Nick Jeffries

Nick is a senior expert within the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Insight and Analysis team, involved with a number of different research areas. These include providing expert input to the Food Initiative; a contributing author to Completing the Picture - how circular economy can help tackle climate change; he manages the case study program. Before joining the Foundation, Nick worked for over a decade as a professional environmental civil engineer.

Vaughn Tan

Vaughn is an assistant professor at University College London’s School of Management. His book, The Uncertainty Mindset: Innovation Insights from the Frontiers of Food, will be published in Spring 2020 by Columbia University Press. He is currently a board member and strategy advisor for Rethink Food NYC (a food waste reduction non-profit), and an advisor to the Wellcome Collection in London. Previously, he worked at Google in California, and has been an organisation and strategy advisor to businesses and non-profits including Second Home, Postcard Teas, the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, the Encyclopedia of Life Consortium, the Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund, Subculture, and the MAD Foundation.

Abby Rose

Abby is a physicist-farmer. She co-developed Sectormentor for Soils, an app that enables farmers to monitor and learn about the health of their soils using simple soil tests. She also makes https://farmerama.co/ Radio, a podcast sharing the voices of the independent farming community. She helps run, Vidacycle, her family’s small farm in Chile, where they make natural wine and olive oil, and mob graze a small flock of sheep. Through the apps, podcast and her experiences farming, Abby is committed to building ecology, profitability and beauty, on farms in the UK and beyond.

Oli Baker

Oli farms his own land, at Mora Farm near Liskeard. Here, he is able to express his growing ethos to incredible effect. Inspired by the no till, no pesticide philosophy of Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, he treats each quarter-acre field as a small garden - encouraging the presence of wildlife and letting the soil rest between crops to maintain soil health. This summer Oli installed a gravity-powered irrigation system, which pumps water from the stream at the bottom of his land. Without the use of any energy, this system allows Oli to water his entire farm using mineral-rich, natural spring water. Natoora have supported Mora Farm since it’s beginning in 2016, and this year funded an on-site cold room and packhouse - built almost entirely by Oli and a local carpenter using only sustainably-sourced materials - to provide Oli with the tools for better post-harvest care and get fresher produce to London exclusively via our own completely traceable supply chain.

Ed Hamer

Ed is founder and manager of Chagfood Community Market Garden in Devon - one of the UK's highest profile CSA's now growing on 7-acres and producing 125 shares a week. He has worked as a freelance journalist and editor of The Land magazine. He is also a founding member of The Landworkers' Alliance and has worked as LWA policy and press officer since 2012.

Matt Chatfield

Matts’ family have farmed the same small holding for 450 years. Matt originally worked in publishing in London for 10 years. Due to its size taking on the farm was not an option. In his early 30’s Matt cane back to the SW to spend a lot of time with his Nan during the last months of her life. During that period he realised he needed to do his part to help change the fortunes of small holders. Using his knowledge of London he started working with Philip Warren butcher to sell Cornish meat to restaurants in the Capital. 70% of their business is now London based. Turnover has gone from £4-12 million and they employ 120 people and work with 120 local farmers. Additionally Matt Chatfield took over the ownership of the Fitzrovia Pub, the Newman Arms. The restaurant was critically acclaimed, winning a Bib Gourmand in its first year. He won the London Restaurant Festivals ‘’Maverick of the Year, the YBF’s Honoury title and appeared in the Evening Standards Progress 1000. It was at this stage Matt realised he needed to future proof what his group had achieved. He started reaching out to the Regenerative Agriculture community. Not one to easily believe what he is told, Matt decided to return to the SW to take on the family farm and test regenerative agriculture himself. He and his mother Hazel have quickly created a market with their Cull Yaws and their land is monitored for Carbon Sequisation. Everyone in the chain is treated equally. It’s fair to say Matt has unique knowledge of the entire produce supply chain. He is the embodiment of farm to fork and founder of the Regen Ag whats app group many of today’s speakers are part of.

