On the 19th May, LEAF will hold its first Integrated Farm Management Conference in Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire.
Titled, IFM: A Framework for the Future, the conference will examine the development of IFM, consider its strengths (as well as weaknesses) and crucially, as LEAF embarks on its next 25 years, its role in addressing future challenges.
Ahead of this, we asked Caroline Drummond, Chief Executive of LEAF to reflect on where IFM all began, its development over the last twenty-five years and what is important moving forward:
Looking back to farming in 1991, the industry had successfully met many of the challenges that had been set to grow production capability. However, the realisation that some of these farming practices were having a big impact on the environment was beginning to dawn.
This brought about a sharp realisation by many farmers who wanted to achieve a balance between production and environmental protection, by using the right practices and being much more focussed on the value of nature and habitats.
Thus began an industry movement with farmers looking for whole farm approaches through Integrated Crop Management (ICM).
LEAF’s first five years were focussed around the development and promotion of ICM. For us, the selection of some of the best farmers in the UK as LEAF Demonstration Farmers allowed us to focus on the development of ICM. As we did so, it became apparent that the integration of livestock was critical.
Since 1996, LEAF has focussed on Integrated Farm Management (see Figure 1). Since then, we have seen a tremendous amount of change in practices and priorities for farm businesses, volatilities in the marketplace and a decline in long term farm systems based research.
We have continued to expand our Demonstration Farm network as well as work with our Innovation Centres, which include the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust's Allerton Project, who have highlighted and developed specific areas of research that have fed into the development of IFM.
Figure 1: Integrated Farm Management wheel.
This partnership approach will be seen in action at our IFM Conference on the 19th May when we will welcome a range of farmers and others in the industry to hear and discuss some of the most forward-thinking research and development from our Innovation Centres and its adoption by some of our LEAF Demonstration Farmers.
The GWCT's Director of Policy Dr. Alistair Leake will be speaking at the conference and we would be very pleased if you could join us there. For more information and to book on please click here.