Jamie’s Farm is a charity set up 15 years ago by ex history teacher Jamie Feilden. The charity now runs seven farms throughout the UK, one being in Longtown.
It was while Jamie was teaching at a school in Croydon that he ran a pilot to take a group of 8 children who weren’t thriving at school to a farm for a residential visit. He found that farming therapy, a community, a chance to reflect, coming to a beautiful place, eating great food, and working really hard gave them a boost that changed their life chances long term. Teachers reported the amazing shifts in behavior were sustained.
He bought the first farm after the success of this pilot. He now has seven working farms, each with accommodation, and a kitchen, employing 80 people in total.
Schools find the money to pay for the visits out of their budgets because the benefits are so tangible and schools are fined for excluding pupils. The cost to society of excluding a child is £300 000.
The Farms were making zero profit farming fairly conventionally and not very thoughtfully, with much of the food brought in. In the last 6/8 years they have been shifting to regenerative farming, with herbal leys, mob grazed stock, and growing their own vegetables for six months of the year. They also have their own milk, butter and yogurt from a Jersey cow.
As part of the Beacon Farms project, Jamie and Patrick agree that enabling more people to understand where their food comes from, and its intrinsic connection to nature, is incredibly important. And that by sharing positive stories of farming for the future they can show that we can live sustainably, with enormous added social benefit.
Jamie says ‘While the world is literally burning, I come back here and feel more optimistic’.
Listen to the full conversation here