Ed Kyrke-Smith | From city supermarkets to permaculture produce

Let me paint a picture of our guest today. Ed Kyrke-Smith established Rebel Farmer as a rebellion against the conventional practices of food consumption. His platform promotes and produces local seasonal food, grown ethically on a smaller scale, while also educating communities on sustainable growing techniques.

With a focus on fostering smaller, more localised consumer-producer relationships, Ed's mission is to reduce the negative environmental impact of farming and create a more resilient food system.

Eight years after nurturing his first tomato plant, and with seven years of dedicated development from his site in Kent, Ed now stands as a leading voice in sustainable growing, ethical agriculture, and principles of NO-DIG and permaculture.

Ed’s dedication to ethical farming and community engagement is truly inspiring. I can't wait to delve deeper into your journey and the impact you're making in the world of food production.

Chapters
00:00
Introduction and Background

02:31
Moving to Kent and Starting a Homestead

08:04
Discovering Permaculture and Sustainable Living

09:56
Transitioning to a Sustainable Lifestyle

14:19
Finding a Home in Kent

19:22
Incorporating Nature into Family Life

20:45
The Journey of Sustainable Farming

22:09
Economics and Self-Sufficiency

23:16
The Impact of Cheap Supermarket Produce

24:39
The Problems with Supermarkets

26:01
The Hunger Gap and Seasonal Foods

29:37
The Future of Food and Relocalization

35:20
Kent Food Hubs and the Kent School of Food

38:44
Creating a Perennial Forest Garden

47:18
Wilder Work and Rewilding the Senses

50:01
The Future of Food and Educating the Next Generation

51:13
Observation and Finding Inspiration in Nature

52:01
Volunteering at Rebel Farmer HQ

Instagram - @rebelfarmered
Website - https://www.rebelfarmer.co.uk/  

You can find this episode on iTunes, Spotify and many other podcast platform

If you have any questions or would like to suggest a guest please get in touch! You can email India via indiapearsonclarke@gmail.com or send a message via Instagram @india_outdoors / @finandflow / www.indiapearson.co.uk

~Music - Caleb Howard Almond / @oakandalmondcarpentry

Transcript

India (00:02.996)
And if at any point you're...

said there then that's fine because I can go back and...

Ed Kyrke-Smith (00:13.088)
I should definitely turn my phone off, that's a good thing.

India (00:16.5)
Exactly if things like that happen it's fine because I edit it you know so if it's ever important you're like no don't like what I just said then and just let me know and I can edit it all so there's no panic there.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (00:26.944)
Yeah, that sounds good. I'm just going to text this lady back.

India (00:34.396)
Yeah, yeah, no worries.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (00:36.352)
because I do need to speak to her.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (00:47.456)
Lovely. All right, we are muted. That should be fine. Great. Yeah.

India (00:52.08)
Cool, okay great stuff. Awesome, cool. Okey dokey. So let's get started. Right, so hello Ed and welcome to Start A Rip podcast. Thanks so much for joining me today and I think we were just saying earlier, give me your Friday morning in the sun where we have not had much sun the last, last month.

So I won't take up too much of your time.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (01:20.86)
No, it's lovely to be here with you India. It's been a while since we've had a chat and yeah, I'm more than happy to give over an hour of my morning to come and have a chat with you.

India (01:33.62)
Oh, thank you. We actually we first met, it was probably was coming up to a year, isn't it really? And a year ago when we did the folks in sustainable futures forum, which was essentially it was a bit like a course, wasn't it? On it was gathering people who had ideas to help the local environment and.

giving us all a course on how to speak about our ideas and then being able to deliver that speech to the community and then pitch for funding for our ideas. So it was quite an amazing opportunity really. And yeah, obviously, we'll come on to talk about kind of what your ideas were with that and where you've come on from that. But...