Cathy St Germans

Cathy is an organiser and writer. She is co-founder and co-director with Catherine Chong of Farms to Feed Us CIC. Previously she was co-founder and director of the Port Eliot Festival, a multi disciplinary festival for 13 years. She is also Chairwoman of Programming, The Merwin Conservancy a non profit in Hawaii. She studied fashion and journalism at St Martins School of Art in London and has written for many publications including The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Face, Vogue, i-D and The New Yorker. She lives in Cornwall.

Severine von Tscharner Fleming

Severine is a farmer, activist, and organizer based in Downeast Maine. She runs Smithereen Farm, a MOFGA certified organic wild blueberry, seaweed, and orchard operation which hosts summer camps, camping, and educational workshops. She is a founder and board member of Agrarian Trust and current director of the Greenhorns, a 12 year old grassroots organization whose mission is to recruit, promote, and support the incoming generation of famers in America. Greenhorns produce media and publications for and about the young farmers movement from documentary films to almanacs, anthologies, mix-tapes, posters, guidebooks, and digital maps. They are best known for The New Farmer’s Almanac, now in its fourth edition, their documentary film, “The Greenhorns,” and the raucous young farmer mixers they’ve thrown in 37 states and 14 grange halls. Severine is co-founder and board secretary of Farm Hack, an online, open-source platform for appropriate and affordable farm tools and technologies, as well as a co-founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition, which now boasts 32 state and regional coalitions. She serves on the board of the Schumacher Center for New Economics, Eat Local Eastport Cooperative, and on the advisory board of Savanna Institute. Severine attended Pomona College and the University of California at Berkeley, where she graduated with a B.S. in Conservation/Agroecology.

Thomas M. Baldwin

Based on Maui, Tom has spent the last 25 years immersed in his gardens, agro-forests and propagating nurseries. A collector of rare fruit, with a current emphasis on avocados, green sapotes, rare banana and tuber collections. Tom is a past board member of Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers and for 15 years ran Uluwehi Farm and Nursery a revered 30 acre permaculture site on the Big Island of Hawaii. Trained as a painter, Tom is passionate ecological designer, teacher of nursery and seed work. An avid sailor and student of ethno-botanical practices and especially indigenous/pacific islands traditional agricultural and propagation techniques, he works with companion planting strategies and water works in the establishment of biodiversity libraries and home gardens. Following a long family tradition in Hawaii agriculture, Tom has committed his life to restoration, education and design.

Milo Corcoran

Milo has been living and farming in Cornwall for the past two and a half years. Having begun his agricultural career at Good Earth Growers he is now Head Grower at Coombeshead Farm. He is currently working with the team at Coombeshead to enrich the project which continues to expand in scale and scope.

Sam Crosse

Sam has been a forester and climbing arborist for 17 years. He studied Level Four Forestry and Arboriculture at Merrist Wood Agricultural College before working throughout Europe on commercial and domestic projects. His prime motivation is always to preserve the legacy and genetics of our champion trees and increasing the ecology and eco systems in our woodlands. He is the founder of the first biodynamic tree nursery and champion cloning project at Heckfield Place where he is currently head of Forestry and Arboriculture.

Bronwen Percival 

Bronwen is the co-author of Reinventing the Wheel: Milk, Microbes, and the Fight for Real Cheese (Bloomsbury: 2017) and the technical manager for Neal’s Yard Dairy in London. In addition to working with cheesemakers and the company’s maturation team to select and optimize the quality of the cheese they sell, she works to mobilize collaboration between cheesemakers and the scientific community. In 2012, she instigated a biennial conference on the Science of Artisan Cheese. In early 2014, she spent two months in the Dutton Lab at Harvard University studying the role of marine-associated Proteobacteria on cheese rinds. Along with Dr. Benjamin Wolfe, she co-founded the website MicrobialFoods.org, a scientific resource for producers, purveyors, and enthusiasts of artisan microbial foods, and more recently she served on the editorial board of the Oxford Companion to Cheese. She also chairs the technical committees for both the UK’s Specialist Cheesemakers Association and the new Raw Milk Producers’ Association.

