The Wildlife Trusts
Category: Environment & Climate Change
Year Awarded: 2023
Amount: £400,000
Crane flock Somerset levels credit Nick Upton2020VISION
The Wildlife Trusts have developed a community of practice for agriculture-related staff to enable the sharing of best practice and knowledge across all individual Wildlife Trusts. This group has collectively worked through challenges on issues ranging from regenerative and agroecological farming, to the need for change in food systems; and supported the development of discussion documents to build federation-wide knowledge. Through this community, The Wildlife Trusts have finalised a new farming and food policy position that has been agreed by all English and Welsh Wildlife Trusts and poses significant policy changes to the food system and nature friendly farming.
The support from Samworth Foundation allowed us the time and resources to discuss, interrogate and decide on some vital areas of farming and food systems policy, at a critically important moment for The Wildlife Trusts’ federation of 47 organisations. For such a large, diverse federation, this took a lot of time and well-designed engagement. So, we were very pleased with the final outcomes and are now using the new policy in many places, to advocate for the suite of farm and food system policies needed for nature’s protection