Yeah, if you could just start by giving us a little bit of a background to you. So I always like to start my persoids by asking, where did your ripples begin? Essentially, it's just giving listeners an idea of where you started to where you are now to give us all a bit of context, because I know, but they won't.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (02:31.506)
you

Ed Kyrke-Smith (02:47.552)
That's right. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I am originally from London. I, I, I was sort of trained as a tree surgeon and about eight years ago, I decided that I wanted to move my young family down to Kent to start a more sustainable was the word at the time life. Um, and, um, since then it's been a very progressive sort of journey into learning how to grow food year round and, um, on a small like homestead.

type of scale. And it's been a very progressive journey. So I've very much been learning on the go and developing a whole community around this idea of localized food systems. And now seems to be, I think the word is now regenerative and very much sort of looking to be part of a movement here in this region, this bio region, shall we say, of South East England, the Chalkdowns landscape. And

much trying to get the message across about the importance of local and seasonal food. But yeah, my background in London really, you know, I was very lost there for quite some time, I think, in the big city. I wasn't sure what I was doing throughout my 20s and then sort of stumbled on tree surgery. And I did fall in love with the trees. And I think that was actually part of this journey and very much the start of this journey was having that

that outside time and getting to know the sort of cyclical nature of life and getting to know the names of the plants, getting to climb these amazing trees and all that sort of thing. But yeah, it was, yeah, we can talk about more about the progression, but that's the sort of basic background. My boy is now 12, Freddie is now 12, so he was like three and a half when we moved to Kent.

India (04:33.268)
Yeah, I think...

India (04:40.862)
Wow. And I think, I guess that, you know, that connection with trees must have been quite pinnacle. Cause I know that something that I think was a couple of years ago, it was sort of what I was doing a little bit of research for a yoga class I was teaching and it was coming into winter and I stumbled across this piece of writing, I can't remember where it was. And it was talking about, you know, how we need to look at nature and...

Ed Kyrke-Smith (04:44.338)
you

India (05:09.492)
specifically look at trees and what they're doing as we come into winter and they're shedding their leaves and they're kind of using winter to rest and restore their energy so that they've got that energy to blossom in the spring and thrive in the summer and that was quite a moment for me to think actually it's you know this is what we talk about this cyclical nature but we need to do as human beings more is look at

Ed Kyrke-Smith (05:30.72)
you

India (05:39.156)
rhythm of nature and what it's doing and see if we can reflect that in our lives. And I was curious to know, you just mentioned there that, you know, it was your sort of connection, first connection from living in London to want to maybe live a little bit more of an outdoorsy lifestyle. How has that impacted what you've gone on to do?

Ed Kyrke-Smith (06:06.048)
Yeah, well, it was soon after my son was born, Freddie, in 2011, that I really, I sort of got thrust into a new world. My wife was earning the keeps, really, and I was a dad, you know, and I did a lot of that early time with a baby. And in that time, I spent a lot of time, like, you know, really sort of...

on my life so far and understanding who I was and what I really loved and you know spending a lot of time pushing a pushchair around parks really and stuff like that and I had a bit more time you know during nap out napping hours that you know I sort of I stumbled across this thing called permaculture and I was I suppose you know at the time when when social media was quite just suddenly in our hands and you know with the mobile phones and stuff

we had a lot of that sort of doom scrolling and we were just, you know, like continuously looking through all this doom and gloom it felt like on Facebook at the time really. And I, you know, I was losing hope a little bit. It was like, oh my gosh, yeah, I've got this brand new baby boy and it feels like the year world's ending. And then I sort of stumbled across this one thing on there called permaculture and permaculture really sort of set me on this course of changing the way I live.

ethical design systems that it sets out and it was it was more work with with with trees that sort of really brought me around to this idea that I could be part of that because I used to I used to basically have at the end of every working day I'd have like this big truck full of tree waste it was called waste you know but what I realized with permaculture is that that was a resource and that actually if you treat it correctly you could turn that

that resource into firewood, but you could also take the sort of greener stuff and you could make compost out of it. And that totally fascinated me. And I was like, oh my goodness, I could actually take this waste and I could turn it into a resource if I had a bit more space. And so I really started studying this idea of permaculture and that sort of really led me on to learning a lot more about food.

India (08:22.676)
And so I'm going to start stopping this on the end of the show. And I'm actually really hoping that this will be a good one. I'm not going to do that. Excuse me. I'm aware of the player. I'm aware of the player.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (08:33.892)
Excuse me and where our food comes from and having been brought up in the supermarket It was actually it was it was that sort of it was that thing that really drove me as well It was it was this idea that this you know the supermarket was just so wrong I realized that I think you might remember India from our from my speech It was it was like a it was like a real sort of pinnacle moment for me I I think I was in the middle of probably some depression really and I

I was in the supermarket with my boy in the trolley and I had this sort of revelation that I really couldn't do this anymore. I didn't want to buy this food from unknown origins covered in plastic and chemicals. I didn't want my boys to be sat in this metal trolley sucking on an Ellie's organic pouch, as I sort of put it, those plastic pouches you give your kids.

