The Landworkers’ Radio is a grassroots food, farming and climate justice podcast brought to you by the Landworkers’ Alliance.
All episodes are also available to listen on Spotify, iTunes and most other podcast apps.
The Landworkers’ Radio brings to you ‘Of Sweat and Soil’, a story of landworker organising in the UK. From our roots in resistance, to union organising and building solidarity, the Landworkers Alliance celebrates 10 years of resistance and resilience in this 4-part podcast series, sharing the voices from our membership here in the UK and globally with La Via Campesina.
Episode 1: Roots
Episode 1 ‘Roots’ tells a brief history of grassroots landworker organising here in the UK, through music, song, poetry and performance by Gafael Tir, a contemporary re-telling of Welsh history. With contributions from Owen Shiers, Gwilym Morus-Baird, Sian Davies and Catriona Ferguson from the Scottish Histories of Resistance Project. The Landworkers’ Radio is presented and produced by Georgie Styles and is brought to you by the Landworkers’ Alliance.
Episode 2: Seeds
‘Seeds’, tells the story of the Landworkers’ Alliance – taking a look at the social, political and ecological context in the lead up to the beginning of the Landworkers’ Alliance, and exploring what being a grassroots union means to us, our theory of change, what democracy truly looks like and how our work today fits in to the wider movement for justice. With contributions from Jyoti Fernandes, Natalia Szarek and Emmott Baddeley.
Episode 3: Power
‘Power’ shares the voices of some of our UK member organisers from FLAME (Food, Land, Agriculture: a Movement for Equality), REAL (Racial Equity, Abolition and Liberation) and the Women and Diverse Genders in Forestry and Landwork group. On the ground at the Landskills Fair 2023, we talk about the true meaning of food justice with Dee Woods and hear what being an organising member of the LWA is like with Buzz, Jaden and Sasha.
Episode 4: Solidarity
‘Solidarity’ brings you voices from our global partners, La Via Campesina, in conversation with LWA members Jo Kamal and Edwin Brooks, who travelled to Bogota in Colombia for the 8th international conference of La Via Campesina. Here, they met with over 500 landworkers, fisherpeople, pastoralists, Indigenous peoples, women, youth and sexuality and gender diverse peoples from around the world to share in struggle and hope for a future of food sovereignty. This series of The Landworkers’ Radio is presented and produced by Georgie Styles and is brought to you by the Landworkers’ Alliance.
Episode 1: How can we transform our food systems?
This podcast is available to listen via the Landworkers’ Radio on Spotify, iTunes and most other podcast apps.
Our global food, farming and land-use systems are on the brink of collapse and are failing to adapt to recent shocks like Covid-19, increased climate destruction and most recently, the war on Ukraine.
Join hosts Georgie Styles and Dee Butterly as they take a look at the most burning question of our time – how can we transform our food, farming and land-use systems?
In conversation with Ramona Duminciou from Eco Ruralis and La Via Campesina, and Jyoti Fernandes from the Landworkers’ Alliance, this episode explores the historical and current contexts of our global food and farming systems, the building of the food sovereignty movement and the importance of radical grassroots action and international solidarity networks in the hope of food system transformation.
The Landworkers’ Radio – where you ask the questions, we investigate the answers
Episode 2: How do we get access to land?
This podcast is available to listen via the Landworkers’ Radio on Spotify, iTunes and most other podcast apps.
When you think about land, what comes to mind? Do you have a reaction? Maybe it evokes joy, peace, anger or frustration.
Land is one of the most foundational resources needed for farming, forestry, food and fibre production and yet finding ways to access and work with the land here in the UK is becoming increasingly difficult.
The UK has one of the highest levels of concentrated landownership in the world, with less than 1% of the population owning over half of all agricultural land. Over the past 20 years, over 50,000 small scale farms in the UK have been either closed down or consolidated, in part due to little government support for anyone farming on less than 5 hectares of land. Rapid increases in land prices, in places tripling in price per acre, have caused huge challenges for regeneration in land-use, as new entrants find themselves almost entirely locked out of the industry.
Join hosts Georgie Styles and Dee Butterly as they explore the issues around land access for new entrant farmers, foresters and landworkers. In conversation with Sinead Fenton from Aweside Farm in East Sussex, we hear about her journey onto the land, the issues she has faced and what progressive, innovative models are out there to help secure land access for new entrants like her.