Phoebe English

Phoebe is a Womenswear and Menswear label founded in 2011. Based in South London, Phoebe English pieces are entirely Made in England from start to finish; from initial sketch to final stitch. Garments are created with a close attention to detail, fit and movement, this focus on precision and quality aims to set the label apart from mass made ‘fast’ fashion. Phoebe English MAN, launched in 2015, employs a straightforward, natural and utilitarian nature, which has found popularity with both male and female clients alike. All her garments are individually checked and packaged by hand in the studio. Phoebe trained at Central Saint Martins where she completed both a BA and MA in Fashion. On graduation, she was awarded the L’Oréal Professional Prize, Ungaro Bursary and Chloe Award. She has worked across a wide variety of disciplines and organisations and regularly guest lectures in leading Universities.

Alice Robinson

Vet’s daughter Alice is a womenswear designer whose work explores the connection between food and fashion.  Encouraged to use leather during her masters but not able to understand its origins led her back home to Shropshire and to the farming systems she understood, respected and had been brought up within. 11458 was created as her MA final collection; made from only the materials from one sheep from her local farm. By designing with only the materials left behind by one animal she uses the restriction to define the uniqueness of each collection and a limit to design within. 374, her subsequent collection, produced entirely from one bullock whose hide was deemed ‘waste’ and to be incinerated has been on display at V&A FOOD: Bigger than the Plate. Choosing to work again with her local farmer whose practices are celebrated within the work. When sitting together the collections defining features serve to reveal more about the age, breed, time and place of life of each animal. With the hope that the transparency of the supply chain offers more of a chance to connect back to the animals that nourish and supply our food and fashion industries.

Dan Cox

Dan is a chef and grower who has been at the cutting edge of food, dining and farming for the last decade. With a career spanning more than 20 years, Dan is galvanised by a desire to grow outstanding produce organically, with a focus on fruit and vegetable varieties selected and distinguished for their exceptional flavour. The 2008 Roux Scholar, Dan joined Aulis, Simon Rogan’s research kitchen in 2011 where he built and ran a farm in the Cartmel Valley. Here, Dan witnessed first hand the benefits of nurturing produce all the way from seed to plate, and the value of being present when the produce was served. In 2014 Dan was appointed executive head chef at Simon Rogan’s Fera at Claridge’s where he remained before relocating to Cornwall to establish Crocadon Farm in 2018. Today, Dan is energised by the freedom not only to farm as he chooses, but to determine the point of harvest for everything he grows and rears.

Sarah Mower

Sarah is a renowned fashion critic and columnist for publications including American Vogue, is internationally acclaimed for her forthright and decisive critiques. A passionate advocate of emerging British talent, Mower’s prolific support for young British designers has been an instrumental force behind the rise of talents such as Christopher Kane , Erdem, Mary Katrantzou , JW Anderson , Jonathan Saunders , Meadham Kirchhoff and  Simone Rocha . In 2009, she was appointed as the British Fashion Council’s Ambassador for Emerging Talent. Also serving as co-chair of the BFC Newgen Committee since 2009 and a founding member of the London Showrooms, Mower plays a significant role in raising the profile of the British fashion industry within the global community. Mower is also actively involved in fashion education, guided by the concern for talent from every background to have the chance to participate in the industry. In 2015, she became a trustee of the British Fashion Council Education Foundation, was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by Westminster University in 2016 and an Honorary Doctorate by the Academy of Art University of California in 2017. In 2011, Mower was awarded an MBE in recognition of her influential contributions. 

Nicola Hooper

Nicola committed to farming in 2018, after a successful career in business management in London.  She farms alongside her husband Ed at Trefrawl Farm in Lanreath, a 300-acre mixed farm, where she has recently launched their direct sales meat box business selling beef, lamb and pork locally and online.  Nicola is all about keeping things simple on the farm, doing the right thing for the land and her animals and she’s passionate about bridging the gap between producers and the public.  She is also a Director of CQLP an independent livestock marketing co-operative, owned by its farmer members, in the South West.