Um, and I was just like, this is just, yeah, this is wrong. And, and, and that was a moment really there in the supermarket. I decided I've got, I've got to leave London. I've got to leave London. I can, I can go and do tree surgery out somewhere else and, and I can make the most out of this waste and we can sort of have, we can have this nice idealistic life, uh, somewhere else. Uh, I've done my London thing. Let's go and do something new. Yeah.

India (09:56.436)
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I know that I often have that feeling myself. I think when you have a young child, it puts everything into a different kind of perspective, doesn't it? And it starts making you see the world a little bit differently. And it is difficult when you've got young kids because convenience can be key. And as much as you want to be able to kind of give them the best and the most natural organic.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (10:12.144)
you

India (10:24.34)
Sometimes you just haven't got the head space for it. So how did you find that sort of transition going? All right, I'm an exhausted dad here. I'm going through a lot myself, but I know what's best for my child. How am I going to prioritize that?

Ed Kyrke-Smith (10:44.928)
Yeah, it was really, it was just sort of, I don't know, a bit of a leap of faith really and sort of going, knowing that my physical strength's a little bit, I was like as a tree surgeon, I was like, I can start a farm, I can grow food, I was very idealistic and I had no idea really what I was doing, but I was like, I can do this and it was just that sort of real...

India (11:13.04)
Thank you.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (11:13.824)
that moment where you're like, you know, I'm young enough to do this now, but in a few years, I probably won't be, you know, and I've, I've just got to do it. And, um,

India (11:22.484)
it's sort of that element of naivety that you're almost grateful you that you had because maybe if you'd known what you'd known now you I don't I don't know sometimes naivety can be like our biggest blessing can't it because it makes us do do the unknown.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (11:26.45)
Yeah.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (11:37.088)
That's right. Yeah. I mean, I think it was, it was, yeah, I just had this drive. I think I've always really loved nature. I really grew up like, um, really embracing what David Attenborough said and, uh, on the telly. I was, I was brought up by the telly, if I'm honest, you know, uh, I had two younger brothers. We used to sit around and watch TV all day long. And, um, uh, and we would, we would, you know, my most favorite thing was David Attenborough and I had a

to go with it and he was just really you know he was really key in that sort of early stages of understanding the absolute beauty of nature and I really just wanted to be a part of that and I used to love when we go on family holidays absolutely used to love leaving London and getting out in nature and just running across the fields or jumping in the sea and being able to see the stars and all of those sort of things were like

India (12:24.02)
you

Ed Kyrke-Smith (12:34.656)
there was just so alien in London. Like, you know, I was brought up in inner suburbs, like Southeast London and Camberwell, and we just didn't have any of that really. It's quite green in Southeast London. We had a few nice parks, but it was just, you know, I really wanted a bit of a greener future for my son as well. I was sort of understanding that, you know, these ideas of sustainability, I was like starting to get to grips with that and understanding that that's an almost impossible task in London.

And if I wanted to live a sustainable life, now a regenerative life, I really needed to be somewhere else and be amongst nature and not just sort of spectate it from afar or go and visit it. I just wanted to be there in it. And yeah, that was really part of this sort of, this real feeling that I want to give that to my child and I'd rather, I really want him to have this future. Again, yeah.

It's just like, you know, it's an idealistic dream, but to be honest, it's all, you know, a lot of it has now materialized through a very lot of hard work, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is eight years of growing now. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. We, we, it's crazy. No, I got, I got here. I got here in, in August, 2015 and we put the polytunnel up our first polytunnel up in, in March, 2016. So that is eight years ago now.

India (13:46.612)
your phone is that right? 8p of growing? yeah so sorry carry on

Ed Kyrke-Smith (14:04.128)
you know.

