Researcher to Finish Epic Cycle Across England’s Heartlands
A researcher who has cycled more than 2,000 miles for her PhD on visions for the future of farming is set to complete her epic journey across England’s diverse agricultural landscapes.
Veronica White left Land’s End in Cornwall on 12 April for an exploration of the nation’s farms and food producers, seeking to interview women in every corner of the land about their experiences and visions for the future.
This Saturday (5 July), Veronica will reach the Scottish border at Gretna Green, to complete her Farming Futures Cycle Tour. En route, she has met women who work across a wide range of farming types and scales: from market gardens producing fruit and vegetables for their local communities, to large-scale commercial horticulture, arable, and dairy farms supplying supermarkets across the country.
Over those 85 days, Veronica, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Exeter, has documented a range of issues facing farming communities, as well as their hopes for the future of farming and food production in England.
“It’s clear that, even across farming types and scales, there are several themes that arise in almost every interview,” says Veronica, a second-year PhD candidate in Exeter’s Department of Geography. “Whether you are an organic dairy in Devon or an arable farm in Cambridgeshire, the uncertainties presented by a changing policy landscape and climate extremes are making it increasingly difficult to plan for the future.
“The importance of educating the public, moving towards national food self-sufficiency, and farming with nature were other themes that came up regularly in my interviews with farm women. All of these are tied into visions for the future that see farmers respected by the public and government, with consumers choosing to buy local, seasonal food, and land being used to produce food while protecting the natural environment. Importantly, the visions described by my participants rarely reflect the high-tech, farmer-less images we often associate with ‘future farming’.”
“One of the best things about this experience has been seeing the incredible diversity of farms and hearing how people got into farming,” she says. “While the women I spoke to held a range of on- and off-farm roles, they often sit at the very heart of the farming business. They described the specific challenges they face as women in the farming industry, but also the ways they are driving forward changes to make their farms more financially and environmentally sustainable – to help contribute towards building the futures they envision.”
Veronica’s journey, using the Sustrans National Cycle Network, has taken her through the South West counties, through London to East Anglia, up the east coast, and then over the Yorkshire Dales towards Cumbria. She has spent more than 70 days on the bike, laden with her clothes and camping gear, for up to 70 miles per day. During that time, she has experienced some of the same weather challenges facing farmers – from the rain that drenched her in April, inducing near-hypothermia, to the extreme heat of mid-June.
“What is shocking is that despite camping for 39 nights, at no point have I had to put up or take down my tent in the rain,” she says. “And while on one level I have appreciated the dry spring, I’ve been conscious that this isn’t such great news for British farmers. As I have cycled through these landscapes, it has brought home to me how farmers are also outside every day, and they don’t have the luxury of taking a day off because it’s too hot or too wet. It’s given me a lot of respect for the physical nature of their job and their ability to cope with the uncertainty of the weather.”
Veronica, a graduate of the University’s MSc Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture, and MRes Sustainable Futures programmes, cycled more than 1,800 miles while training for her PhD fieldwork ride. And while she says she is feeling the strain of the hilly Cumbrian landscape, she has endured the challenge surprisingly well from both a physical and mental perspective.
“Spending time with these women has been wonderful,” she says. “Farming is often a lonely profession, and I have been on my own for most of the trip, so these interviews have been a shared moment of connection. My participants have also appreciated the effort I have gone to to reach them and listen to their views.”
“Cycling is a great way of really experiencing the farmed landscapes that make up England,” she adds. “Traveling by bike, you don’t just see these landscapes, you feel them, hear them, even smell them. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to experience England’s rural areas in this way and have been inspired by the incredible kindness and resilience of the farm women I’ve met along my journey.”
https://news.exeter.ac.uk/research/researcher-set-to-complete-epic-cycle-odyssey-across-englands-farming-heartlands/