In this episode I am in conversation with Rob Taylor, none to many locally as The Tree Man. We are discussing the importance of trees, including his work on the Linear Arboretum in Ross-on-Wye. We get his views on why we connect so much with trees, flood prevention, carbon reduction, ancient woodlands, issues facing trees today particularly disease and the biodiversity that trees give us. 

Tamsyn is the Chief Doer at BoomCircle and today we are talking about Sustainable Food. 1. Boomcircle and Good Food Revolution You're company Boomcircle is involved in a number of fantastic projects. Can you tell us a little bit about some of them and in particular, share a little bit about the Good Food Revolution? http://www.boomcircle.co.uk/ Twitter https://twitter.com/BoomCircleUK 2. Gloucestershire Food Strategy One of the projects you are working on is not too far away from me in Gloucestershire. I know you are working with lots of different agencies, companies on this one. Can you share something about that? Gloucestershire Food Strategy: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_cqf8Qk0DXRCxbtNSOobB56zQDr1OuqW/view?usp=sharing Good Food Revolution Gloucestershire https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v8T23UirlLCDWvt23TGefNTwkXViZbHp/view?usp=sharing 3. Farming Practices Let's talk about farming practices. What are some of the big issues facing farming and growing today? Regenerative farming is a term being used more today. Can you tell us what that is? Do you have 1 or 2 good news stories in this area that you have seen or heard about? Learn more about Regenerative Farming from Food, Farming and Countryside Commission https://ffcc.co.uk/library/farmingforchangereport Farm Ed https://www.farm-ed.co.uk/ Overbury Estate and manger Jake Freestone who have great examples of regenerative arable systems Jake’s Blog http://farmerjakef.blogspot.com/ and https://twitter.com/No1FarmerJake Ed Horton on instagram making the journey to a mixed agroecological  farming business https://www.instagram.com/e.a.horton/ 4. Food Waste There is a massive amount of food wasted not only from our kitchens and supermarkets, but also further back in the food chain. What needs to change in farming and food production for that figure to be greatly reduced? Do you have a current figure for food waste in farming/growing/food production? WRAP - Primary production July 2019 Report https://wrap.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-07/WRAP-food-waste-in-primary-production-in-the-UK.pdf Tessa Clarke, Olio Founder, Global Food waste picture - well worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPuBiZFfwg4 5. Food Poverty/Food Insecurity We have seen in this Pandemic a massive increase in the use of food banks and people facing food insecurity. How do we help those who are struggling financially to be able to access food, but especially fresh and healthy food? The Long Table https://www.thelongtableonline.com/ Granville Kitchen http://granvillecommunitykitchen.org.uk/ 6. Healthy Eating  7. Organic  8. Seasonal and local food Seasonal and local food seems to becoming more popular. How important is celebrating seasonality of food, when harvest for a lot of crops is all year round? How do we get that fabulous local and seasonal food to as many people as possible, particularly in our national supermarkets? 9. Harmonised Food Sustainability Metric Tamsyn, you are involved in another project as well, working with the Sustainable Food Trust, I think about measuring food sustainability. Can you share a little bit about that? More on the SFT’s Harmonised Metric here https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/key-issues/sustainability-metrics/ 10. Reflection As we brings things to a close, what couple of things in this difficult year have inspired you? Here are some of the awesome women who have inspired me Adele Jones, Deputy CEO Sustainable Food Trust https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/team/adele-jones/ and https://twitter.com/AdeleSFT Jenny Phelps, Senior Farm Conservation Adviser, Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group https://twitter.com/JennyPhelpsMBE Lizzie Dyer, Goat farmer and Founder at Just Kidding https://twitter.com/CotswoldKidMeat Bryonny Goodwin-Hawkins, Countryside and Community Research Institute Senior Research Fellow http://www.ccri.ac.uk/bryonny-goodwin-hawkins/

Jean-Luc is a marine biologist at the Marine Conservation Society. His PhD was on tropical sea urchin ecology and he ran conservation diving expeditions in the Philippines, Tanzania and Fiji. Since working at MCS, Jean-Luc has moved from Biodiversity Action Plans to international protection for the basking shark and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). He also set up ‘Reef Check’ in the Maldives, that now carries out surveys and influences local planning decisions. He helped change inshore fisheries management in MPAs, to protect against scallop dredging and beam trawling, whilst ensuring that communities support conservation measures that lead to genuine recovery of biodiversity.

https://www.mcsuk.org

https://www.twitter@mcsuk

https://www.twitter@JeanLucSol

Today I’m in conversation with Radio 2 Gardener, Terry Walton. He has been growing vegetables from the age of 4 and been growing in the same allotment community in Wales for 74 years. We discuss allotments, organic growing, storing vegetables, succession sowing and crop rotation. You can follow Terry on Twitter @theterrywalton 

Here are also some helpful links: www.nsalg.org.uk www.gardenorganic.org.uk www.permaculture.org.uk https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/grow-your-own/vegetables https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/vegetable-crops-for-beginners/ https://www.allotment-garden.org/vegetable/ https://www.lovethegarden.com/uk-en/article/when-plant-vegetables-guide-sowing-and-harvesting-vegetables

Today I'm discussing COVID 19 with local GP Dr Simon Lennane.