Farming Futures | Planet Shaftesbury

Food & Farming Futures

Understanding local challenges and promoting regenerative opportunities for farmers, land owners and land-based businesses.

This project page was established in January 2022 to help widen local connections between those interested in soil health, land use, aspects of farming & sustainability. Since then, some wider connections, including on food security, have also come through the Dorset Climate Action Network.

Activities

In summer 2024 we produced a food information leaflet that promoted the town's independent food outlets and supported growing, producing, buying and eating food that's healthy for people and the planet. This initiative was prompted by the April 2023 Sustainable Dorset showing of a film 'Planet Local - a quiet revolution' and has coincided with increasing interest in food security across Dorset CAN. Click this link to see the information in the leaflet

Planet Shaftesbury hosted a panel discussion ‘Facing the Future: ecological challenges for farmers & landowners’ in November 2019. It was chaired by Matthew Price (then of NFU) and the panelists were Robin Walter (forester), Martin Shallcross (farmer), and ffinlo Costain (then C Ex Farmwel, now editor of 8point9.com, a news channel for land-based businesses). There is a write up on the blog here.

We discussed supporting James Cox in his efforts to establish the green credentials of the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Showground, specifically with an environmental wildlife garden. Working with Greener Gillingham and Hawkers Farm, we mounted a stand over the two days of the G&S Show in August 2021. The focus was to provide engaging activities for children & families visiting the show and provoke conversations about sustainable living / the climate & ecological emergency. Since then, there have been some further stalls.

We hosted an online talk by Elaine Spencer-White about the work of the Countryside Restoration trust at Bere Marsh Farm. (blog from November 2020 here)

We have supported two presentations in the town by Chris Smaje, social scientist, farmer and author of A Small Farm Future (2020), and Saying NO to a Farm Free Future (2023).