The Sustainable Food Trust Podcast

Bringing the fourth series of the SFT podcast to a close, Patrick Holden caught up with longtime friend and one of the pioneers of the UK’s organic farming movement, Iain ‘Tolly’ Tolhurst. “We need to bring farming back into society. It’s become completely divorced from society.” Tolhurst Organic, located on the Hardwick Estate between the Chilterns and the river Thames

Bringing the fourth series of the SFT podcast to a close, Patrick Holden caught up with longtime friend and one of the pioneers of the UK’s organic farming movement, Iain ‘Tolly’ Tolhurst. Tolhurst Organic, located on the Hardwick Estate between the Chilterns and the river Thames, is a model of sustainability, and one of the longest running organic vegetable farms in England.

Julius Roberts – a first-generation farmer and chef with a passion for seasonal cooking and self-sufficiency – joins Patrick Holden for this episode of the SFT podcast. After studying sculpture at university, Julius worked as a full-time chef in London before moving to a smallholding in Dorset where he now farms. He keeps a range of livestock, including goats, sheep and pigs, a

In this episode of the SFT podcast, Patrick Holden sat down with John and Alice Pawsey, pioneering organic farmers of Shimpling Park Farm in Suffolk. As well as farming 650 hectares of arable land and 1,000 New Zealand Romney breeding ewes, Shimpling Park also farms an additional 980 hectares of land for neighbouring farmers, all of which are managed organically. Diversifications o

For this episode of the SFT podcast, Patrick Holden travelled to the Cotswolds to catch up with Dame Prue Leith – renowned restaurateur, cook, novelist and judge on the hugely popular Great British Bake Off. Prue recounts the incredible life she has led, from growing up in South Africa during Apartheid, to living in France where she discovered her passion for cooking. Prue and Pa

As we reach the halfway point in this current series of the SFT podcast, Patrick Holden becomes the interviewee in a conversation with Dave Chapman on all things organic. Dave is the co-founder of the Real Organic Project, a farmer-led movement based in the US which aims to strengthen people’s understanding of the organic movement, including the traditional values and practices.

Kicking off the new year and marking our fourth episode in the latest SFT podcast series, Patrick Holden meets with Ian Wilkinson at this year’s Oxford Real Farming Conference. Ian is the Managing Director of Cotswold Seeds which boasts a bespoke seed catalogue, supplying 15,000 farmers across the UK with green manures, cover crops, herbal leys and more. He is also the co-founder

For the third episode of the SFT podcast, and closing out 2023, Patrick Holden caught up with Sarah Langford – a criminal and family barrister, turned organic farmer and author of the critically acclaimed book, Rooted: How Regenerative Farming Can Change the World. Sarah spent 10 years as a barrister living in London, during which time she also wrote her debut book, the Sunday Ti

While in Dubai at COP28, Patrick caught up with Helmy Abouleish, who – through his work as CEO of sustainable development initiative, SEKEM – has launched a soil carbon credit scheme in Egypt, bringing together around 40,000 farmers who are mainly smallholders farming biodynamically and organically. With food and agriculture a central theme at this year’s COP, the SEKEM mode

In this first episode, Patrick Holden meets Sophie Gregory – one of the UK’s most prominent first-generation dairy farmers. With a passion for connecting more people with the origins of their food, Sophie talks to Patrick about how she first got into farming, her plans for her Nuffield scholarship on the future of organic, and why she feels education on food and farming is so e