Speciality-Food-Magazine-September-2024

20 specialityfoodmagazine.co.uk UPDATE SPOTLIGHT ON: THE GARLIC FARM Is food going round in circles? Barnes Edwards, director of The Garlic Farm, highlights how the principles of a circular economy could transform the food sector W ithin this readership there is often overlap between the farmers, producers and food retailers. This vertical integration can provide a meaningful connection with customers. The retailers within this space care deeply about what they sell and the methods used to produce them, and these connections are what differentiate speciality from supermarket. By collaborating even more closely, sharing emerging science, study and knowledge more actively, could we accelerate a path to a fully regenerative food and farming system? This is the question that The Garlic Farm asked themselves as they navigated through both Organic and B Corp certification. Gripped by a desire to move quickly, this vertical business of farming, production and retailing committed to a transition through sustainability to active regeneration. Aware that 95% of all food comes from the soil, they have transformed their farming practices to constantly build soil health, rather than simply sustain it. “We’re continuing on a very steep learning curve,” says Barnes Edwards, director and co-owner of The Garlic Farm. “Restoring nature whilst producing food is not easy, but it’s do-able and it’s urgent that we align around this and help each other deliver on both these outcomes in a sensitive and scalable way. 70% of UK land is farmed, and the speciality sector supports a small but increasing portion of this. To have large scale impact on the biodiversity crises and social challenges of food production in this country, we need a mainstream cultural system shift. Our sector can do this by leading the demand, but we must act fast, boldly and with coherence.” Agroecological outcomes come from collaboration, and the subsequent increase in competence. These outcomes are environmental and social, and happily B Corp is a robust mechanism to validate results by brands for its customers. “The process begins with a free module for you to look at the impact of your operation, whatever that might be,” explains Barnes, “and for us, a lot snowballed as a result. You’re getting help to really investigate, learn, understand and measure your impact across the social and environmental sides of the business.” After taking a considered look at the past seven decades of conventional farming, it became clear to the current generation that a more agroecological approach was needed at The Garlic Farm. “There’s a danger of greenwashing, so we decided that going organic was the best and most robust way to approach holistic farm management,” says Barnes. “The principle of organic farming is circularity – ideally everything is reused and comes fromwithin your boundary; there are no external inputs, you’re just working with the ecosystem in its fullest sense. In a business sense, the certifications are useful not just because of the stickers on the products, but because of the whole process – the guidance, the formality, the community, the education, the group learning. It will outlive the director/owner; it becomes integrated into the fabric of the organisation.” In addition to guidance and support from the organic farming community, specifically The Soil Association, OF&G, Riverford and Living Larder, Barnes and team continue to learn from the regenerative agriculture movement. The open culture of innovation shared between nature-friendly farmers is in full evidence at events such as Groundswell and Oxford Real Farming Conference. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, located six miles away from The Garlic Farm, is also a huge inspiration in terms of their work on and approach towards the circular economy. “They are leading a way for a total global system change that addresses the same issues we are grappling with at a small scale,” explains Barnes. “Within their recent study – The Big Food Redesign – they were looking at global examples of how ingredient choices can have a big impact on the planet as a whole. These insights can inspire us all to rethink our approach when it comes to all aspects of our professions. To ensure that we are recirculating energy and resources and eliminating waste. We need to get on with it, because there’s not much time left.” While certifying as B Corp and converting to organic is certainly not for everyone – the latter takes a minimum of two years hard graft, and it took five years for The Garlic Farm to gain B Corp certification – there is a lot to be gained by being curious about how we as individuals and businesses can address the biodiversity crisis. “In some cases it can be argued that biodiversity is more important than climate change. Climate change could be reversible – if we do lots of things well, we can turn it around – whereas once biodiversity stops, it stops. It’s game over,” says Barnes. ““Our role as farmers, business owners and retailers is to encourage an understanding that our whole ecosystem hinges on the protection of biodiversity, without it we have no food or clean water.”