We had an absolutely amazing time at Conygree Farm, Gloucestershire, on 12-14 September.
This was our second Flagship Event organised under our own name and our first flagship event as a fully registered CIC! It’s amazing to think how far the group has come since the first event in September 2022, which this yearly flagship event marks the anniversary of.
This year, we had a full house of 80 attendees and speakers, almost triple the number we had last year, which is really hard to believe! It felt like we had our own identity clearly marked in the sector, and people came to our event to see us and what Emergent Generation has to offer. It was amazing to speak to people and learn that they had heard of Emergent Generation through word of mouth or social media. We are now our own identity and it is amazing how people are connecting with it!
Thursday
The event got off to an amazing start with a keynote speech from Sue Pritchard, Chief Executive of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. She explained her background, role, and aims for the FFCC. Sue relayed a special story of researchers of the FFCC who travelled around the country by bike to connect and engage with producers in rural communities, and how important it is to meet people in their place in order to fully understand what they have to say.
Sue turned to us, asking us to feed back to her what we needed from the industry. It was particularly pertinent to begin the event with this question—a good conversation starter with new acquaintances, and a chance to question our needs. Sue was going to discuss these points with DEFRA the following week. What an amazing voice we were given at the start of this event!
We talked about derisking the transition for new entrants and experienced farmers alike, scaling undertakings appropriate to the risk, and government support for young entrepreneurs so that they can have confidence in a future-proof, long-term business plan. We need to build confidence in new entrants that it is possible to make a life of farming. You need to be sure that the risk you are taking now will pay off in the long term. We need ways for people to start small, right now.
We also need a way to transfer knowledge that isn’t written down—we can’t afford to lose knowledge from older farmers. In general, more support is needed for succession and connection between the generations. Smaller farms can barely support two families, so the natural knowledge transfer between families is increasingly harder and often dies with a generation. Can we create a version of an apprenticeship to support this?
There is a need for paid entry opportunities to make a living out of passion. We need to address the enormous and sustained problem of accommodation for young people, new entrants, and low-paid workers in rural areas.
To teach people how to cook food, bring food and farming into early years education. Professional nutritionists must be at the fore to help debunk a lot of nutrition misinformation out there. Last, we need community approaches to understanding complexity—we cannot “upscale” resilient ecosystems, instead, we need to link diverse enterprises.
Her final words to the group:
Purpose- do what you love
Connect- with your people and place
Passion- put your whole heart into what you do.
Post dinner, PFL certified beef, of course, we headed to the barn—layered up—for a screening of Six Inches of Soil. Despite the cold, we had a great discussion with producer Claire Mackenzie on the process of making and advertising the movie, how the young farmers were selected, and how their stories inspire others. There is a lot to learn from such community enterprises feeding on passion and a powerful story to tell.
Friday
After a great breakfast, laid on by Jonty and Mel and a heartfelt yoga session thanks to Stevie, we convened in the tipi for a Speakers Corner Live session. Speakers Corner founder Mitchell Green chaired a panel of 3 other EmGen’rs Husain Alogaily, Grace Mulhearn, and Jake Waller discussing their experiences and ideas around finding and using their voice. It is important to find your own voice in this—work out how you can best communicate your ideas in whatever form suits you best. Ideas change all the time, and being true to yourself also means being open to changing your opinions. In the end, the point of a discussion is to come away feeling like you learned something.
“Voice is as much about listening as it is shouting” - Mitch
“It’s kind of cool to be proven wrong, because you learn” - Jake
“It is easy to underestimate your voice and its impact. But you can bring light to your own community just by sharing your personal experiences. Only you can tell your unique story” - Husain
“The tipping point theory says that social change doesn’t happen gradually. It simmers and then happens all at once.” - Grace
It was amazing to see these young people share their ideas with the audience, and for them to have a platform to do so. It was really special to see Mitch and Jake, two Em Gen members who attended the first event in 2022 on stage representing the youth voice. It was also lovely to reflect on how they have developed since that first event, and how they have grown as the organisation has. We then went on to our first optional sessions of the day.
Morning Skills Sessions
Lu Barton from the Owl Conservation Project brought in 5 owls with her! Lu and her colleague Lucy gave a talk on owl biology and life cycles, the threats owls face, how we can conserve them, and the importance of agroecological farming in enhancing their habitats.
Russ Carrington and Dan Smith hosted a workshop on how to be a leader in the industry with lots of personal and professional insights. Everyone appreciated the honesty of Russ and Dan; their journeys are humbling. Many raised honest points around burnout and productivity.
To build the life we want to live, we have to answer the hard questions for ourselves: Who do I want to be? What do I want to change? What are my values and beliefs? How can I get there? What is my why?
“No one cares about how much you know until they know how much you care” - Dan Smith
During the farm walk, Jonty shared insights into the enterprise stacking on his farm and his management objectives. It’s impossible not to be absorbed by Jonty’s knowledge and enthusiasm, especially on his home patch. It makes you want to work at his amazing farm just to have that energy!
Stephanie Lykourgou, Emergent Generation Member, hosted the session Navigate Life & Business with Purpose. It was fantastic to see a fellow Em Gen member, who came to the original event and was hugely moved by it, leading on a session sharing her own experiences as a young entrepreneur. We learned bits of neuroscience to understand how our brains experience memory and imagination the same way and how we can calm our nervous system with somatic techniques. Accepting we cannot do it all alone, communities are there so that collectively we can meet each other’s needs. Finding our purpose came down to the question: Knowing there is no single course of action, only what you do best and feel compelled to do, what feels like it’s yours to do?