Franco Fubini

Franco is the founder and CEO of Natoora, a community of independent growers founded on transparency and sustainability that challenges intensive, year-round production methods. Natoora's unique approach to sourcing has been raising the bar on flavour for over a decade and is actively shaping the way both top chefs and consumers cook in London, New York and Paris. With direct relationships with over 300 growers across Europe & the US - as well as their own farms in Cornwall and Sicily - Natoora represents a new farming model that proves that it is possible to grow incredible, nutrient-dense, seasonal produce at scale while promoting soil health, biodiversity and traditional growing methods.

Abi Glen-cross

Abi is a scientist, farmer, cook and botanical explorer based in London and Hertfordshire. She is co-founder of the sustainable food story, an ecological exploring dining experience; head of grains at Duchess farms; and head grower at Pale Green Dots Duchess Farm site. She trained as a chemical engineer and is an ex-lab meat scientist.

Gioconda Scott

Gioconda has been Involved in the Management and Food Creation departments of her mother ́s hotel Trassierra since 1995
. She is a founder member of the Slow Food Movement in Southern Spain. She was Head chef & manager of Restaurante Garzon de Francis Mallmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a number of years. She assisted in food production for the Francis Mallmann episode of Chef’s table and travelled with Francis, working on outdoor cooking events in Chicago, Vancouver & New York. She was the production coordinator for Souk el Tayeb
(lunch for 600 people)
at the MAD food symposium in Copenhagen and has starred in her own BBC television series, Paradise Kitchen.

Tom Tolputt

Tom is an organic farmer and dairy nutrition consultant based in Cornwall. He and his wife Nicola currently run about 630 acres with an Angus
suckler herd and growing organic oats, barley and fodder beet which he supplies to his dairy farming clients. Passionate about improving the link
between good grazing management, diverse cropping and the wider benefit for native wildlife he see's regenerative farming as a win-win for soil health,
human health and wider environmental benefit.

Tim Williams

 Originally from the deepest, darkest part of New Zealand Tim has been farming much of his life. A 3-year stint in London working in the marketing world put him off the office life and he returned to the farming community working on farms in New Zealand and the UK. Largely working within the realms of organic production, both in arable and livestock, he began following the likes of Joel Salatin & Alan Savory around five years ago when he landed a role managing one of New Zealand most spectacular landscapes on the banks of Lake Wanaka. The regenerative journey got serious when 3 years back he got the opportunity to establish and manage ‘English Farm”, a beautiful Oxfordshire grassland farm, growing traditional English Longhorn Cattle to certified PFLA and Organic standards. His claim to fame is cooking a BBQ of 5-year-old English Longhorn Heifer Loin for 80 people, including Marianne Lumb, at the launch of said farm. Along the way, he has worked cattle in outback Australia and the Salisbury Plain, set up his own high-end butchery, ‘The Slow Meat Company” and now manages one of the jewels in the regenerative farming crown - Mangarara Station, the home of regenerative agriculture in NZ. Tim is now leading a team to launch an open source platform for the rapid dissemination of knowledge around regenerative practices, with the ultimate goal of creating a UK specific regenerative farming model.

Stuart Cragg

Stuart is a certification manager at the Biodynamic Association & Demeter UK, and oversees the Organic & Biodynamic certification of 275 licensees. He first came into contact with biodynamic agriculture nearly 20 years ago when teaching teenagers with special needs at Ruskin Mill College in Gloucestershire. He has spent the last 18 years working on the college's 75-acre biodynamic mixed farm, designed to deliver a “seed to table” curriculum which reconnects learners with nature by producing the food they eat. He believes the combination of ecological, social and spiritual principles in biodynamics have a place in modern debates about the future of agriculture. Biodynamic principles view nature, farming, economics, education and people as a fully integrated ecosystem. Even though the biodynamic movement is relatively small in the UK and Ireland, it punches above its weight in the way it appeals to anyone who is concerned about their natural environment and food security, and who are actively involved on the future shape of UK Organic policy. Stuart is particularly interested in how food production can regenerate soil and biodiversity which therefore supports resilient ecosystems for future generations. Stuart views the certification aspect of his role as a vital tool in which biodynamics can gain legitimacy in society, and therefore facilitate change.