Green Spaces for Health, Access to Land and Real Bread Week

In November 2024 the Good Food Bucks Steering Group met to consider our priorities for 2025. We decided to focus on Access, Celebrate and Collaborate but what does Access mean for our Food Partnership. 

In January we joined Kathleen Finlay from Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming and the Rome Sustainable Food Project for a food conversation. We learnt about the importance of regenerative agriculture and how that forms the central pillar of their work, along with ways to build Community Supported Agriculture that supports both the farmer and the community.

Following this thought provoking session we've decided to investigate access to land for growing food and for new entrant incubator projects as well as mapping the current land use in the county. This will also include our local NHS growing projects such as NHS Forest, which support food growing within hospitals grounds.

If you enjoy baking or eating fresh baked loaves and other tasty treats then have a look at Real Bread Week later in February. This year Real Bread Week is 15th - 23rd February 2024 and aims to encourage everyone to either bake their own bread or buy additive free bread from their local independent bakery. Have a look at their website to see how you can get involved this year.

Imbolc, St Brigid's Day and early signs of spring

When I was younger, February was my least favourite month of the year. The late winter would often feel cold and bleak and there was always a chance of late snow and frost. Over the last few years I've realised that signs of life are everywhere in February as nature gears up ready for spring and that this month is not as bleak as I first thought.

I love to see the lighter nights, buds on the trees, early lambs in the field and hear the early morning bird song. Closer to home one of our chickens, Demelza, who is a white egg layer, will start laying again around the 17th of the month.

In Ireland the 1st February marks the start of spring and is a celebration of St Brigid. Also called Imbolc, it is halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Walks in nature, sharing a meal with family and friends and lighting candles or fires to welcome the returning light are all ways to celebrate the day.

How will you welcome spring this year?

Collaborating for Food and Farming and the Oxford Real Farming Conference part 2

On a chilly early January day I headed out early to catch the train to Oxford. I studied for my masters degree in Oxford, so I'm always happy to be back in the city and on that morning I was there for the Oxford Real Farming Conference. The city was quiet post Christmas, the students had not yet returned for term and the cold weather had kept all but the hardiest of tourists away. 

First stop was the registration venue, a place to collect your lanyard and programme and catch your breath before planning which sessions you plan to attend over the Thursday and Friday.

As you move around the city, glimpsing the green lanyards of the people passing, you get a real sense of belonging to something that grows each year and of a shared space and conversation. It was wonderful to catch up with friends and colleagues and hear the speakers discussing such a wide range of topics from misinformation to cultured meat. One of my favourite was about customs and rituals and how many of us have lost our connection with the land and ways that we might engage again. Lots of food for thought and some inspiration for Good Food Bucks as well.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, in November the Good Food Bucks Steering Group spent half a day at Waddesdon Manor planning for 2025. We decided that our 2025 priorities should include Access, Celebrate and Collaborate but what does Collaborate look like for the Food Partnership? Who should be involved? Who is missing from the table? These are the questions we are currently grappling with and the conference helped to answer some of those questions.

Oxford Real Farming Conference and Celebrating Food and Farming

In November Good Food Bucks met to plan our Food Partnership work for 2025, identifying three priorities for the year ahead - Access, Celebrate and Collaborate. Specifically, we want to showcase the great food that the county grows and produces, highlight those working hard to improve the quality of food in our schools and hospitals, investigate the importance of food within different communities and share the best local recipes and organisations.

What better way to start 2025 and to celebrate food and farming than at the Oxford Real Farming Conference. ORFC began in 2010 with a few people in a room in Oxford and now welcomes over 1800 delegates each January at venues across Oxford. Its a place for farmers, growers, policymakers, activists and researchers to share progressive ideas about food and farming systems.

The themes for this years conference include Farm Practice, Food and Farm Policy, Justice Strand, Landworkers Alliance and La Via Campesina, Listening to the Land and Youth. I'm looking forwards to catching up with friends and colleagues and listening to the wide variety of speakers including a fellow Churchill Fellow Helen Woodcock and JC Niala, Vicki Hird and Jonty Brunyee, who have all previously spoken at OxCAN Sustainable Food and Farming events.