The Landworkers’ Radio – where you ask the questions, we investigate the answers
Episode 3: Are we facing a grain crisis?
This podcast is available to listen via the Landworkers’ Radio on Spotify, iTunes and most other podcast apps.
The world is abundant in cultures and food traditions that centre around the farming, processing and cooking of grains.
The central role that grains play in our cultures and diets, makes it one of the most important and yet contentious food substances in the world. It feeds and nourishes our societies, bringing people together in community and celebration. Whilst in times of scarcity, price fluctuation and crises it is an attributing cause of war, conflict and famine.
The recent war on Ukraine has exposed the overwhelming concentration of the globalised food system, and our reliance on only a few varieties of grain. Here in the UK we import 130 million pounds worth of grain every year from Ukraine including wheat, maize, barley, and rice and we have been affected with rises in food prices and threats to the supply of food as well as gas for fertilizers and fuel. These impacts highlight just how much our food systems are unable to withstand the shocks of political conflict and war, and is highly vulnerable in the face of climate breakdown – so are we facing a grain crisis?
To understand more about the context of grain here in the UK, hosts Georgie Styles and Dee Butterly spoke with Kimberley Bell, founder of the UK Grain Lab and the Small Food Bakery in Nottingham which aims to demonstrate that small scale food manufacturing businesses have a crucial role to play in enabling transition to a more resilient, nourishing and equitable food system.
The Landworkers’ Radio – where you ask the questions, we investigate the answers
Episode 4: Is food sovereignty more than just about food?
This podcast is available to listen via the Landworkers’ Radio on Spotify, iTunes and most other podcast apps.
Perceptions of food sovereignty as a concept have often remained limited to the realm of food production and food security.
Although the term food sovereignty inherently puts ‘food in our hands’ (collectivising the power to make decisions about seeds, food production, food waste, and trade – as well as having more food on our plates in a literal sense) there is a danger of limiting ourselves as food growers, farmers, fishers and community organisers if we think of food sovereignty as solely a ‘food’ issue.
In our first landworkers radio episode we explored food sovereignty and its inherent connection with grassroots organising. And so in this episode we want to find out how grassroots organising for food sovereignty relates to the notion of justice.
Join Georgie Styles and guest host Jo Kamal from the LWA and Food In Our Hands in conversation with India Hamilton from The Sustainable Cooperative (SCOOP) in Jersey to find out how the concept of food sovereignty as a movement for justice works on the ground and in the day to day practices of community food projects like SCOOP.
This episode was produced in collaboration with Food In Our Hands.
The Landworkers’ Radio – where you ask the questions, we investigate the answers
Episode 5: 'Seeds of Change' How do we build urban community seed networks?
This is the last episode of Landworkers’ Radio seasonal pilot! We end this podcast season with the launch of our 2023 calendar, On Common Ground. This year’s calendar shares twelve inspiring stories about land rights and land justice, and so for this episode, we’ve explored the story ‘the urban growing project’, in conversation with Richard Galpin, member of the London Freedom Seed Bank.
For thousands of years farmers, growers, peasants and land workers across the world have been saving and exchanging seeds, passing them down from one generation to the next. But over the past one hundred years, the knowledge, skill and practice of seed saving, as well as many varieties of seed, have been all but lost. However, around the world, and here in the UK, there is a growing movement to rebuild seed diversity and seed sovereignty in both urban and rural settings. This movement is centred around working to adapt and build seed resilience in the face of climate change, retraining growers and farmers in the lost art of seed custodianship,and celebrating our seed stories and food and cultural heritages.
The London Freedom Seed Bank is a network of gardeners and food growers across London and was set up to collectively protect, store and keep alive rare and unusual varieties – seed that is grown and saved in London to ensure it has adapted and acclimatised to local growing conditions, making a more resilient seed stock for urban environments.
This series was produced by Dee Butterly and Georgie Styles and was brought to you by the Landworkers Alliance. Thanks so much to all of our listeners and collaborators who joined us over the season. If you have any feedback to help shape our future audio direction here at the LWA, then please get in touch. Bye for now!
