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Features

Sustainable Living with Zac – How to use water wisely

Riverford's Head of Sustainability, Zac, looks at simple ways to conserve water at home

Water Sustainability Sustainable Living with Zac
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Features

Sardines are having a moment but could this humble fish turn the tide for the UK’s local fisheries?

Can the UK learn from Iberian traditions and turn its booming love for tinned sardines into a lasting win for coastal communities?

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News

Are Wildfarmed KitKats the future of regen farming… or its breaking point?

1.5 billion KitKats are made every year in the UK. A new partnership with British brand, Wildfarmed, changes the landscape, but to what end, asks David Burrows?

Regenerative farming UPF
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Is hospital food the key to unlocking better outcomes for patients, planet, and producers?

The NHS serves 195 million patient meals every year, which presents an enormous challenge – and opportunity – for those pushing for positive change

Health Sustainability UK Gov
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How Big Ag tied “regen” to synthetic chemical inputs and shaped European farming policy

The same multi-billion-dollar companies producing synthetic agrochemicals are also lobbying for "regen agriculture". David Burrows smells a rat.

Farming Pesticides Politics
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Mackerel is no longer sustainable. So, what fish can we eat?

As Waitrose removes all fresh, chilled and frozen mackerel from its shelves, Lizzie Rivera asks whether fish can ever be a sustainable choice?

Environment and ethics Fish
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Poison for profit – EU exports 122,000 tonnes of banned pesticides

44 Highly Hazardous Pesticides, banned for EU use, are still being shipped to the African continent

Environment and ethics Pesticides
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46% of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every year, according to latest research

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Sardines are having a moment but could this humble fish turn the tide for the UK’s local fisheries?

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The AGtivist

Animal Rising activist to spend 21 days in farrowing crate to highlight plight of intensively farmed pigs

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STORY OF THE WEEK

Behind these staggering numbers are farmers, workers, and families paying a terrible human price for pesticide exposure. This research puts a human face on a crisis too often overlooked. Jayakumar Chelaton, executive director of PAN India

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News from the farm: Easy Evenings await with Riverford’s brand new cookbook

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News from the Farm: Waiting, watching & learning as summer slips away

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PFAS special: how can we avoid the forever chemicals found everywhere?

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Sustainable Living with Zac – How to use water wisely

Water Sustainability Sustainable Living with Zac
The AGtivist

The AGtivist: UK Gov urged to follow EU’s lead and ban imports of Brazilian meat over antibiotic usage

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Worming our way to better soil with vermiculture

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Is this the UK’s most feasible & sustainable alternative to rice?

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News from the farm: Peat, EVs, capitalism and governance

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FOOD, FARMING, FAIRNESS. Wicked Leeks is a digital news channel joining the dots between food, farming & people, published by @riverford ⬇️SUBSCRIBE

The real workhorses of a thriving soil are worms. The real workhorses of a thriving soil are worms. As they turn over the earth, digesting organic matter, they not only provide water soluble nutrients and beneficial micro-organisms through their worm casts (small mounds, coils, or pellets of soil and organic matter pushed up to the ground surface after passing through an earthworm’s digestive tract), they also influence carbon cycling, water infiltration, greenhouse gas emissions and plant productivity. Yet they are hugely undervalued. 

This comes at a time when modern farming has decimated earthworms. According to the Earthworm Society of Britain, populations have plummeted by up to 41 per cent over the last 25 years. Worms are now rare or absent in two out of five farm fields, according to Rothamsted Research. In the same study, 42 per cent of fields had poor worm biodiversity. 

“Tillage is a primary driver of earthworm population changes,” explains Dr Jackie Stroud, Assistant Professor of Soil Science at the University of Warwick. Another significant cause of the earthworm’s demise is the persistent use of pesticides and inorganic fertilisers, which can accumulate in farm soils. 

“Applying various salts, which is how a lot of these chemicals are applied, decimates worms since they have porous and permeable skins. There are healthier populations of earthworms in many urban gardens, especially where people encourage them as they compost, than there are in many conventional farms in the UK,” states Anna de la Vega, founder of @the_urban_worm a social enterprise focused on worm farming.

