A mission in sustainable farming

How can we bring research of sustainable agricultural practice into commercial farming? Where can we find farmers ready to do that? How can we create awareness of sustainable farming practices in the public and in consumers? And where do I want to place myself in this chain of knowledge and practice? These and other questions were raised during my PhD within the DIVERSify project. As I carried on in the project, I soon realized that my focus on research on ecological interactions in intercropping was not enough and that I wanted to know more about translating research findings into sustainable farming practices. This raised my interest in getting in touch with project partners that have practical experience of farming innovation.

Embracing the mission during pandemic
That is when the DIVERSify Young Researcher Mission stepped in. Our project partner LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) was just the perfect organization to put my questions to! Emily Trivett, LEAF Technical Coordinator of European projects, immediately welcomed my proposal. We were initially looking forward to a local stay at LEAF (UK), but had to cancel the plan due to COVID-19 restrictions. I am glad though that the pandemic did not stop us! Emily re-arranged the mission into a three-day online event, each day dedicated to one of LEAF’s departments: LEAF Technical, LEAF Education and LEAF Marque, plus a bonus meeting with one of LEAF’s Demonstration Farmers (Fig. 1).

From expectations to discovery
Before the meetings I prepared a list of questions for each department and did some background research on Integrated Farm Management (IFM), which is the key strategy behind LEAF’s philosophy. Thanks to this mission I found out that IFM is much more than what is usually described on the web. I want to share here the most striking things I learned during my mission.

Integrated Farm Management: farming at 360°
On the web one can easily find IFM being defined as a “third way between organic and conventional”. However, when talking to LEAF Technical department I learned that IFM is actually an “umbrella approach”, operating both with conventional and organic farms. In fact, LEAF considers that every farm is different and therefore does not impose one method to achieve IFM, but rather works on farm-specific plans. The goal is to improve sustainability of farms through a combination of approaches and by planning farm’s management in a tailored and holistic way. Isn’t this quite different from defining IFM as a “third way”?

LEAF Education: learning on farm at 360°
On the second day of my mission, I was guided in a journey through LEAF Education.There I learned about specific events such as “Farmer Time” and “LEAF Open Farm Sundays” which are organized to engage school pupils and the wider public into farming. The great success of these events did not stop also during the pandemic, when the events went online, reaching unexpected audiences from within and outside the Country.
Contrary to my expectations, I also learned that education on farms can go way beyond only farming.
LEAF Education uses farms as a 360° environment to deliver education in almost…any topic, through experiential learning. If I look back at myself in school, trying hard not to sleep during history classes, I would have gladly welcomed had the opportunity to learn in such an interactive and stimulating way. Well done LEAF Education!
The topic of farming and schools reminded of the debate I heard some time ago, on the idea of introducing agriculture as an official school subject, to bring farming closer to city students, helping them to learn where their food comes from. LEAF’s examples on farms’ pedagogical creativity made me realize that making agriculture a school subject in the traditional way (lectures, books, classes) might hide the true multi-disciplinarity and full potential that farming environments offer. Supporting schools (finance -and organization- wise) to include on farm learning programmes, is instead a great way to open student’s mind and creativity.

LEAF Marque: flexible order, ordered flexibility
I’ll be honest on this: I did not have any clue on how assurance schemes worked, so I was not sure what to expect from the meeting with LEAF Marque staff. But once the staff started explaining, I discovered how challenging and important this sector is.
What struck me is that, unlike other assurance schemes, LEAF takes into account farm-specific plans and goals. There is no absolute formula a farmer must fit with, but rather a codified tailored process based on IFM goals. Despite its highly local-specific features, this assurance scheme is even going beyond the UK borders, being applied to several LEAF farmers worldwide!
In my messy notebook I made a big circle on one note: “all enterprises”: To be LEAF Marque certified, farms must fulfil LEAF’s standards not just on the portion of farm it wishes to have certification on, but on the whole farm. I though this “everything or nothing” approach was the common practice of all assurance schemes, but apparently it is not so universal after all! Great job!

LEAF Demonstration Farm: the power of experimenting
The last meeting in my wonderful journey through LEAF, was with the LEAF Demonstration Farmer Rob (Fig 2). He has been farming his entire life and a LEAF Demonstration Farmer for about 20 years! I was impressed by his way of farming: a melting pot of traditional methods and experimentation. He tests many things directly on his farm, learning from failures and successes. Rob’s main enterprise is dairy, although he does not really apply all the techniques some “modern” dairy farms do, such as keeping cows inside sheds all year round and feeding them with bought animal feed. He rather keeps a relatively small herd of cattle and lets them stay outside for a large proportion of the year, feeding on pastures he takes care of and in which he continuously tests plant mixtures. What struck me about Rob is his courage to stand on his decisions and not mind comments from neighbour farmers about his way of leading the farm. As an ecologist, I was also impressed to hear about the chicory-plantain pasture system he is testing to face dryer seasons.

There would be so much more to say on what Rob shared with us: issues dairy farms face in the milk production sector, his international experiences with farmers from Brazil and India…But what I think is the most precious message Rob shared with us, is about his experience of turning his farm to an integrated farm: the holistic approach of IFM enabled him to make profit also from his farm’s previous weaknesses. By taking care of all aspects of the farm, instead of focusing only on the ones he was good at, perceived weaknesses also became a way to success. I could not help noticing that described this way, farming systems look somehow like humans.

What I bring with me
This Young Researcher Mission was a great opportunity to open my mind on many aspects of sustainable farming. What I learned about IFM will also flow directly into my work in the DIVERSify project: the outcomes of our DIVERSify ecological trials here in Münster (WWU) and the farming approach supported by LEAF seems to lead in the same direction: sustainable methods supporting farm diversity and ecosystem processes (e.g crop mixtures) can be used in low input as well as in conventional systems while supporting (or even enhancing) yields. This brings me back to the question “where do I want to place myself in this chain of knowledge and practice?”: hopefully right in the middle of the two, collaborating with projects and farmers ready to make the change.

To find out about the results and outputs of the DIVERSify project, from research to practice, visit this website and follow DIVERSify on Twitter

A mega thanks to Emily and all the LEAF staff for accepting the challenge of this on-line mission and for sharing their enthusiasm in their work with me. It was inspiring to learn about all this. I wonder now if in my home country there is something comparable to this. I have some homework to do!

| AUTHOR: Silvia Pappagallo |