More about our story
Six Inches of Soil is a story of courage, vision and hope.
Our film, Six Inches of Soil, tells the story of remarkable farmers, communities, small businesses, chefs and entrepreneurs who are leading the way to transform how our food is produced and consumed.
Agroecology is an approach to farming that includes ‘regenerative’ farming techniques that work in harmony with, rather than against nature. It focuses on local food systems and shorter supply chains. The advantages are numerous: we get to know who is growing our food and how, farmers get paid a fair price and have the satisfaction of producing healthy food in a healthy environment. Agroecology may also be our best chance in the face of climate change: it keeps carbon in the ground and creates resilient systems in the face of climate uncertainty.
Six Inches of Soil tells the inspiring story of young British farmers standing up against the industrial food system and transforming the way they produce food - to heal the soil, our health and provide for local communities.
There are approx.178,000 farmers working in the UK who manage 71% of the UK's land, providing half of the food we eat, we import the rest. Current “industrial” mainstream farming practices significantly contribute to soil degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change. Regenerative farming practices, (within an agroecological system) promote healthier soils, provide healthier, affordable food, restore biodiversity and sequester carbon.
Six Inches of Soil is a story of three new farmers on the first year of their regenerative journey to heal the soil and help transform the food system - Anna Jackson, a Lincolnshire 11th generation arable and sheep farmer; Adrienne Gordon, a Cambridgeshire small-scale vegetable farmer; and Ben Thomas, who rears pasture fed beef cattle in Cornwall.
As the trio of young farmers strive to adopt regenerative practices and create viable businesses, they meet seasoned mentors who help them on their journey. They are joined by other experts providing wisdom and solutions from a growing movement of people who are dedicated to changing the trajectory for food, farming and the planetOur farmers will have to navigate a broken food system, farm in a landscape degraded by industrial agriculture and learn how to reconnect people with the soil, where their food comes from and how it is produced.
We don’t shy away from tackling complex and thorny issues. This includes exploring the connection between food and health, food poverty and affordability, the role of animals in the farming system, Britain’s hugely unequal system of land ownership, barriers to new entrant farmers especially from diverse backgrounds and whether there is a place for carbon offsetting on farms.
Alongside hard-hitting facts, we also convey what it feels like to farm agroecologically - to farm with authentic connection with the land, changing seasons and the environment, to produce food for people you know and care about in the local community: to spend your days with your hands in the soil.
The film looks at the history of British farming and asks "How did we get here?" through a short animated chapter that brings the audience up to speed with the industrial heritage of farming and the solutions that are within reach.
We show that agroecological farming is not simply a job, but a way to live values and engage in practices which not only nourish the planet but also the farmers themselves.
Featuring in our film
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Anna Jackson
Anna grew up on a farm, however for 7 years she worked as a photographer in Oxford and London whilst running a not for profit , “A Zero Waste Life” helping to educate the general public and businesses on how to produce less waste.
She came home into farming due to Covid, little did she know this would be the best thing she’d ever done. After reading ‘Dirt to Soil’ by Gabe Brown, her Dad Andrew Jackson, had been farming this way for years already. So being an environmentalist too she slot right in.
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Ben Thomas
Ben grew up on his family farm in Cornwall. After 3 years at Harper Adam’s studying agriculture he then went on to work for an extensive grass based dairy farm and a large mixed farm across the UK.
Now back in Cornwall Ben manages a herd of Belted Galloways conservation grazing at Goss Moor. This has now led to Ben and his partner Claudi taking on a cattle farm at Warleggan on Bodmin moor, using mob grazing to improve soil health and biodiversity.
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Adrienne Gordon
Adrienne is a new-entrant farmer currently setting up Sweetpea Market Garden on 4 acres of rented land in Caxton, Cambridgeshire.
A love of cycle touring took her to New Zealand where she volunteered at organic farms and community gardens before embarking on a traineeship at a 1/4 acre market garden. She moved to Sussex in early 2020 to work at an organic vegbox scheme, and subsequently managed a 140 share CSA with the team at Pea Pod Veg. She's now returned to her roots in Cambridgeshire to be closer to family and to embark on this next big adventure!
