Groundswell 2018
Written by John Cherry @martian
Two years ago, we hosted the first Groundswell No-Till Show and Conference. The idea for doing it came from a visit we made to the No-Till on the Plains Conference in Salina, Kansas some years ago. It’s a marvellous three-day event that takes place every January and, although conditions in the Great Plains are quite different to what we’re used to here, I can’t recommend it highly enough for anyone with an interest in Conservation Agriculture.
Anyway, we couldn’t help thinking that somebody ought to put such a thing on in the UK and as no-one else was getting on with it, we created Groundswell, setting it up as a mix of a No-till version of Cereals, with the only machines being Direct Drills working in cover-crops and a Conference, with speakers from around the world talking about all aspects of no-till farming and soil health.
We called it Groundswell as all the momentum for change is coming from farmers, as they have most to gain. Like the best revolutions, it’s coming from the bottom up. And we’re trying to make the ground well.
Two years on and it’s grown a bit. We’ve incorporated even more focus on soil health, including the idea of getting animals back into the arable rotation. As I said, no-till in the UK is very much a farmer led revolution, so this is a show for farmers by farmers. We’ve booked a lot of farmers to speak about their successes and failures, including Clive Bailye, David Walston, John Pawsey, Andrew Bott and Jake Freestone. There is nothing so useful as hearing other farmers talk frankly about their experiences.
Growing crops successfully under a continuous no-till system isn’t just about abandoning all cultivations and hoping for the best...you need to really look after your soil and it may well take a year or two for it to recover from being bashed about over the years in conventional seed-bed creation. So, we’ve lined up lots of experts to talk about what goes on underground and how we can use this knowledge to make our soils better, like the wonderful Joel Williams, who will be speaking on both days.
There is a lot of talk about cover crops nowadays, but for many people the jury is still out in terms of what benefits they bring. So, we’ve got Ademir Calegari from Brazil, who probably knows more about the subject than anyone else on the planet and he’ll fill us with enthusiasm with all sorts of possibilities. We’ve also got some demo plots from our partners, Kings and there will be more talks from Mike Harrington, and Ian Wilkinson will be discussing herbal leys and the definite benefits they can bring.
To make the best use of herbal leys, you’ll be wanting to mob-graze them, so we’ve got Greg Judy from the USA who’ll be talking about building healthy soil with mob-grazing. He is perfecting the art of grazing animals on his farm and tells an inspiring story which will get the most hard-nosed arable farmers itching to get beasts back on their land. There will also be forums with the Pasture Fed Livestock Association with ideas and inspiration from the UK.
Once you’ve got all that stuff sorted out in your head, the next step is to see which drill will work best on your
farm. Across the road in Roadshott field there will be twelve drills a-drilling into standing cover crops. In addition to the John Deere, Sly, Ryetec, Horsch, Weaving, John Dale and Sim-Tech T-Sem we’ve got first time appearances from Sky, Duncan, Triton, Cousins of Emneth and Jordans Engineering.
So, there will be something for everybody, from big to small, for startups to experts. We’ll also have some machinery based talks in the Soil Tent in Roadshott, with David Purdy giving advice on setting up tractors and weight distribution, Graham Edwards challenging tractor makers to make machines suitable for this way of farming, the Small Robot Company describing their vision for the future and discussion forums where you can quiz the drill-makers.
We’ve found that there is increasing interest from outside mainstream farming for no-till and what DEFRA calls the ‘public good’ it can bring. We have
a few forums on such diverse subjects as the politics of food and the Brexit implications. Healthy soil has immense ramifications for the whole nation, if only the nation knew it. The general theme of this year’s show is health, which chimes nicely with what Michael Gove has been promoting.
Health is a much-abused word and its modern meaning is all about disease control, which normally means buying products from pharmaceutical companies, whether it be antibiotics for people or animals, fungicides for crops or any number of other expensive sprays and potions. Health is actually a positive condition and when you have it, you don’t get ill. When your soil has it, your crops don’t get disease, your animals don’t either and the food you produce will be the best that anyone can buy.
Which brings us to Dan Kittredge, an organic farmer from the USA, who will be giving a couple of keynote speeches on this very subject, which I’m particularly excited about. He’s also developing a gizmo which I suspect will change the food market forever. I won’t say more about it now, you’ll just have to hear what he has to say...
From health to wealth...there is no point changing your farming system if you are going to be worse off financially, so we’re delighted that the renowned agricultural accountant Gary Markham, who has been analysing various no-till farm financial results, will be presenting his findings to the Conference on day two. This, too, may be something of a game-changer.
There’s more, much more. Luckily, it’s on for two days so you can spread yourselves about a bit. One of the main attractions is having several hundred ardent no-tillers in one place, just talking to strangers or old friends can teach you as much as anything.
We’ve also got parties coming from Africa and China amongst other places, some of them will be speaking about what they are up to and what they’ve learnt in their countries.
We’ve got four lecture rooms this year so there’s going to be lots of hard decisions about who to listen to. We look forward to welcoming you to Lannock Manor Farm on 27th/28th June
Buy Your tickets here: www.groundswellag.com
