Green Swale Borough Councillor Terry Thompson gave a talk this week on the issues facing farming today and the opportunities for the future, if you missed it, his powerpoint presentation can be found here.

In response to Terry's talk, our prospective parliamentary candidate, Hannah Temple says "Our farmers are essential for our food, our future and our rural communities. Our existing food system of cheap imports, monopoly supermarkets and customers who are increasingly disconnected from their food and land is a cocktail of challenges that make farming increasingly difficult, but it doesn't need to be this way.

If we helped our farmers to transition to methods that restore soil, protect wildlife, reduce emissions and are kind to animals then we will all be better off. This is not a pipe dream, practices like agro-forestry, micro-hydro schemes, reforestation and rewilding are already being demonstrated to work in farms all over the world and often leads to increases in yields, better nutritonal value of crops and greater revenues for farmers. But we need to get behind our farmers and we need to reconnect to where our food comes from and the people who grow and rear it. Thank you so much Terry for a truly inspiring talk and to everyone for your questions.