India (14:04.34)
So where do you live? What did you end up buying? Where did you work out was the best place to go? How did you make that transition from London to Kent? And why was it you decided Kent was the right place to be? And yeah, how much land did you buy? Yeah, give us an itty gritty.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (14:19.83)
Yeah, well, that's it. I mean, my wife working in TV and media very much needed access to London. And, you know, we had that access to London with where we were in Southeast London, but it did take 45 minutes to an hour to get from there to work.

We realised that this train, the fast train to Ashford, takes 38 minutes from Ashford into central London. So we were like, well, you know, why don't we have a look around Ashford? Because if we're like 10, 15 minutes from Ashford, then we'd be able to get my wife into work and I could bring up the child and start sort of designing this future, this dream.

And we, so we had real like, it was Zoopla at the time and we were very much like, you know, like on Zoopla every night looking at all this property. And then we'd go down at weekends and we'd try and have a look at it. But you know, I was looking for some land and my wife was looking for a pretty house and we were just trying to sort of like meet in the middle, you know? And it did take a long time. And it was actually one of the first houses we saw and I did fall in love with it as soon as I saw it.

And we went around a lot of other houses, but we set ourselves on the willows here and it's a three acre homestead. We're at the top of a hill in the Kent Downs National Landscape, as it's now known, AONB. The aspect of the house is absolutely spectacular and it looks, it was a small rundown cottage at the time running on oil.

and had been sort of pieced together a bit DIY style since sort of the mid 80s. But it was in such a beautiful location and it was the sort of right amount of land. It was on three acres, it had a few barns and a couple of old stables. And yeah, it had just been grazed. So when we first went up there, it just had like this field with 10 sheep on it.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (16:40.736)
down across to the south as it sort of...

to the south and my permaculture thinking were coming in I was like oh yeah that's brilliant because it's gonna sort of like if it's leaning to the south it's gonna get slightly more sunshine it's gonna drain off quite easily and also sort of a bit like thinking doom doom and gloom I thought oh we're at the top of the hill so we won't have any problems really with like some major flooding and and it all just sort of came together to sort of like yes this is the one but yeah we had to spend quite a considerable amount of money to make it

habitable. We moved into a shell really and it took about three years before it was really a working house.

India (17:22.644)
Yeah. So how did that, did you, because obviously you were saying that you, um, you felt quite depressed in London and then you had this idea, you made this change, you made this, this big move. Did you find that, that move and despite having, like you say, the work on the house and you know, you were going to have to start from scratch. Did you notice a difference in your mind or?

Did it take it down another sort of another journey of concern and worry and everything because you suddenly had this new responsibility and this new learning? How did the initial move kind of change your mindset?

Ed Kyrke-Smith (18:11.776)
Well, I was very much a hardworking mindset to begin with, which was definitely necessary with this sort of project. And I just set to it. I have to, yeah, my depression was definitely still there and it was lifted by being in Kent and being amongst nature. But actually as the sort of tasks, this sort of endless amount of work started creeping in, it did really like affect me.

severely. You know, take it away. That's right.

India (18:44.18)
And it's hard work to get on with stuff when you've got a young child as well. I am fully aware of that. I've got a two year old and I mean you can't do anything unless they're napping. That you want to get on with yourself.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (18:59.072)
I remember when he stopped napping, having his second nap, I remember how like, oh my God, how am I gonna function? It was great though, he was by my side continuously, really. And it was great to have that early time with him.

It's a lot of responsibility, but he really became like part of the nature that we were working with. You know, he was just in it in amongst it. And, um, and as an only child just became very good at entertaining himself with a stick, you know, and like he absolutely fell in love with sticks and stones and he, he just absolutely sort of loved all those sort of things that were just like straightforward and right in front of him and he could turn them into entertaining things. But yeah, me personally, I was really getting, getting stuck in, um, and, um,

learning as you go, I mean I really hadn't started a seed before I moved down here. It's incredible to think now it's just eight years and now I grow all of my own produce year -round. I've been supplying some of the local, you know, quite a few local restaurants and people with various, you know, lovely sort of heirloom varieties of veg food.

