a dogged, (often frustrated, amendment obsessed, Westminster weary) lobbyist in the Sustain alliance. Working alongside the brilliant LWA, RSPB, NFFN and many others we got a far better first Bill draft than expected. We got an even better second one (after the PM Johnson, illegally but helpfully from an Ag Bill point of view, prorogued parliament).
We lobbied for a public money for public goods approach (payments for soil, water, nature, education etc) plus potentially very important new, fair dealing and transparency regulations and more. And we got them into the Agriculture Act 2020. It was a huge, multi-partner effort and one in which FTF played a key role. You can read a few more of my thoughts from when it passed here.
Where else has our funding played a role supporting the enabling conditions for change?
Vicki: After Brexit trade policy was also under new non-EU management and Farming the Future played a role in getting pesticides standards high up the agenda - supporting several initiatives including the Toxic Trade research and lobby programme. I saw precisely how that was reflected in government and agency statements. Sadly, wider trade policy followed the wrong path, despite the biggest and most diverse farm coalitions lobby I’ve ever worked with. But then dogged ‘free market’ ideology was in charge.
One other specific, but hugely important strand of work Farming the Future resourced was to help get agroforestry accepted into the new payment schemes and to support a massive boost in awareness, training and research. Agroforestry could deliver huge dividends but needs the right kind of support.
Has the work Farming the Future supports helped to shift the narrative?
Vicki: I do know FTF significantly helped to put Agroecology on the map. Having started as an advisor in 2019, agroecology was very much on the fringe. It's now in the centre of debate and narrative and (whilst the confusing word soup of regenerative and organic and agroecology remains), it’s clear the principles - which encompass far more than actions on the farm - are well established and its benefits recognised. FTF supported vital Agroecology activities in parliament and with a whole new suite of MPs, with no experience of farming or the Agriculture Act etc, this ongoing work is so vital.
Do you think Farming the Future can make a difference when it funds across such a broad range of issues within food and farming?
Vicki: FTF funded so many great projects, local to national, diverse and ground-breaking, practical and emergency (especially during Covid) that I can’t do justice to it all but it all matters. The range I was more closely involved in - from actions plans and policies to deliverer a market garden renaissance in UK cities (Fringe Farming) to migrant workers’ rights and soy feed deforestations research - all made a difference. Inevitably this is a hugely partial record.
The wonderful work of the FTF funded project partners has been massively important generating so many more activities - bringing up youth voices, new entrants, small farmers, diversity in food and farming and much more. Some results may only be truly visible in years to come. Changing narratives, norms and cultures as well as breaking the hold of corporate and finance driven food systems takes a long time.
Any final words for us?
Vicki: This is a goodbye and good luck blog to the amazing staff and funders alongside the remaining and new ambassadors (we started as more lowly 'advisors'). The funders who founded and the new ones who joined, I salute your foresight and fortitude. I do want to say thank you to the fabulous staff over these years, from Rob Reed onwards, managing a new and complex set up trying to coordinate many, far too busy folk. I will be looking out for the punchy, effective and influential policy and campaigning projects you fund – it is so vital. Without them, the old, conventional, harmful supply chains and food systems will still dominate and have too much power. We need the drivers and policies changed to ensure that the diverse, agroecological, social, farm and health focussed food systems you also support, can get a more level playing field, plus the support needed to scale up, out and replicate. Then they can take over.
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