We were honoured to have Navaratnam Partheeban of IVC Evidensia and the British Veterinary Ethnicity and Diversity Society talk about diversifying networks. Theeb put the complexity into simple words: diversity is what we want, we make it work through inclusion, and there through equity. Brainstorming on all the barriers to diversity we identified what we can do to break them through learning and connection—knowledge is the antidote to generalisation and prejudice and thus stereotyping and discrimination.
Afternoon Skills Sessions
Our very own Becky Grove together with Jade Bashford helped us turn deas into reality at the Project Planning & Start-Up workshop. It was an invaluable exercise on where to start, what to think through to turn a world-shaking idea into a tangible project. Luckily, you don’t need to fit a mould to have ideas and bring them to life, everybody travels their own path and builds their own character. Rather, ask: Who has complementary skills to you? Do you need to meet and/or partner with someone to fulfil your ideas / elevate your voice? Can you map your community to find them?
Lucy Harding from the Real Farming Trust joined us for a Communication and Advocacy workshop working through the steps of a successful communications strategy for impactful storytelling. First, you need a GAME plan: goals, audience, messages, engagement. Whatever your mission statement may be, you need to tap into the core value of the audience to really get through them. There are so many ways to showcase that message: photography, television, magazines, advertisement, podcasts, radio, the list is endless—social media is not the be-all and end-all of communication.
At the Dry Stone Walling Practical with Mel Brunyee, it was great to see Em Genner Hollie engaged in a light-hearted debate over the integrity of her wall with accomplished waller Mel. It’s great to have young people involved in this dying skill, hopefully passing it on and keeping it alive. There are still plenty of walls left at Conygree that we could hone our skill on!
For the Soil Health Assessment workshop using Soil Mentor with Tristan Leslie, we had a great group of land managers and non land managers in the field looking at the various ways of observing and analysing soil health and condition. It was useful having a young hedgerow as a comparison to the grazed area of the field. Contrasts like this are a great way of showing how the management can influence the infiltration, rooting depth and VESS (Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure) score in the field. It was nice to hear how Jake was planning on taking some of these learnings back with him to the farm he works on in the North York Moors.
Closing the day, we all enjoyed a wonderful cheese tasting session with Angus Birditt. This session was a healthy reminder that so much of the food we consume daily, such as cheese and other dairy products, are highly processed. Understanding the history behind cheese making and how this compares with modern-day industrial processes, crossed with the fantastic cheeses we sampled, and really drove home the importance of artisan cheese makers.
“Artisan cheese is inconsistent and we should celebrate that.” - Angus
Plenty of people flocked to the Conygree Shop on Saturday morning to stock up as a result!
Saturday
On the last morning, we headed across the A40 to Sandy Hill Farm—Matt and Laura are also tenants of the Sherbourne Estate like Jonty. It was inspiring to hear the story of two new entrants and how they navigated entering the industry, starting with a passion project in their local allotment. I hope that other people who attended the farm walk were as inspired by the success of their work here: planting apple orchards, bale grazing amongst parkland, and a successful laying hen enterprise with mobile units.
The event this year was finished by rolling straight into Jonty and Mel’s infamous Harvest Festival—a last party night before facing the reality of getting home. We enjoyed yet another good meal, fabulous company, and a ceilidh under the wonderfully decorated tipis. It was another magical night, with a new injection of non-Em Gen company in the form of Jonty’s friends and family.
A huge thanks to all the organisers and speakers at this year's event. The buzz is just not wearing off.
“The most amazing immersive experience I have ever taken part in, it has inspired me so much to learn more about sustainability in farming and met the most amazing of people.”
“Ye the support for each other is incredible and will be invaluable helping us through our careers and empowering each to make change.”
“I liked the fact it was based on a working farm and was an in-person event. I really valued the opportunity to meet people my age, at a similar stage in life with similar values, who wanted to transition into working on the land and in food/farming. Meeting these people in person, and hearing from the speakers, made me feel like my ambition to eventually work in sustainable food production was valid and valued.”
“I feel more confident knowing about the work people are doing, that solutions are available in most areas of farming, and that the challenge is really how and where to work together and focus efforts to make change.”
“I think it has motivated me to do the things I have thought about for a while but have been apprehensive to try, like putting myself forward to get involved in local food networks and recognize what skills I have so that I can offer them to groups looking for volunteers in my area.”
“I will definitely explore travelling solo to see how regenerative farming is done in person.”
“Yes, I am going to start my advocacy campaign for sustainable agriculture and food security.”
“It has inspired me to get more connected with these people and this work in my every day life.”
“I also learned a lot of practical/scientific things e.g. the fact that most of the fertility of the soil we rely on lies in just the top 6 inches; that livestock farming can sequester more carbon than it produces. I learned about enterprise "stacking" and how it might work in practice, through the conversation with the market garden manager and Jonty. I deepened my understanding of mob grazing (I.e. it doesn't need to follow a strict timetable). And much, much more.”
“To not stress about not having lots of experience right now, it all comes with time. Wanting to learn more means being open to others opinions that you may not agree with but it’s all about the learning!”
“I am hoping to move forward and into spaces with more confidence, sharing my voice, getting to know other people in and interested in the sector and asking for help and ideas. I know the people out there want to share their knowledge and passion and that there are work and volunteering opportunities if I just have the confidence to go for it.”
“I feel like the EmGen movement is gaining clarity on what it stands for, and therefore honing its offer to potential new members.”
I truly have so much gratitude and appreciation for the space you helped to create and build, all the space and kindness you offered, all the facilitators you booked, the opportunities you gave to people to speak about their projects, the experiences you gave, the food! Despite the suggestions above on the whole the snacks and drinks were super appreciated and generous! Thank you for the firewood! Awesome staff and atmosphere!”
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