for the last few years and it just sort of yeah, it's incredible incredible journey very progressive journey from that starting those first seeds in that polytunnel in 2016 to now has just Gone off the charts and and you know, and it's it is brilliant to sort of be able to finally Talk to people like yourself and to get a bit of a public stage for it because I can just you know as I did it it became more and more important

as well, not only to me personally, but to the world, you know, in that, in these years that, you know, the world has really, really drastically changed. I felt like, you know, we all really need to be thinking about growing a little bit if we've, you know, in any space that we have and really thinking about community growing food and how we treat the soil, where our food comes from.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (21:12.48)
And all of those things are now in the news. You know, there's farmer strikes and stuff in the news this year. And, you know, I feel like, you know, some of those that I almost had a bit of a premonition about all of this stuff because, you know, that's what drove me to be here. And I feel like I'm a little bit ahead of the game, but also really trying to share my knowledge as much as possible. I'm very much a...

not -for -profit entity. I've been running it as a sole trader for a few years, but it's really about... I don't make anything. It just turns itself over. I put food on the plate. I'm inspiring people. So the inspiration value is there. The value in the actual crops and the food is probably less so there. And that's really interesting. So economics has actually been...

the biggest thing in my mind over the last couple of years now that I've sort of really got to grips with growing food.

India (22:09.652)
Yeah. And how, what kind of percentage are you living at in terms of kind of being self -sufficient now? You how much of the food do you put on your, on your family's table is food that you've grown and, and, you know, other elements of your business.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (22:27.726)
Yes, I mean I'm still, you know, through the winter I'm very much still buying in produce because of the economics really, because you know, veg is worth nothing. So if I'm to put the effort in to be growing veg all the time, I have to grow the cash crops essentially.

that sort of things like turnips and potatoes and onions and and carrots those things that store through the winter the beetroot they're not worth anything so yes I do grow them but you know I can't I can't really afford to grow too many of them in order to be able to like to be actually make the business turn over if you know what I mean

India (23:00.978)
Yeah.

India (23:16.98)
It just made me sort of, it springs to mind at Christmas. I remember walking into Tesco's at Christmas and seeing, what was it? It was like, was it like 10p veg everywhere? That was what they were promoting. It was something like that. It was like ridiculous. All of their like bags of carrots was, it was, I think it was like, yeah, it was something like, it was ridiculous. And I remember coming in and going, oh my goodness, like as tempting as it is, I physically cannot buy this.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (23:35.264)
6p I think or something.

India (23:47.124)
because it just, there's got to be something wrong. And I remember coming back and talking to my husband about it, having a bit of a rant, and I was like, I don't have enough knowledge to know why that is wrong, but it can't be right, selling it, and from your background and knowledge and everything, are you able to fit in the gaps there for me of why there was something in me that said this isn't right?

Ed Kyrke-Smith (24:10.208)
Well, yeah, I mean, essentially they're beating the farmer to a pulp there, like trying to get the cheapest price for that carrot. They're losing money on every carrot they sell, but what they're doing, they're getting people into the shop. So, you know, the loss that they make on a carrot, they'll gain on that bottle of bubbly that you buy. And it's just, you know, that's the sort of way those work. And I'll be honest with you, they're like, so I do buy produce at the...

India (24:21.94)
but it gets people into the shop. Right.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (24:39.968)
of year but I don't step foot in a supermarket anymore so I have managed to ditch the supermarket. I've written an article about that recently which you can find on my Instagram, my LinkedIn account actually, and I've really... there are ways of doing that because what the supermarkets are doing there is...

India (24:56.66)
They're all right.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (25:02.624)
is basically they're in charge, the government aren't in charge of like how much your food costs or anything, it is totally dictated by the supermarkets in the moment. And it has been for a very long time and the supermarkets are actually really responsible for a lot of the destruction that we've seen in our natural landscape through this act of basically, you know, taking the value.

of the food and and I'm really dictating to farmers like how how they how they grow because they can only grow to that price by cutting as many corners as possible and using lots of chemical inputs and large machinery and this is to a huge detriment to the countryside and it's and it has to be stopped I mean it will stop because you know we go back to this word sustainability

and it is unsustainable. So everyone has to start imagining at some point the supermarkets will not be there and trying to work out how they might live without the supermarket because it's been a little blip in human history us you know basically devaluing food like this but it's completely unsustainable we all rely on food three times a day or whatever.

and it's just impossible for us to continue down this route of mass -produced globalised food networks. It just doesn't work. We need to completely relocalise. We need to really think about seasonal foods, like how do we use seasonal foods? We're approaching what's called the hunger gap in the sort of growing calendar and that's a really interesting time, you know.

