The beef industry, along with many other industries within the food sector are under extreme pressure to take bolder steps towards a truly sustainable food system.
I have been working with FAI farms to implement an exciting project funded by McDonald’s.
Regenerative agriculture is an approach to growing food that aims to actively rebuild degraded soil, recharge watersheds, and dramatically increase biodiversity. If that wasn’t enough of a good news story, then add the fact that studies on the farmers adopting regenerative methods have demonstrated improvements in mental wellbeing, productivity, resilience and profitability and you have the makings of a very hopeful future for the beef industry.
Until recently regenerative agriculture has only been tried in the UK and Ireland on a relatively small scale by passionate advocates of the approach. The scope for scaling regenerative agriculture across whole supply chains and understanding the methods for transitioning large commercially focused farms in our colder, wetter, environment is relatively unexplored – nor has it been studied using robust scientific methods.
FAI and McDonald’s have partnered on a project aimed at understanding what it will take to move the UK & Irish beef production towards a commercial regenerative approach and collecting the necessary data to evidence it.
Starting with the FAI Wytham Farm in Oxford, we are implementing a regenerative farming technique called Adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing. Through holistic planning, this approach helps farmers like us, to take a proactive management of the many moving parts involved in their beef enterprise.
McDonald’s UK and Ireland & FAI: Demonstrating Commercial Regenerative Beef Farming from FAI Farms on Vimeo.