Field Note: Supporting farming in harmony with Nature at the Da Byw Sustainable Farming Conference
Field Note by Anna Wright, RCF Environmental Programme Manager
This was my third year attending Da Byw: a Sustainable Livestock Farming Conference held in beautiful North Wales. The RCF has sponsored the event since 2024 and it’s been so inspiring to see how the event has grown and developed.
Every year it is a fantastic opportunity to meet so many knowledgeable and enthusiastic farmers and experts.
The aim of the conference is to showcase how agriculture can be part of the solution to many of the environmental challenges the world is facing and to demonstrate to farmers and the wider community how changes to current farming practices can significantly improve the environmental and economic sustainability of farming businesses.
The whole event is driven by the mantra ‘People, Profit, Planet’ and looks at how regenerative farming practices can address all three of these.
This is exactly the approach that the RCF has promoted for the last 15 years; helping small family farmers find ways to farm in harmony with Nature and deliver profit.
The conference was packed with talks, panels and demonstrations covering a range of topics from communication, to dung beetles, to farming policy.
Some of our key takeaways from these were:
- People are at the core of any farming business, and striving for effective, regular communication is a key to success that shouldn’t be overlooked.
- Profitability and margins are key considerations to make when changing farming practices – there are many actions that reduce cost and benefit the environment.
- Everybody will run their farming business differently, and it’s important to figure out what works within the context of your own farm.
We also met with farmers who had attended the Intro to Regen workshop that we ran in North Wales, back in April. It was great to hear from them firsthand about their experience with the workshop and what they have been up to since.
Thank you to everyone who attended and to Harry and Davina Fetherstonhaugh for running such an excellent event and giving us such a warm welcome!
Thank you too, to the Postcode Lottery for their support of our work and the funding they provide.