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Andrew jackson
In 1975, Andrew began farming with his father and they practiced conventional farming with ploughs and chemicals.
In 1997, he transitioned 160 acres to organic production, accompanying it with a small farm shop. In 2010, they left organic production due to profitability challenges while supplying supermarkets, transforming the farm shop into the Pink Pig Farm, a farm attraction with a restaurant.
Andrew's journey toward regenerative farming started in 2015, involving joining BASE UK and adopting no-till practices in 2020 while reducing inputs every year. Recently, they established a cluster group to support local regenerative farmers in North Lincolnshire.
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Satish Kumar
Satish Kumar is an Indian British activist and speaker. He has been a Jain monk, nuclear disarmament advocate and pacifist. Kumar is founder and Director of Programmes of the Schumacher College international center for ecological studies, and is Editor Emeritus of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine.
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Henry Dimbleby
Henry Dimbleby MBE was appointed lead non-executive board member of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in March 2018.
He was co-founder of the Leon restaurant chain. He is also co-founder and Director of The Sustainable Restaurant Association and of London Union. He co-authored The School Food Plan (2013), which set out actions to transform what children eat in schools and how they learn about food. More recently, he led the the government’s National Food Strategy (2021)
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Ian Wilkinson
Ian studied farm and grassland management at Berkshire College of Agriculture and 35 years ago he joined Cotswold Seeds, a family business based in Moreton-in-Marsh, becoming MD in 1998. Cotswold Seeds has built its reputation on developing forage, herbal leys, green manures and complex seed mixtures.
Increasingly, the company acts as a bridge between farmers and the scientific community. Honeydale Farm is a 107 acre (43ha) demonstration farm in the Cotswolds. It is the home of FarmED.
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Dee Woods
Deirdre (Dee) Woods is a food and farming action-ist who advocates for good food for all and a just, equitable food system, challenging the systemic barriers that impact marginalised communities and food producers.
Dee’s work sits at the nexus of food and farming, particularly in intersectionality, diversity, equity and anti-oppression, decolonisation, reparations, the right to food and nutrition, participatory policy making, community food systems, food system change, food commons, agroecology, and food sovereignty.
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Tim Lang
Professor Emeritus of Food Policy, Centre for Food Policy, City University of London. 45 yrs in public & academic research & debate on food systems & change.
After a PhD in social psychology at Leeds University 1970-73, he became a hill farmer in the 1970s in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire which shifted his attention to food policy, where it has been ever since.
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Hannah Jones
Hannah Jones is a Farm carbon and soils adviser with the Farm Carbon Toolkit. Her role has been to coordinate farm-based trials by working closely with farmers and agricultural businesses to optimise the impact and applicability of the research. Her interests and drive focus around the business and environmental sustainability of farms, and her favourite days include discussing innovations on farm around a kitchen table!
She has a PhD in plant pathology from Oxford University, a degree in plant sciences from Birmingham University, a Masters in postgraduate teaching from the University of Reading, and is FACTS qualified.
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Mike Berners-Lee
Mike Berners-Lee is an English researcher and expert on carbon footprinting. He is a professor and fellow of the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University and director and principal consultant of Small World Consulting, based in the Lancaster Environment Centre at the university. His books include How Bad are Bananas?, The Burning Question and There Is No Planet B.
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Nicole Masters
Nicole is a globally recognised agroecologist, speaker and author. She has over 22 years practical farming and food production experience, with 18 years of experience as a regenerative Ag coach and educator.
Nicole is formally trained in soil science, organizational learning, pattern thinking, and adult education. She has worked closely with diverse production sectors from; dairy, sheep & beef, viticulture, compost, nurseries, market gardens, racing studs, lifestyle blocks to large-scale cropping. Working with such diverse clients has fostered a broad knowledge and understanding of the challenges facing different production systems.
