Event Date : July 12, 2017
Wakelyns Agroforestry, Metfield Lane, Fressingfield, Eye, Suffolk, IP21 5SD
A full and varied day at Wakelyns Agroforestry is planned, in conjunction with Hodmedod’s
After tea or coffee and a brief introduction the morning will be spent describing and discussing the work going on at Wakelyns – including cereal and lentil trials, but also the long-term development of the agroforestry system, and how Hodmedod offers a short route to market for these crops as well as helping to develop new crops that fit into higher value organic rotations.
Lunch will be a delicious beanfeast prepared by Joe and the Hodmedod team.
After lunch we’ll explore Wakelyns. Stations will be arranged near the various trial plots and Martin, the Hodmedod team and some of the Organic Research Centre staff will be on hand to tell you more about the agroforestry system, the crop trials that are happening this year and the agro-ecological approaches being practiced at Wakelyns.
10:30 – 11:00 Arrive (tea coffee)
11:00 – General introduction to the day by Hodmedod
11:10 – Martin and / or Jo Smith to introduce the farm and the farm system
11:30 – ORC/Martin to talk about the Wakelyns ORC Population
11.45 – Kimberley Bell of the Small Food Bakery will describe her work developing a baking process and practice with the Wakelyns ORC Population
12:10 – Hodmedod to present their work developing new crops such as lentils and then creating markets / higher value routes to those markets for those new crops as well as existing crops (such as the Population).
12:30 – Lunch; prepared by Hodmedod
13:30 – 15:00pm – Farm tour: Cereal trials, Lentil trials, Agroforestry system more broadly
15:30 – Tea coffee
16:00 – Close
I’m afraid there’s limited space at Wakelyns and we can only accommodate 40 guests. Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. We’re already planning other events (like this one) so if you can’t make it this time with luck we’ll see you either at our Bean Store or on one of the farms we’re working with soon.
Contact: josiah@hodmedods.co.uk or call 01986 467 567
Since we founded Hodmedod back in 2012 a lot has happened, so much in fact that it’s hard to know where to start… Back then we were a kitchen-table enterprise that grew out of a successful community project in Norwich and it was nigh on impossible to reliably find British-grown pulses in the shops.
Today we have our own Bean Store in Halesworth, have launched a wide range of dry, canned, milled and roasted pulses and grains – some, like fava beans and carlin peas, are very traditional crops that had disappeared from recipe books. Others, like quinoa, are new to UK farms.
We’re also looking at new and existing field crops that could be more widely grown in Britain and should be more widely eaten – from lentils and naked barley to buckwheat and emmer.
We do all this because we’re convinced that agriculture and our diets need to change if we’re to remain healthy and ensure we can continue to produce sufficient quantities of nutritious food without compromising the eco-systems we all rely on – and that achieving it can be tasty and exciting. At its simplest it means greater diversity; a greater diversity of crops being grown on farms and a richer more varied diet. That’s a vision we share with Professor Martin Wolfe of Wakelyns Agroforestry.
The Wakelyns Agroforestry system is pioneering and the open day presents us with a fantastic opportunity to show you crops in the ground – including naked barley, lentils and the Wakelyns ORC Population – tell you more about our future plans and for Martin to tell you about Wakelyns and the work they’re doing.
