Is big business ruining food? That is the question some of us will be debating on Saturday 29 October, 10.30am -12.00pm.
The debate is just one part of this year’s Battle of Ideas – an annual event organised by the Institute of Ideas and hosted by the Royal College of Art. The weekend event has a full programme of high-level, thought-provoking debate on issues that matter.
The Battle of Ideas festival, now in its sixth year, is very much about a public conversation. The emphasis is on audience participation, and the festival is open to anyone with intellectual curiosity and the courage to think critically. The weekend includes more than 70 lively debates which you can learn more about here.
I’m really looking forward to my tiny part in it all. Please come along and join in.
People who know me will know that I am an advocate of alternative and complementary medicine. It is my preferred first line of care for myself and my family and has been for decades. I have built part of my professional reputation investigating and writing about healthcare, as well as the intersection of health and […]
I am very happy to be able to say that last night, at a very glitzy ceremony at London’s Victoria & Albert museum, the Cows Belong in Fields campaign I ran for Compassion in World Farming scooped the prestigious Campaigner of the Year award at the Observer Ethical Awards 2011.
According to the Observer review: “Thousands of people voted for Compassion in World Farming and its high-profile campaign against the Nocton “mega-dairy“. I am told that it was a decisive win in our category (all the more amazing since the shortlist included chef and food campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and campaign group 38-Degrees). I’d like to thank everyone who voted for us. We were all really thrilled and delighted to be awarded what is widely considered to be the ‘green’ equivalent of an Oscar. Thanks goes once again to our partners on the front line in Lincolnshire, local activist group CAFFO, with whom we will be sharing this award.
For my part I take it not just as a vote of confidence for our campaign, but a strong statement about the public’s abhorrence of factory farming. Compassion in World Farming has made a bold commitment to end factory farming by 2050, and with the public behind us this commitment cannot fail.
It was ironic to be standing on the stage with my colleagues and our celebrity supporters, TV presenter/conservationist Bill Oddie and campaigner/vet Marc Abraham, accepting this award less than a day after the National Farmers Union issued a disturbing, rather sinister and grossly out of touch press release congratulating itself for its part in quashing a Women’s Institute resolution against factory farming.
The NFU is doing all it can to avoid the necessary conversation about where our food system is heading. At the same time we have a government, indeed we have had successive governments, that have formulated their food and agriculture policies on the idiotic assumption that if we can only make our food system big enough it will eventually be too big to fail (come on folks…where have we heard that one before?!).
As anyone can see from stories of rising food prices, failing crops, contaminated vegetables and farmers going out of business at an alarming rate, our food system is already failing. It’s failing our farmers, it’s failing consumers, it’s failing the environment and it’s failing our animals. Making it bigger will only make it a bigger failure. We can feed the world in a way that is ethical, sustainable, safe and compassionate. CIWF aims to be a leader in this important reform and to be the ones to really get that conversation going.
Hurrah! The campaign I ran for Compassion in World Farming to fend off the Nocton mega-dairy has been shortlisted in the Observer Ethical Awards 2011.
OK I admit it I am really thrilled. Giddy even. Environmental campaigners don’t get many ‘wins’. Very often we have to dig down deep to find the will to keep going year after year with only incremental progress to show for our efforts. But Nocton was a decisive ‘win’.
I am an award-winning campaigner, journalist and author. A former editor of the Ecologist magazine Pat has run campaigns for Paul McCartney’s Meat-Free Monday, Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) and Neal’s Yard Remedies. In 2011, my work leading the campaign, Cows Belong in Fields, won CIWF the Observer Ethical Award for Campaigner of the Year. In 2014 I co-founded the campaigning group, Beyond GM.
I am a qualified psychotherapist and the author more than 40 books for adults and children and I was inducted into Who’s Who in 2014. In addition to my work with Beyond GM, I work occasionally with the film production company Ecostorm. I also currently edit and oversee NYR Natural News – a campaigning natural health website, continue to write in a freelance capacity and make regular public speaking and media appearances.
I have been a trustee of both the Soil Association and the Organic Research Centre in the UK and am currently on the advisory board of GMO Free USA and am a trustee of the investigative media agency, Eyewitness.
To read more about me see here.
Contact Pat
Skype: patti.t16
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Projects, Consultancies and Public Speaking
I am interested in and available for short- and long-term projects/consultancies, and am particularly keen on those that focus on food, sustainability and culture change. I am also an experienced public speaker.
My unique professional experience means I bring a variety of skills to any work I do, including effective and persuasive communication and writing skills, an holistic perspective on sustainability and change, and both intuitive and analytical ability. I am well known in my field and comfortable working in most fora.
Recent projects/consultancies include work with: Stella McCartney ‘Care’ range, Paul McCartney’s Meat Free Monday, Friends of the Earth, Compassion in World Farming, Soil Association, Neal’s Yard Remedies.
Recent public speaking engagements: UK Aware, Oxford University PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) Society, Durham Union Society (Durham University), Bristol Festival of Nature, World Preservation Foundation, Women’s Institute.
I'm a highly experienced journalist and award winning campaigner specialising in environment and alternative health. I'm also the author of several books for adults and children and a qualified psychotherapist.
