In this week’s episode of Gut the System I am walking and talking to the deeply considered and incredible astute Eugene Scholten.

Eugene and I met over a year ago now, on another walk, so recording this episode with Eugene felt like picking up exactly where we left off. This episode also happens to be my first international episode. I met Eugene on his home turf in The Netherlands.

I wanted to record this episode with Eugen because not only has he had an extremely interesting and varied career through the wider food and agriculture world, but over his distinguished career Eugene has also had several moments of deep reflection, into what leadership is and how to bring others around you on a new and different journey. It is a topic I am particularly interested in because it is not only going to take pledges and goodwill, to make the changes to our systems but we will also need inspiring and deeply conscious leadership, which Eugene practises.

In this episode we ramble from Eugene’s heritage as a Dutch man, and how that consciously or subconsciously effected his career path, to what conscious leadership is and some of the tools and methods Eugene uses, when in positions of leadership, not only to bring others along with him but to also be reflective of his own impact and position.

I think this episode, although centred around the food industry, really draws ideas and learnings from a broader set of principles, so please be sure to share it far and wide. I greatly enjoyed talking to Eugene and I hope you enjoy listening too.

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Decades and Weeks with Professor Tom MacMillan.

Welcome back to season 2 of Gut the System and do we have a ripper of an episode to start the series!

In this week’s episode I am joined by highly perceptive and deeply passionate Professor Tom MacMillan, CEO of Ag-Impact.

I first encountered Tom while I was studying at the RAU, he was then holding the Elizabeth Creek chair In Rural policy and strategy. I was not fully aware it of the time but Tom’s name and mind, even though he would never openly say this himself, he is very modest, has been behind some of the UK’s foremost innovative programmes, trials and papers related to agricultural innovation, food policies and funding programmes. Many of which are directed at helping farmers research and fund the transition towards more Agroecological farming systems. Tom is truly prolific and yet understated at the same time.

During our walk, through the eclectic Stroud countryside, we encountered living and breathing case studies of community supported agriculture, we mused on the role of research and its applicability to farming and Toms roles across the Soil Association and with the FFCC and final turning our minds to the rocky world of current government funding and subsidies. Throughout his working life Tom maintains a truly can-do attitude, even when faced with extremely testing conditions presented by government and policy.

I greatly enjoyed my walk and talk with Tom and I hope you do to.

https://www.innovativefarmers.org/

https://farminginnovation.ukri.org/adopt/

https://www.ag-impact.org/

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Contact the show:

• Harry Farnsworth - Host
• Ned Sedgwick - Producer
• Rosanna Farnsworth - Content

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Guts & Glory with Lucy Williamson. In this week’s bonus episode of Gut the System I am joined by the extremely knowledgable and deeply passionate Lucy Williamson.

Lucy is an award-winning Registered Nutritionist but intriguingly also a former Vet with over 30 years’ experience across health, food, and farming. Since becoming a nutritionist Lucy has founded The Gut Project, a project to help in the sharing of an evidence-based approaches to nutrition, bringing whole health back to its roots - through soil, nutrient-dense food, and the gut microbiome. Lucy also recently launched a Gut Health learning platform that empowers individuals, to make food choices that benefit both personal health and planetary well-being. As you will hear, Lucy is a passionate advocate for climate-positive farmers and growers and goes to great lengths to provide public-facing nutrition support.

Lucy and I talk through a whole host of topic related to our guts, what we are eating and more crucially what we are not eating and how to navigate through some of media disinformation and actually as it turns out positive media attention too. With Lucy’s background in veterinarian medicine she is able to bring a extremely considered a holistic view to the world of nutrition, really addressing the root cause of systemic issues but still providing solutions, that not only benefit our guts but also nature and farms.

I met Lucy in the lovely Hertfordshire village of Sarratt, where with Rory (Scottish spelling) the dog, we took a lovely meandering walk through the Hertfordshire countryside. I really enjoyed talking Lucy and spoiler alert I am eating some grains again! Enjoy.

https://lwnutrition.co.uk/

Soil/ gut similarities:

Microbes do 3 key things for the living systems they serve:

1. Build resilience

2. ⁠Impact vital metabolic processes

3. ⁠Release nutrients

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Contact the show:

• Harry Farnsworth - Host
• Ned Sedgwick - Producer
• Rosanna Farnsworth - Content

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

'All Roads Lead to Rural' with Robert Godfrey.

Season one finale!

In this weeks episode of Gut The System I am joined by the brilliantly insightful and deeply knowledgeable Robert Godfrey. Robert is the Head of Investment Strategy and Asset Management at Savills. But more than that Robert is a naturalist, a fountain of knowledge and an extremely lovely person to walk and talk to.

In his career at Savills and with the Oxford University Endowment, Robert has been not only been talking the talk but also walking the walk, when it comes to developing natural capital investment prospects and brining the importance of rural stewardship into the boardrooms of companies like Savills and to table of institutional investors and family offices. That was demonstrated while he was Head of Natural Capital at Savills Investment Management and where Robert coined his now famed catch phrase - 'All roads lead to rural'.