India (26:49.14)
you

India (26:56.596)
Oh, is this the yeah, because you know what we noticed it when during COVID we got Kent Veg Boxes delivered and it was all going well. And then it got to this time of year and the box came through and we were paying about 13 pounds a week or something for it. And it was really, there really wasn't much there and it was stuff that, you know, we were thinking there was like some wild garlic in there. We were like, we've got that growing.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (27:20.416)
you

India (27:24.308)
just down the road we could pick that ourselves really easy. It was very sparse. I remember emailing them and they said, is the hunger gap, is that what it's called? Yeah, so where there isn't that much, it's ready to, we haven't got that much seasonal veg here. And actually, I remember at that point we stopped the books. It made us stop getting the books and then we went to the supermarkets. So.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (27:30.828)
Yeah.

India (27:53.198)
Sorry, carry on, didn't mean to interrupt you there, but it just sort of triggered my memory for that. Yeah.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (27:56.628)
Yeah, so the hunger gap is something that can really like make us think a little bit about food differently and I think it's something that I really sort of hold quite dear to me at the moment. I've been trying to fill...

like for the last few years and it's very difficult. You know, because basically the hunger gap is when the stored produce from the year before is starting to run out and the new produce from the... or it's gone mouldy... and the new produce from this year isn't ready yet. So you're sort of in this place where you've just got a few leafy greens. Yeah, it's lovely and sunny out there right now and you think, oh it's sunny, I must have food but...

India (28:28.732)
See you next time.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (28:39.264)
It's not ready yet. It's only just getting started. The soils are just starting to warm up. And we, yeah, you can't really completely rely on eating wild garlic to cover your whole meal. So it's a very interesting time. And they actually sort of, you know, it correlates with quite a lot of religious things as well, like Lent and Ramadan. And, you know, there just isn't any food at this time of year. So we're sort of...

we almost hold back and we, you know, and it's a sort of famine time of year and we're waiting essentially for Easter. Easter's like, yeah, we can press go again and we can actually eat some food and we can sort of celebrate, you know, having really not eaten very much for the last month or two. And it's very interesting. So filling that hunger gap is really essential to the sort of future, like security of our food system, essentially.

because I sort of envision this future where fossil fuels are either too expensive or actually stop coming into the country and at that point possibly the seed stops coming into the country too and we're suddenly going to be in a place where we really really need to rely on what we have around us and we're going to have to you know we're going to have to bring down the size of these farms to a much more manageable scale.

or we're looking at technology that doesn't exist yet. And we really need to think about that. And also the amount of water that we use. But it's like, at this time of year, you can have some food. You've just got to be very clever about how you preserve it. So you get to the end of the sort of, you know, of the end of your stored veg. And at this time of year, it's a very good time to then preserve what's left, turn it into pickles and...

and turn it into ferments because that's just gonna get you over this hunger gap. So it's a very interesting time of year to sort of like, for instance, I've still got some squash stored in my larder from last year. They've stored really well, but they're not gonna last too much longer and they are starting to lose their vibrancy, their nutritional value. But you can do things like candy then, or you can...

Ed Kyrke-Smith (31:04.32)
you've got a freezer you can freeze them obviously as well but yeah it's all about this like this this time of year and people should really understand that that's so so important like so that's why we

India (31:16.816)
Mm. Mm.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (31:20.)
it stores really well it will store for a couple of years.

India (31:28.084)
Have you noticed a difference in your...

guess, you know, your mental health, but also your physical health, eating seasonally, eating, you know, locally, you know, trying, cutting all the chemicals out of what you're eating over the last eight years compared to where you're in London, when you were in London, what

Ed Kyrke-Smith (31:57.344)
an interesting one that because yes I feel like a completely different person mentally and physically.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (32:11.168)
all that much either.

few years. I think it's like, if you give your body the chance to regenerate properly using real food, should we say, then you can really thrive. And this has been part of the economics of continuing this work, because in order to make it easier, I've had to sort of make sure that I'm really healthy, I'm really well rested, that I don't burn out or lose my mental clarity.