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Vicki Hird
Vicki Hird is Head of the Sustainable Farming Campaign for Sustain: The Alliance for Better Food and Farming, and she also runs an independent consultancy. An experienced and award-winning environmental campaigner, researcher, writer and strategist working mainly in the food, farming and environmental policy arenas, Vicki has worked on government policy for many years and is the author of Perfectly Safe to Eat?: The Facts on Food.
Vicki’s passion is insects. The first pets she gave her children were a family of stick insects, and she received a giraffe-necked weevil tattoo for her 50th birthday. Vicki has a masters in pest management and is a fellow of the Royal Entomological Society (FRES).
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John Pawsey
John Pawsey converted his farm at Shimpling to organic production in 1999 for business reasons, as well as concerns about soil health and decline in farmland wildlife species.
John Has managed to halt and in some cases reverse wildlife decline, improve soil health and keep the farm profitable since that initial conversion. Since then John has increased his organically farmed area from 650 hectares to 1,760 delivering similar results to neighbouring farmers.
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Marina O'Connell
Marina O’Connell is a successful grower, farmer and educator.
Marina, the Apricot team and her family have turned the bare land at Huxhams Cross Farm, Totnes, Devon, UK, from being ‘a miserable bit of land’ as a local farm contractor called it in 2015, into a productive, beautiful, community connected and profitable farm.
She has researched the use of biodynamic, organic, permacultural, agroecological, regenerative and agroforestry methods in her work. People from all over Britain and the world visit her farm and go on her courses and a Devon apprenticeship scheme for regenerative food systems.
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Nic Renison
Nicola Renison farms with her husband Reno in Cumbria, the daughter of dairy farmers, Nic grew up within the conventional, high production ag environment, growing food with little thought of the environment. It wasn’t until 2012 when the Renison’s started farming their own land they started to think more regeneratively, this wasn’t because they wanted to save the world it was because they needed to pay the bills!
The last ten years have been a journey of both practical ‘re-learning’ and a total change in mindset, they now farm 80 suckler cows, with laying hens following the cows around in an ‘egg mobile’, also a handful of woodland pigs.
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Matt Chatfield
After spending time away from his family’s Devonshire farm working in London at a publisher, Matt decided to return home and set up The Cornwall Project.
The aim was to drive interest in Cornish produce and help set up connections between suppliers and restaurants. Over the years he acted as a middleman between suppliers, including Philip Warren Butchers and top London restaurants such as Kiln, Brat and Bao. These connections he created between Cornwall and London are still strong today and Matt was instrumental in helping Ian Warren set up his celebrated ‘On the Pass’ range of chef-inspired aged specialist cuts during lockdown.
However, the past five years have seen Matt shift his focus back to the family farm, where he’s doing something pretty special with sheep.
Background
“The food system we have today is a miracle and a disaster”, National Food Strategy 2021
Industrial farming has totally transformed Britain’s rural landscapes. Supported by generous government subsidies, the post-Second World War introduction of artificial pesticides and fertilisers, giant fields of monoculture crops, intensive use of machinery and fossil fuels significantly increased crop yields, reducing hunger and kick-starting the economy.
But this has come at a cost. Industrial agriculture has taken a huge toll on biodiversity, polluted our seas and freshwater sources, turned animals into little more than factory-produced products, depleted our soils of nutrients and emptied rural areas of meaningful sustainable jobs. Some farms have grown massive while tens of thousands of farmers have had to leave the sector, unable to survive financially. Industrial agriculture also plays a significant role in heating our planet.
Food production in Britain is now controlled by a handful of supermarket retailers and food processing companies. As a society we’ve become so disconnected from the way in which our food is produced, packaged and transported. Most of us seem happy with the ‘choice’, ‘convenience’ and ‘good value’ that supermarkets seem to offer. We are also addicted to ultra-processed food, that is contributing to an unfolding public health crisis.
But change is in the soil - pioneered by a quiet but rapidly growing food and farming movement in the UK that seeks to completely overturn the way we have farmed and eaten over the last 70 years.