I shall be writing a follow up blog post on the conference later this month. Hope to see some of you there.

Midwinter

As we approach Midwinter my thoughts turn to the Winter Solstice, Christmas and New Year and to memories of family, friends, festive traditions and plans for this year.

When I was a child, it felt as if time passed so slowly waiting for Christmas Eve. We would open our advent calendars each morning, counting the days, in anticipation of the arrival of Christmas. We would wait until a few days before Christmas before putting up the Christmas Tree. I remember the excitement we felt in anticipation as the boxes of tissue wrapped glass baubles and decorations were brought down from the loft ready to trim the tree. 

When we lived in Germany we discovered that people selected and decorated their Christmas Trees on the first Sunday in advent, even if that fell at the end of November. We adopted this wonderful tradition and each year decorate the house at the start of advent, bringing light and cheer for the whole month of December and into January. Traditions such as eating chocolate log cake and singing carols have their origins in our Pagan Midwinter celebrations. The pre Christian festival of Juul was celebrated around the time of of the Winter Solstice by singing, lighting fires and burning a yule log to bring light in the depth of winter and herald the return to the light.

This year the Winter Solstice, or shortest day, is on Saturday 21st December in the Northern Hemisphere. Under the old Julian calendar the solstice fell on 25th December, Christmas Day, but with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar the solstice slipped back to the 21st of the month, the day we are now familiar with. 

Have a happy festive season, however you celebrate, and I look forwards to seeing some of you in Oxford in January at the Oxford Real Farming conference.

Christmas Markets and a Sense of Place

In the run up to Christmas I love to get out and about with the family visiting Christmas Markets. We usually visit a couple near us each year and often pick a destination further a field to explore as well. Visiting these markets helps to set the mood for the festive season and builds on our past midwinter traditions and customs.

Last year we travelled to the beautiful city of Bath, on the coldest day of the month, to follow the trail of wooden chalets embellished with lights and decorations around the cobbled streets.We drank spiced hot apple juice or mulled wine and ate warm mince pies and other festive foods as we meandered around the 200 plus stalls. I'm always on the look out for unique handmade gifts or locally sourced items from the wide variety of artisan producers.

It reminded me of the Christmas markets we visited in Germany when the children were small. Santa would arrive on a beautiful grey horse with his helpers and give out sweets, chocolates and tiny carved wooden toys to the children as they spoke to him. We enjoyed the warming gluhwein or kinderpunsch (children's punch) and maroni (roasted chestnuts) as we pottered around the villages.

The geographer Edward Relph talks about a 'sense of place' as the feelings held by people for places or the feelings about a place over time. Returning to our favourite places or using favourite recipes or family rituals can craft our feelings or link us to our memories. Something a simple as the trip to a Christmas market renews our relationship with that time and place or starts a new memory or sense of place.

Enjoy your holiday outings this year, wherever you spend them.

Forest Therapy and Social Ventures

Back in 2022 I heard about another Churchill Fellow, Lucy Duggan, who had researched the health benefits of nature connection. Keen to know more and wondering how this might fit with my care farming work I decided to sign up to her Forest Therapy Practitioner Course.

This accredited course covers group facilitation skills, leading safe sessions in nature and the impact of time in nature on our health as well the underpinning theories and research. I loved completing the practical sessions in nature and the synergies I discovered with care farming.

You may remember from previous blogs that forest therapy along with care farming, animal assisted interventions, social and therapeutic horticulture, eco therapy, facilitated green exercise and wilderness therapy are all part of the umbrella discipline of green care.

Forest therapy offers purposeful interactions with nature through a series of invitations that encourage participants to connect with their surroundings and senses. Sessions conclude with a cup of tea and possibly something small to eat. I find this a fascinating concept and wonder how this fits in with: food as part of a care farming session, food and a sense of place and food being used therapeutically...

This is something I find myself considering at present as I embark on an entrepreneurial incubator. In September I was awarded one of seven places in this years Social Ventures Programme from the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. The programme is for people looking to make lasting social or environmental change.

Since my Churchill Fellowship I've been working to create a tangible initiative that blends care farming, food and therapeutic interventions and with the support of my mentors and the academic staff at Social Ventures I look forward to bringing this to life in 2025.