The Landworkers’ Radio – where you ask the questions, we investigate the answers
In 2021 the Landworkers’ Alliance, along with the help of Georgie Styles and Frontline Foodcast created a podcast series to explore the themes of climate justice and agroecology ahead of, and during, COP26 in Glasgow. These epsiodes look at how food sovereignty and agroecology offer key solutions to the climate crisis and contribute importantly to the wider climate justice movement.
Episode 1 - Mobilise! (Dee Butterly & Jesus Vasquez)
Mobilise! is the first of our podcasts and starts by looking at how farmers, growers, foresters and landworkers come together to bring solutions to the climate crisis from the grassroots. Dee Butterly, from Southern Roots Organics and Landworkers’ Alliance Programmes and Engagement Coordinator, speaks with Jesus Vasquez from Organizacion Boricua in Puerto Rico. Together they share how farmers are experiencing climate change in their regions, how they organise collectively to work in solidarity to respond to extreme weather events and support resilient agroecological farming and land use systems that positively address climate and biodiversity crises. And, importantly, they share how groups they’re organising with mobilise politically to resist corporate systems that undermine the lives and livelihoods of their members.
Mobilise! is a call to action ahead of COP26. It is an invitation and a welcoming to anyone who wants to help strengthen our articulation of food sovereignty, agroecology and climate justice at COP26. To find out more about how you can get involved please visit https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/cop26/
It is the first in our podcast series, with more coming forward on seed sovereignty, distinguishing between intensive factory farmed animal agriculture and animal agriculture in the context of agroecology and much more.
Episode 2 - Seed Saving (Katie Hastings & Cidi Otieno)
In the Landworkers’ Alliance second COP podcast we explore how Seed Sovereignty plays a vital role in the climate justice movement in conversation with Katie Hastings, a Landworkers Alliance member and also working on the Gaia Foundations Seed Sovereignty Programme, and Cidi Otieno from the Kenyan Peasants’ League
Earlier this month the UK governemnt’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs unveiled plans to deregulate gene editing techniques in the UK, claiming that deregulation & free market approaches to genetic engineering will help to protect our environment and tackle climate change. We don’t agree, along with the majority of the public who responded to the consultation on GMOs earlier this year. The majority of respondents recognised the risks that GMOs present to our health, our ecology and the rights and livelihoods of agroecological farmers both here in the UK and internationally. And yet the government ploughs on. And with Unilever as one of the official sponsors of COP … it won’t be a surprise if GMOs get strongly pushed on the COP agenda as a solution to the climate crisis. This is not a true solution. In this podcast we’ll focus on Seed Sovereignty and why this is a vital component of the food sovereignty and climate justice movement, helping to build ecological, social and cultural resilience in the face of the climate crisis.
Find out more and join in at the UK Seed Sovereignty Gathering on 23rd October and at our Seed Sovereignty workshop during the COP26 Peoples’ Summit gathering in Glasgow.
Episode 3 - Animal Agriculture (Nikki Yoxall & Fernando Garcia Dory)
Our third podcast looks at different roles that animals play in an agroecological farming system in conversation with Landworkers’ Alliance member Nikki Yoxxal, who is also a farmer at Grampian Graziers, and Fernando Garcia Dory who helps to organise Shepherd Schools in Spain and works for theWorld Alliance of Mobile Indigenous People. Together they share how animals are part of the agroecological systems that they are practicing, and help to show how this differs dramatically from intensive and industrial forms of animal agriculture. They will discuss the social and cultural importance of working with animals and the need for more careful evaluation of protein production systems.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and welcome you to join us in our session at the Peoples’ Summit which explores the diversity of opinions within our movement on animal agriculture and seeks to find common ground to effectively resist the systems that push us into industrial and intensive factory farming.
Episode 4 - Youth
This episode comes to you direct from COP26 and raises the voices of youth from around the world. Friday 5th November 2021, saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets of Glasgow to march for the futures of our next generation. People of all ages gathered, sang, shouted, stomped, drummed, protested and barged their way through the centre of the city to demand climate justice and brought hope for the future. This episode is a curated soundscape from that march, including song, protest chants and speeches from Kampala in Uganda and the Philippines.
This series of podcasts look at how food sovereignty and agroecology offer key solutions to the climate crisis and contribute significantly to the wider climate justice movement.
