Doors open 19:00, talk commences 19:30

Peter Hall, Budleigh Salterton, EX9 6LT

Speaker:  Sam Walker (local organic farmer)

We are delighted to welcome farmer Sam Walker to the OVA talks program on Wednesday October 15th.   We have all seen and heard  a lot about the issues facing UK farming - not least through the award winning “Clarkson’s Farm” TV series.  Now is your opportunity to hear first-hand about  the challenges facing our local farmers here in Devon.  Sam is a first-generation tenant farmer running a 140ha (350-acre) organic arable and beef farm on the Jurassic Coast of East Devon. He has a BSc from Harper Adams and previous jobs have included farm management in Gloucestershire and Cambridgeshire and overseas development work in Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe. He spent several years teaching Agriculture at Duchy College and is an opinion writer for Farmers Weekly.

His farm, Stantyway, on the outskirts of Otterton village is a mixture of organic grassland, crops and cattle.  With massively depleted nature, the pressing need for food security and minimising carbon footprint, organic farming has a lot of the answers without having to give up land and plant trees and solar panels all over everything.