The new season of the Nature Friendly Farming Podcast is dedicated to exploring the big issues around agriculture in Northern Ireland, in association with Danske Bank and recorded at its headquarters in Belfast.

In this episode, NFFN NI manager Cormac Dolan is joined by farmers Bronagh O'Kane and Jonny Blair to discuss soil health, low-input farming and the journey towards reducing reliance on artificial fertiliser. They explain how growing grass with little or no fertiliser is possible, why cutting back needs to happen gradually, and how healthier soils can improve both farm resilience and financial performance.

Bronagh and Jonny also reflect on the challenges of changing long-established farming practices, including the role of succession and the pressures of doing things differently from previous generations. Packed with practical insights and honest experiences, this episode offers valuable advice for farmers considering their own journey towards lower-input, more nature-friendly farming.

The new season of the Nature Friendly Farming Podcast is dedicated to exploring the big issues around agriculture in Northern Ireland, in association with Danske Bank and recorded at its headquarters in Belfast.

In this first episode, NFFN NI manager Cormac Dolan is joined by NFFN NI steering group farmer Helen Keys and Chris Shannon, who runs a software company and co-founded an organisation supporting entrepreneurs to meet social and environmental challenges. They discuss what it means for farmers to see themselves as entrepreneurs, how innovation in techniques and practices can be encouraged within the sector and how issues such as launches and risks should be managed. Helen and Chris also talk about the cultural and practical barriers that still exist and prevent farmers trying out new approaches and offer some practical tips for farmers on how they can create time and space for thinking about innovating and changing the way they work.

Helen farms with her husband Charlie just outside Cookstown in County Tyrone. Having previously been home to mixed, dairy and suckler beef farming, the main output is currently flax which is grown in nature-friendly ways and sold under the name Mallon Linen. She also works to encourage entrepreneurship with universities and businesses and has supported a number of start-ups in their journey.

Chris co-founded Stardium, a software company that helps organisations to modernise in ways that support entrepreneurship, and is also a co-founder along with Helen of Venture Folk, a social enterprise that delivers projects tackling societal and environmental issues.

The Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN) is a UK-wide, farmer-led membership organisation which supports thousands of farmers in their journeys towards working in ways that reduce their dependence on artificial and chemical inputs and put nature at the heart of food production. It hosts knowledge sharing events for farmers to learn from their peers while lobbying for food and farming policies from governments across the UK and the supply chain which support farmers to work in nature-friendly and regenerative ways.

In this bonus episode we focus on the question of how best to tackle the big climate issues of our time on a practical local level?

Hosts Will Evans and Ben Eagle are joined by three guests – Jenny Phelps MBE who is Senior Farm Conservation Adviser at FWAG; Fiona Galbraith who is the Founding Director of RuralLink which helps people get into land based careers as well as a former Project Lead for the GREAT Project on Rural Facilitators, Mentors and New Entrants; and Ian Simpson who is a founder member of the community led Bledington Flood Group, committed to preventing flooding in Bledington, a Cotswold village on the border of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. 

Integrated Local Delivery website

Animation about integrated local delivery framework

Rural Facilitator Training

Rural Link website

FWAG South West

In this episode we look at the catchment based approach and how you could train to be a facilitator to bring local people, farmers and organisations together in your local area to tackle the issues that your area faces as a result of climate change.