I am Chair of Ouseburn City Farm and Regional Chair of the Forestry And Woodland Advisory Committee. I am also owner of Chestnut Natural Capital Ltd, a company manufacturing biodegradable plant-based tree guards.

The topic of my Fellowship was Agroforestry – to include the activity of planting trees on farmland in the UK in government policy and, more widely, into land at scale.

The right time to plant a tree is 30 years ago, which I did when planting 60 acres on my tenanted farm. I was very interested in farming, in conservation and in forestry but unlike my Scandinavian farming cousins it was undertaken in 'silos' here. I could see the policy barriers so wanted to travel around Europe and Africa to see what was possible here.

I have lobbied hard to have the subject of agroforestry included in government policy, specifically the Environment Land Management Scheme, the tree action plan and the Environment Bill. Amazingly, this has happened. I have also made a pledge to rid forestry of single-use plastic, glyphosate and other non-discriminatory weed killers. Chestnut Natural Capital was set up in 2019 and won £460,000 of Innovate UK money to help create a tree protection system made of plant material.

The Fellowship was life-affirming.