9 January 2020

3 minute read

Europe

Produced by Farmwel and FAI Farms, Farm Gate offers five programmes covering a range of issues, and new episodes will be uploaded each week. Farm Gate can be found on the FAI Farms website, and is available on a range of popular podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Anchor and Google Podcasts.

ffinlo Costain is the Farm Gate host and the chief executive of Farmwel, which has advised Defra on the role of agricultural methane and the use of sustainability metrics, including farm animal welfare metrics. Farmwel was also called to give evidence to the UK Agriculture Bill Committee. Before working in agricultural policy, Costain was a journalist and radio broadcaster, once becoming a Finalist Award Winner for Environmental Programme of the Year at the New York Radio Festivals.

"Farm Gate is a fantastic opportunity to investigate issues critical for climate and food security, to speak to people who really know their stuff and then share that information with listeners. For our interviews we will always aim high, and our programmes will feature senior people from across the climate and food policy debate," said Constain.

The first Farm Gate podcast is an investigation into the role of ruminant methane in global warming. Research by a global team of scientists based at the University of Oxford has established a new way of measuring the impacts of methane - a metric known as GWP*.

"Methane is a short-lived gas and its warming potential should be considered differently from carbon dioxide, a long-lived gas. GWP* allows farmers to accurately measure the impact of ruminant methane for the first time. The podcast features interviews with Professor Myles Allen, a coordinating lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on 1.5 degrees, Dr John Lynch from the Department of Physics at University of Oxford, and Roland Bonney, a farmer and co-founder of FAI Farms," explained Constain. 

Farm Gate is co-produced by FAI Farms, a globally respected UK-based food chain and farming consultancy, which helps the food sector overcome key challenges and implement better farming practices.

Øistein Thorsen, FAI Farms director, said, "To continue farming and producing food successfully, we need to rethink supply chains and manage our land extremely well. Farm Gate aims to provide farmers and policy makers with practical information about adapting to sustainable and regenerative food systems."

Programmes already available include:

• Ruminant methane and global warming - interviews with Professor Myles Allen and Dr John Lynch (University of Oxford), and Roland Bonney (FAI Farms)
• Is 'vegan' a dirty word? - interviews with Tara Garnett (FCRN) and Caroline Grindrod (regenerative hill farmer)
• Sustainable monoculture? - long form interview with Leontino Balbo (sugar producer in Brazil)
• Farm vets and food sustainability - interviews with Simon Doherty (BVA) and Laura Higham (Vet Sustain)
• And a discussion programme on vets and sustainability - featuring Gudrun Ravetz (BVA) and Laura Higham (Vet Sustain)

More programmes will follow on about a weekly basis. 

The launch of the Farm Gate podcast coincides with the Oxford Farming Conference and the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC). At the ORFC, on Thursday 9th January at 10:30 am in the Council Chamber, ffinlo Costain will take part in a panel on ruminant methane, alongside Dr John Lynch, Roland Bonney, Clare Hill (manages the farm at FAI), and Simon Fairlie, editor of The Land magazine.