GO Falkland Regenerative Agriculture Event
In July, Fidra attended the successful 2024 GO Falkland regenerative agriculture event at Falkland Estate in Fife. It was the second year of the smaller offshoot event inspired by the Regenerative Agriculture Festival Groundswell (in Hertfordshire, England). This well-attended event was a positive and friendly forum for knowledge-sharing and bringing together vital voices within regenerative farming and forestry.
To protect Scotland’s agricultural land for future food security and a safe circular economy, high quality clean and safe agricultural inputs that do not have detrimental impacts on biodiversity must be part of Scotland’s journey towards nature friendly farming. Here at Fidra we are working closely with industry, academics, NGOs and policy makers to tackle chemical and microplastic contaminants that make their way into our soils, waterways, wildlife and wider environment. Fidra understand the need to protect our precious agricultural soils from contaminants at the same time as addressing interrelated biodiversity and climate emergency challenges.
Regenerative agriculture represents a sustainable farming system that works with nature.
Led by farmers and land managers, it seeks to restore soil health, improve nutrient and water cycling, increase biodiversity and animal health as well as promote carbon sequestration and climate change resilience. Organic farming and low-input conservation farming are also represented within sustainable farming or agroecological farming approaches. At Go Falkland 2024, farmers and land managers, educators, advisors and policy stakeholders were all part of the inclusive discussions, inspiring each other, sharing knowledge and ideas around the latest innovations and solutions in regenerative agriculture. Sponsors and attendees included the Soil Association Scotland, BASE-UK, James Hutton Institute, SRUC, Pasture for Life and the Nature Friendly Farming Network.
Fidra’s farming-focused projects seek to raise awareness of the presence of harmful persistent chemicals in pesticides and biosolids (treated sewage sludge) and find solutions for their removal from inputs such as pesticides used for vital crop protection and organic fertilisers used for nutrient provision and boosting soil carbon. Discussions at GO Falkland highlighted issues relating to Scotland’s food supply chains, impacts of future agricultural policies on rural communities, reliance on glyphosate for no/reduced tillage practices and the need to convince farmers that regenerative farming is the future. Positive encouraging conversations around nature included the usefulness of grabbing a spade for simple assessments of soil structure and worm counts and there was advice for land mangers seeking to adopt new restorative management practices or considering converting to organic farming. The importance of having biodiverse soils with the right balance of organisms was a common talking point, with farmers having a growing interest in the fungal:bacterial ratios in their soils.
Fidra’s PFAS in pesticides and Sewage Free Soils projects have a strong role to play in supporting regenerative farming and nature-restoring practices. They both aim to protect agricultural systems and the wider environment from persistent chemicals, such as the forever chemicals PFAS, that are known to be detrimental to soil health, particularly soil biodiversity which underpins critical soil processes. Fidra gave the environment a voice at GO Falkland 2024, disseminating scientific evidence and findings from their projects and chairing a farmer discussion session. Fidra also built new collaborations for strengthening Fidra’s mission to shine a light on environmental issues, understand and address knowledge gaps and use evidence-based science to promote solutions for addressing harmful persistent chemicals making their way into farm soils, crops, animals, nearby waterways and eventually spreading into the wider environment (see infographic below).
Wider environmental impacts of agricultural inputs
Visit our sewage free soils and PFAS in pesticides webpages or sign up to our newsletters. Please contact the Fidra team via info@fidra.org.uk if you would like to hear more or get involved in these farming-focused projects.