Facilitator: Tim Field fieldtim@hotmail.com
Members: 44 farms, 75 members
Area: 15,000 hectares
Our Vision
To lead landscape-scale regeneration of the farmed environment and local food networks in the North East Cotswolds through collaboration and knowledge exchange.
Our Aims
To grow into an inclusive and pro-active group of local farmers, growers, landowners, foresters and advisers who work and learn together to enhance the natural capital on their land, tackle the climate emergency and build more resilient food and farming businesses.
Objectives
1) Improve the health of our soils (building soil carbon, reducing inputs, minimising leaching, introducing more diverse and resilient cropping etc.)
2) Map, create, enhance and link priority habitats (with a focus on species rich grassland, wetland, ponds, watercourses, tree planting, field boundaries, key pollinator and bird habitats)
3) Support entrepreneurial thinking and the growth a local food economy (heritage grains, new horticulture, direct sales, dynamic procurement etc.)
4) Make the most of future policy and access private investment and public funding opportunities (carbon markets, biodiversity net gain, public money for public goods, ELMS, transition funding, natural capital, offsetting, The Great Project (Glos) etc.)
5) Evaluate progress and landscape/farm level outcomes and outputs (harmonise use of measurement, soil metrics, biodiversity surveys, benchmarking etc.)
6) Foster community engagement/outreach (health, access, education etc.)
We are not dictated solely by government policy; we work with other actors in the area (e.g. ECP, heritage wheat group, FarmED, Agricology etc)
