ĀÜĄņĀŅĀ×

Richard farms with his wife on a small family farm in West Wiltshire. It is a grass-based livestock farm with sheep, cattle and pigs and with c. 6 acres of top uit and nut orchards. They currently run a local meat-box scheme and supply top fruit and meat to local outlets. The farm is participating in a number of funded biodiversity schemes including re-establishing a network of connected wetlands and planting rotational wood pasture (using multi-paddock grazing techniques).

Alongside farming, Richard has worked for a short spell as a botanist, then in the military and for the last 20 years in industry. He is a qualified solicitor and currently works as General Counsel for a FTSE Green Economy manufacturing company that is addressing the need to accelerate the move towards carbon neutrality for an international footprint. A biologist by training, Richard has a particular interest in the challenges and opportunities presented by the move to carbon neutrality and the greater focus on restoring biodiversity - and with the potential opportunity they offer for the organic movement and for agroecology more generally to rebalance land use and management in the UK.

Richard is the Trusteesā€™ nominated representative on the Soil Association's Farmer & Grower Board and is also a non-executive director of an industrial-disease compensation fund for victims of asbestos-related disease.