Join us in Fife for an in-person, on farm event with farmer Douglas Christie, exploring how to increase soil health in arable systems.

About this event

This free event is open to farmers, land managers and crofters, and will be held in person with farmer Douglas Christie and guest speakers Prof. Lorna Dawson and Dr Alison Karley from the James Hutton Institute.

Join us on farm for an informal session where we will hear from Douglas on his journey to better soil health, covering the lessons he has learnt, barriers overcome and advice for other farmers.

The session will start at 1pm at the farm with an informal light lunch and chat, then we will go on a walk around the farm to take a look at what's happening on the ground.

This is designed to be an interactive event with time to share knowledge, ask questions and build a peer support network of people working in farming in Scotland.

More about Durie Farms:

With the aim of reducing fixed costs and future proofing the farm, farmer Douglas Christie turned to direct drilling, stopped ploughing and started using cover crops and intercropping to improve soil health, increase organic matter and boost biodiversity.

Durie Farms is a family owned mixed farm, operating a 200 ha mixed organic livestock based enterprise & 340 ha conventionally farmed arable rotation using conservation agriculture principles.

Background on the event series:

This workshop is part of a series of events, jointly led by the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission and Soil Association Scotland, that supports arable and mixed farmers in Scotland to share practical knowledge and skills that will enable a transition to agroecology.

This forms part of a bigger series of on-farm and online events being held by a group of organisations - Nourish Scotland, Nature Friendly Farming Network, Soil Association Scotland, Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, Landworker’s Alliance and Pasture Fed Livestock Association as part of the Scottish Government’s Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (KTIF) project Agroecology – Facilitating Mindset Change. Between January and March 2022, we will be running a total of 15 online and in-person free events designed to appeal to a wide range of farmers and crofters. Full details of all the events will be available here.

If you have any questions about this event, or those coming up in the future, please contact Lucianne Wardle: lucianne.wardle@ffcc.co.uk or David McKay: dmckay@soilassociation.org