So it becomes like a reciprocal type thing that continues to.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (32:54.898)
of a couple of bad years there, I lost my mother to cancer and that actually, you know, was a very stressful time for me and actually I think around that time I basically got an autoimmune dysfunction due to my stress and so actually I have some real intolerances with my...

interesting. I got psoriasis and I've had to be very, very careful about what I eat. I'm actually pretty much intolerant to wheat and to nightshades, to potatoes, to tomatoes. And yeah, I have to be really careful about what I eat now. But that's actually sent me on an even more healthier sort of trip, I suppose, a lifetime now. I've really reduced sugar. I don't really do caffeine or alcohol anymore.

And I think it's just like, yeah, as you get into this food realm that I'm now in, this real food realm, you just become that food. It becomes you. You are what you eat. And I really have been feeling some clarity, especially over the last year or so, mentally, to be able to sort of cope with...

With the stress that's caused with trying to sort of grow food year round and trying to do the very ambitious things I'm trying to do, really sort of try and change the food system locally and engage in activism. Yeah, I'm doing some really amazing things are coming up and I really want to be prepared to be able to sort of cope with them, these big, big new projects.

India (34:33.268)
Yeah, you've got some really exciting stuff coming up because obviously you're saying about growing food local, I mean, supplying food locally. I know you're really, really involved with the Kent Food Hub project and that's about getting local food to people in a, I guess, in a quite convenient, local people in quite a convenient way to how we're used to. Yeah, you know, you're not just...

sitting there just enjoying it for yourself, you're very much going out and making sure that others are going to benefit from it too. So I'd like you to dive into all these new and exciting projects that you've got coming up and also why you feel so passionate about, I guess, spreading your learnings with our local community.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (35:20.084)
Yeah, so, yeah, you mentioned the Kent food hubs, you know, that was, that was a sort of start of my working quite directly with the community to try and try and find a better system than the supermarket. And that really is like, it's like an online platform that brings together lots of local startup companies and small

small producers, artisan producers and puts them onto this lovely online platform. We're just moving to a new platform called Ooby out of our backyard, but they were currently on the Open Food Network. And that's just, that's really like, it's a lovely sort of colorful platform, this new platform where you can sort of subscribe to local produce and have it, you can either pick it up locally at drop off points or have it delivered to your door.

So the Kent Food Hubs has just partnered up with the Produced in Kent. So now industry partners with them and that has allowed us to basically for Becky, who's been working tirelessly almost as a volunteer for the last few years to actually get a decent wage. Well, you know, to get some some wage from actually running Kent Food Hubs and spreading it across the East Kent region. We've been

basically based in Folkestone for the last four years since it began. But it's really exciting times. We're looking at getting well through the sustainable futures forum that we did together. We got some funding from Folkestone and Hive District Council for an electric vehicle at the beginning of the year. And that's really sort of helped us cut down on the amount of carbon that's emitted with our process of picking up produce. So Kent Food Hubs actually comes to me, picks up my produce, takes it to the hub.

You know, it provides a sales platform. It provides marketing and distribution. Um, I don't have, like as a producer, I don't have to invoice or anything like, you know, with all my other clients, I have to invoice and then I have to chase money. I have to distribute myself and that's, that's basically impossible for small producers as it has been beating me into the ground. So the Kent food hubs is a, is a really good system that can, can help with this sort of small farm future, should we call it like where you have lots of local small farms providing the produce.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (37:45.248)
and like you have these localized hubs and pick up points to provide the consumer with, you know, some ethical local produce essentially. So that's really, really exciting to see that sort of develop. And I've been, you know, I didn't actually take directorship, but I pretty much been there as a director since day one. But it's been brilliant and a real journey of learning with the Kent food hubs. And then we've got to this point where...

really tried and failed a few times with a few ideas and we're really in a place where we know how to do this. So yeah really exciting times but this also links up with a brand new project I'm really excited about and it's very good timing India because the website just went live yesterday but theyardkent .com you can go and have a little look is the

of the brand new CIC called the Kent School of Food and we're currently working as a board of us working together really amazing leaders working together to try and put together a funding bid to go forward to the National Lottery Heritage Grant and build a real location like destination pub right in the middle of the East Kent Downs.

And this will be working directly with the primary school that is next door to this pub. So there's a sort of derelict pub, which needs a lot of work and a primary school. And the pub is basically going to turn into this destination pub, but with this teaching kitchen on the side of it and a kitchen garden that works directly with the primary school next door, but also invites primary, secondary, tertiary educational facilitators to come and...

come and learn how to grow food, cook food, and basically be a real hub for this whole new relocalised system here in East Kent. So it's extremely exciting. And as part of that, I'm starting a brand new four acre market garden up there, and currently putting together a curriculum essentially for a traineeship. So we'll be...