Episode 5 - Soil and Carbon
During COP26, our Global leaders discussed how they can start to build a decarbonised economy, centering targets for Net Zero and Carbon Markets. But what exactly do these terms mean? How do they impact us? And what is the science and politics behind them? As a part of the COP26 People’s Summit, the Landworkers’ Alliance hosted a series of events on climate and land justice. This episode offers reflections on one of these events ‘Soil and Carbon – the science and the politics’, with contributions from an international panel of farmers, scientists, policy experts and movement builders.
This episode was broadcast live from COP26 on Monday 8th November 2021 via As If Radio.
Episode 6 - Puerto Rico & UK (with Marissa Réyés, Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica and Dee Woods, LWA)
The word ‘peasant’ is usually thought to be synonymous with ‘poor’, ‘unsophisticated’ and ‘ignorant’. But a movement of over 200 million peasant farmers and land workers around the world, united under La Via Campesina, are rising up to reclaim this word and harness the collective knowledge and power that they hold to build solidarity in their struggles and fight for a more harmonious, just and interconnected world. As a part of the COP26 People’s Summit, the Landworkers’ Alliance hosted a series of events on climate and land justice. This episode, is part 1 of a 5 part mini-series from the Global Peasant Led Struggles event that took place on 7th November 2021 and explores the impacts of the climate crisis in Puerto Rico and the UK, finding hope in Agroecology. Speakers are Marissa Réyés from Organización Boricua and Dee Woods from LWA.
Episode 7 - Germany (with Paula Gioia, European Coordination Via Campesina)
Part 2 of the Global Peasant Led Struggles mini-series, explores the impacts of the climate crisis in Germany with Paola Gioia and raises the importance of grassroots involvement in global summits and conferences to fight against corporate capture.
These COP26 podcasts are brought to you by The Landworkers Alliance and Frontline Foodcast to look at how food sovereignty and agroecology offer key solutions to the climate crisis and contribute significantly to the wider climate justice movement.
Follow this link for the Nyéléni website mentioned in this podcast episode: https://nyeleni-eca.net/
Episode 8 - Canada (with Jessie MacInnis, NFU Canada)
Part 3 of the Global Peasant Led Struggles mini-series, explores the impacts of the climate crisis in Canada with Jessie MacInnis from NFU Canada and how we can use the UN Declaration of Peasant Rights to build a food system that is based in justice and resilience.
These COP26 podcasts are brought to you by The Landworkers Alliance and Frontline Foodcast to look at how food sovereignty and agroecology offer key solutions to the climate crisis and contribute significantly to the wider climate justice movement.
Episode 9 - Spain (with Fernando García-Dory, World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Pastoralists)
Part 4 of the Global Peasant Led Struggles mini-series, looks at the impacts of the climate crisis in Spain and across the world with the World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Pastoralists. We hear from Fernando García-Dory, highlighting the difficulties now facing global peasant pastoralists and exploring the place of animals in agriculture.
These COP26 podcasts are brought to you by The Landworkers Alliance and Frontline Foodcast to look at how food sovereignty and agroecology offer key solutions to the climate crisis and contribute significantly to the wider climate justice movement.
Episode 10 - GPLS Reflections
The final part of this mini-series on Global Peasant Led Struggles is a soundscape reflections recording that went out live on As If Radio on 7th November 2021. We gathered panelists from Spain, Puerto Rico, Canada, Germany and the UK to further discuss the struggle and how Indigenous Peoples, Pastoralists, Fishers, migrant land workers and many more marginalised communities are on the frontline of the climate crisis.
These COP26 podcasts are brought to you by The Landworkers Alliance and Frontline Foodcast to look at how food sovereignty and agroecology offer key solutions to the climate crisis and contribute significantly to the wider climate justice movement.
All episodes are also available to listen on Spotify, iTunes and most other podcast apps.
Want to be involved in our grassroots podcast? – Join the Landworkers’ Radio team!
We are excited to announce the launch of the Landworkers’ Radio working group. Come and join other radio, podcast and audio enthusiasts and build on the foundations of our Landworkers’ Radio podcast channel. We want to utilise our growing audience and make more audio for movement building, information sharing and storytelling within our membership and beyond.
So if you’d like to be involved, as a producer, presenter or contributor, or have ideas, then get in touch with georgie.styles@