In this episode we also discuss burgeoning ecosystem markets like BNG, the role of investors in fanning the flames of NatCap investments, the nexus of nature and the urban environment, where Robert sees nature as a key enabler for meeting and reaching ESG targets and what the future of rural Britain may or may not look like in the years to come.

I met Robert on the beautiful and historic Ridgeway by the famous White Horse Hill. An area, as you will hear, very close to Roberts heart and an area he knows a great deal about. I really enjoyed recording this episode with Robert and I hope you enjoy listening too.

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Contact the show:

• Harry Farnsworth - Host
• Ned Sedgwick - Producer
• Rosanna Farnsworth - Content

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

20,000 Leagues Under The Soil with Dr Jacqueline Stroud.

In this week’s episode of Gut the system I am joined by the fantastically interesting and deeply passionate Dr Jacqueline Stroud. In this episode we dive deep into the world of soil acoustics and sneak a peak at the lives of the creatures below our feet.

I first came across Dr Stroud’s work about a year and a half ago whilst attending a farming conference. It really was one of those eureka moments or indeed one of those moments where you start to connect multiple dots in your brain. Jackie was presenting her research into soil acoustics a topic which I knew very little about but one which immediately captivated my attention. The prospect of being able to hear the life beneath our feet and start to understand how certain management practices above and below ground affected soil biology and how in-turn that biology affected the health of the surrounding farm, be that in terms of sustainability or profitability really was really an enticing proposition.

Over the last year or so I have had the pleasure of getting to know Jackie and I’ve come to understand the passion for acoustics and worms stretches way beyond just the soil but also into how we work with scientific research. How we collect data and how we involve people from the industries and communities that are affected by the research. Jackie is a strong proponent of empowerment through citizen science. Jackie is not laboured by some of the traditional scientific and academic rigor that can cause friction points between those who research and those who practice, she has a wonderfully open mind and open research journal to those that are willing Interested.

In this episode I met Jackie at her research plots on the Warrack University innovation and crop Centre. I was taken on a journey, through my ears, into the truly baffling and fascinating world beneath our feet.

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Contact the show:

• Harry Farnsworth - Host
• Ned Sedgwick - Producer
• Rosanna Farnsworth - Content

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘I Think Therefore AI’ with Naveed R. Parvez.

In this week’s episode of Gut The System I am walking and talking with the wonderful Naveed R. Parvez.

I first met Naveed in a small town in Italy of all places, whilst we were on a walk, so it seems extremely fitting to be coming together again, on a walk around the majestic Regents Park.

This conversation comes at quite an important junction in this series. Over the last few episodes we have talked at length about systems thinking, about how to scale change in our current systems and why we need systems that considered the whole rather than individual parts. However, we haven’t discussed a more foundational and or philosophical positioning on what systems thinking is, which Naveed and I touch upon during the first part of this episode. Naveed, at his centre is a systems thinker and has a really talent for condensing and simplifying complex topics.

Also, in this episode we go into Naveed’s backstory as an entrepreneur and innovator in the healthcare sector. We discuss why innovation can be so hard to successfully deploy in the NHS, even when the results are an improvement on the status quo and why we need to make sure we use data in a impactful way.

Naveed has always been an innovator at the cutting edge of technology and we analyse how now he’s working with AI, to accelerate the pace of change. We haven’t spoken much about AI in this series so far but given the monumental change it will and is bringing, not only in the way we interact with each other day to day but also run businesses and how we reward value, it is important to pay it proper attention.

Speaking to Naveed, not just during this episode but throughout the time I’ve known him has been a series of eye-opening events for me. I greatly enjoying this walk and talk and I hope you do too!

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Contact the show:

• Harry Farnsworth - Host
• Ned Sedgwick - Producer
• Rosanna Farnsworth - Content

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Taking back control" of our food with Nick Jefferson:

In this week's episode, I'm walking and talking to the engaging and amusing Nick Jefferson.

Nick came onto my radar through LinkedIn after posting a very alarming article which connected the levels of anti-depressants in river water to the mental health of salmon. From there on out, I was hooked on Nick’s extremely illuminating, and sometimes provocative, posts (I don’t think he'd mind me saying that)!

By no means is Nick just a keyboard warrior, spending his time highlighting how broken our food system is. Nick has created a solution to help everyday shoppers reconnect with high quality produce and, if not more importantly, put the producers, be they farmers, fishermen or fisherwomen, back in the driver's seat.

Along with his co-founder Ella, Nick launched Wylde Market back in 2023 and it's been growing a dedicated following ever since. Wylde Market serves as an online platform that brings the best of local markets to the masses. Or as Nick would say, Wylde is a rebellion against big food and a celebration of Selon le Marché (according to the market).

I really enjoyed talking to Nick as we wandered around the beautiful Kew Gardens and as a user of Wylde Market myself, I can say from experience how fantastic it is. I hope you enjoy listening.

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Show notes:

Wylde Market

Petition to put food and farming on the nation curriculum

Dark Matter - Dr James Kinross

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Contact the show:

• Harry Farnsworth - Host
• Ned Sedgwick - Producer
• Rosanna Farnsworth - Content

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.