Hello from the Sustainable Food and Farming Working Group.
Thank you to Viola and Amanda for their recent blogs on food and farming topics that are particularly important to them. I wanted to use this blog to update you on the work of the group in November and December and let you know about some future opportunities that will be open to all OxCAN members.
We’ve continued to reach out to the University and Colleges with some very productive meetings held with the Oxford Estates Team and Lady Margaret Hall and Trinity Colleges, amongst other colleges, on topics such as land for growing and rewilding. We’ve also spent time out and about with student groups and local organisations such as OxGrow, Hogacre Farm, The Kitchen Garden People and FarmEd and nationally The Knepp Estate in Sussex.
We are currently mapping college grounds and sports grounds that are used for rewilding, student food growing or therapeutic horticulture to assist with future projects and investigating ‘flying grazing’ where sheep are moved between wild flower meadows for grazing once a year.
I’m delighted to share the news that the working group has been selected for educational visits this summer to FarmEd in May 2022 to hear about regenerative farming and the Knepp Estate in August 2022 to look at rewilding. We would like to offer places to the wider OxCAN network so please let me know if you are interested and keep a look out for more information in future newsletters.
If you would like to know more about the working group then please get in touch.