Guy Singh-Watson has over the last 30 years taken Riverford from one man and a wheelbarrow delivering homegrown organic veg to friends, to a national veg box scheme delivering to around 80,000 customers a week.
Tired of meetings, brands and the assumption that greed is our predominant motivation, Guy converted the business to employee ownership in 2018, using the proceeds to buy a small farm and return to growing organic vegetables. In common with many of Riverford’s new co-owners, Guy is an advocate of using business to shape a part of the world, however small, to be kinder, more considerate and sustainable; more like the world most of us want to live in.
His weekly newsletters connect people to the farm with refreshingly honest accounts of the trials and tribulations of producing organic food, and the occasional rant about farming, ethical and business issues he feels strongly about.
I cannot promise when Riverford will be carbon neutral, but I do promise that those solutions will be transparent, well researched and only marginally influenced by the desire to be seen to be doing…
By Guy Singh-Watson - 18th November 2020
14
Perhaps belatedly, we have completed an expansive update to our environmental assessment. This time, the mood among our co-owners is almost universally 'so, what are we going to do about it?'
By Guy Singh-Watson - 11th November 2020
11
Devon farmers describe our mild, slow descent into winter as a 'long back end': the soil is still warm, wet and active, releasing nutrients, and there is just enough light for our crops to keep…
By Guy Singh-Watson - 4th November 2020
0
Twenty years ago, frustrated by the assertion that 'organic is all very well for the rich, but it will never feed the world', I took a two-month sabbatical to Sub-Saharan Africa to see for myself.
By Guy Singh-Watson - 22nd October 2020
4
My point is this: farm gate prices in the UK are so low already that reducing them further, such as through a raft of new trade deals, would give no significant benefit to society.
By Guy Singh-Watson - 15th October 2020
1
I am immensely grateful to our crop programming team; with extraordinary prescience, they calmly set about increasing the volumes we had planned with existing growers.
By Guy Singh-Watson - 8th October 2020
0
Most British strawberries today are grown in coconut fibre under acres of polytunnels and the season has been extended far beyond summer, writes Louise Gray in her latest Roots to Fruits column.
By Louise Gray - 23rd July 2021
0
UK fruit is at its peak of ripeness and flavour; juicy sun-warmed fruits that make for blissful eating whether enjoyed as they are or in one of these show stopping recipes.
By Becky Blench - 22nd July 2021
0
Market forces have driven agriculture towards specialisation and scale; the increased yields have reduced the price of food over the last 70 years, but with catastrophic environmental costs.
By Guy Singh-Watson - 22nd July 2021
1
British farmers are trialling alternatives to soya in animal feed, known to cause deforestation in the Amazon.
By Jack Thompson - 19th July 2021
0
As the summer holidays approach, Anna Turns tries a new green cooking book with her daughter and finds a wealth of education and creativity.
By Anna Turns - 19th July 2021
0
‘The Angry Chef’, aka Anthony Warner, tells Jack Thompson why food doesn’t have an ‘easy answer’ and why feeding the masses is a forgotten side of sustainability.
By Jack Thompson - 16th July 2021
2