Read the full, fascinating feature on Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio 🪱🪱🪱
"Oh,” they say, “I thought it was bird food.”’ At "Oh,” they say, “I thought it was bird food.”’ At Dev Biswal’s Canterbury restaurant The Cook’s Tale, the introduction of a certain ingredient has had diners either confused or pleasantly surprised, writes @hughlt 

Typically grown in tropical climates and poor quality soils, millet is a small-seed grass not unlike couscous in appearance by the time it reaches your plate. Biswal is slowly, tentatively bringing it onto his menus and, while his guests aren’t wrong (millet is currently almost exclusively grown in the UK as bird seed), the grain is more flavoursome, and arguably just as versatile, than the rice Biswal is hoping it’ll eventually replace.

“I come from Odisha in the eastern part of India,” he says, referencing where millet was the grain du jour long before wheat or rice. “There, rice fields are being switched for millet fields because of the health benefits people are seeing.” Millet being much lower on the glycemic index than rice and harbouring higher levels of protein and fibre is one thing, but interventions from the Government of India (such as rebranding millet as a ‘wealth grain’) might say more about why millet is taking off.

Back in Canterbury, and with help from Innovate UK and Defra, Biswal and local regenerative farmer, Emma Loder-Symonds, are part of the two-year ‘Millit Project’, which is trialing millet as a sustainable carbohydrate to rival rice – the high-emission and notoriously thirsty (5,000 litres of water per one kilo of rice) crop that it is. “We’ve always grown millet here,” says Loder-Symonds, who co-owns Nonington Farms. “but we’ve never harvested it before.” That’s because millet’s principally employed in a farmer’s rotation as a nature-friendly break crop, allowing the land to recover nutrients and suppress weeds before another crop (usually wheat) is due for sowing. “That’s actually where some farmers I’ve spoken to are excited about millet, because break crops generally tend to lose money,” Emma says. “And you haven’t got much other choice, beyond rape – which is a pain to grow.”

Head to Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio to read the full feature.
Sardines were the unofficial flavour of the summer Sardines were the unofficial flavour of the summer, writes @joelhart 

We’ve gone from TikTok-generated sardine-maxxing to sardine fasts said to lower blood sugar, promote rapid fat loss, and help your skin glow. We’ve even seen the arrival of the Dirty Sartini, a partnership between premium spirit brand Mermaid Gin with TV chef, Gizzi Erskine, and cocktail specialist, Joe Brayford.

In the UK, the humble pilchard has been successfully rebranded as the PGI-protected ‘Cornish Sardine,’ helping to revitalise local fleets. As Charlotte Dawe, co-founder of Dorset cannery Sea Sisters, points out, pilchards on toast were not always an appetising prospect. “My mum used to give them to me a lot,” she says, “but they weren’t cool. You wouldn’t go into school with a stinky, fishy sandwich.” Today, conversely: “I think you would be quite cool if you went to school with a can of fish.”

The shift in perception shows up in the numbers. “We’ve never, ever been able to keep up with the demand of our product,” Dawe says, with sardines accounting for 70% of Sea Sisters’ range and sales. Sustainable tinned seafood brand Fish4Ever has also seen sales skyrocket by 140% to 250% this year across multiple lines.

Carlos Gutiérrez, Senior Buyer at Brindisa, echoes the momentum: “The tinned fish category is showing a positive uplift, with sardines and anchovies leading the way with a 14% growth year-to-date as consumers look for high-quality, premium products that offer convenience.”

Is the sardine the powerhouse that could lead to a lasting win for coastal communities? Head to Wicked Leeks (via the link in our bio) to read the full feature.
Nearly one in every two (46%) of the world’s farme Nearly one in every two (46%) of the world’s farmers are being poisoned by pesticides every year, with the highest numbers of cases in southern Asia, south-eastern Asia, and east Africa. These are countries the UK relies on for crops like coffee, vegetables, fruit, rice, and spices. 

The figures are from “shocking” research published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health by experts from the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) in Germany, Malaysia, and the US.

Using data on pesticide poisoning from 139 countries, the researchers found that over 400 million of the world’s farmers and farmworkers suffer from acute pesticide poisoning annually. And this total excludes the 84 million children working in global agriculture who “are even more vulnerable” to toxic chemicals than adults, as well as rural families exposed through spray drift and environmental exposure. 

“Some of these farmers are reporting not just one case, but six, eight, or even 10 in a single season,” Sheila Willis, head of international programmes for PAN UK, told Wicked Weeks. It’s all the more “shocking” she added, because national authorities and the UN are “turning a blind eye” to this issue.

Read the full story on Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio.

About us

Wicked Leeks is published by Riverford Organic Farmers.

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Riverford grows and sells organic food through its award-winning veg boxes, delivering across the country to a loyal band of customers who share a passion for good food, good farming and good business.

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