Ed Kyrke-Smith (40:11.808)
will be training people like post -graduates or school leavers, as well as all the pupils from the local schools on how to grow and be part of this growing process and how, you know, taking the lessons that I've learned in sort of no -dig regenerative agriculture and trying to sort of really create a regional platform for that. So I just, I'm over the moon really.

India (40:36.02)
Super excited. Yeah, and it's what we need to be learning, you know It's all well and good learning about Pythagoras theorem and all of that at school, but You know the real stuff in life like where your food comes from how to grow it yourself You know if we haven't got our environment and we haven't got our health and we have nothing there was no point in having like a

Ed Kyrke-Smith (40:42.11)
Yeah.

India (41:03.444)
you and all that. So I'm so excited for you to hear that this is going to our education systems. I know, I wish I'd known about that from a young age because you just start putting ideas in these young people's heads and it must be amazing for you as well to think, I didn't know any of this eight years ago and now I'm sharing it with the next generation.

Yeah, how are you going to, who's to know how you're going to maintain your farm and everything? Cause it's, you know, it's, it's a 24 seven job that is whilst also, you know, getting this curriculum up and running and teaching me these kids. Have you, have you got to point me to your own farm where you're now employing people to work on it or, or are you just going to be...

just in the thick of it.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (42:02.3)
Yeah so it's a really interesting one there. So my farm now has been, I've been developing the soil should we say, engineering the soil or bringing life to the soil here for the last eight years. It's the permanent no dig beds that I've created outside, been sort of mulched using local waste materials and my own compost there for the last eight years. So they are super rich, they're really abundant.

But as we sort of talked about the economics, it's very, very hard to make it sort of work on this sort of scale without any real, like, I suppose, like, I need a company around it in order to sort of move forward. So what I'm doing here is really, I'm just, I'm starting again. I'm like, I'm gonna take all the things that I've learned and help others learn.

and help design this brand new market garden. And like I say, sort of run it with traineeships, but what I'll be doing here is I'll be looking very much at perennials. So as we sort of develop and, you know, I'm keeping my options open a little bit because I've got, you know, we haven't got funding yet. Things could go either way, but I'll go onto that quickly in a minute.

But there's a few other options. But really what I'm hoping to do is to put most of this market garden that I have here into a perennial forest garden. So that means that you don't start seeds every year. That means that you set up a design that is full of perennial veg. A classic example of a perennial veg is an apple tree, but...

you know, imagine an understory of rhubarb and artichoke. Imagine a sort of ground layer of strawberries and imagine raspberries sort of growing wild in there and imagine sort of different stories of perennial veg essentially supplying what would be like almost like a garden you can go in and just forage from. You just go in.

India (44:07.86)
and just so...

India (44:19.668)
So perennial is when it comes back every year without you having to really do anything. Yeah? Yeah.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (44:23.68)
That's right. So some people, some people would, you know, wouldn't say that some things are perennial, but things, things that come back and can reseed themselves each year and quite happily come back on their own accord, for me is, is a perennial. So there are some annual plants in this perennial system, essentially, things that only live a year, but they spread their seed and they continue each year.

Martin Crawford is the sort of godfather of forest gardening and has been developing an amazing forest garden for 30 years. I have the book and there's various other examples in the UK to work from and there's a very talented permaculture teacher called Jo Barker here in East Kent who teaches about future food forests as she calls them and yeah we're gonna I'm hoping to basically develop what would be a

like a course here, so we get a small cohort of students, maybe five or ten, to come and do a forest gardening design certificate here, and then we implement that design so that I can move on to this new market garden essentially. And then what it means is that this super rich soil here will just look after itself now, and I can let go of it, and it can provide loads of biodiversity, and it can provide loads of

perennial food without any input, no input whatsoever. You just take output, like you literally just take a little bit off the top, a little abundance off the top, and the rest of it is just there as an example.

India (46:07.54)
And that's ideal for, you know, we all live such busy, wild lives nowadays and as much as we try and all slow down, it's easier said than done. And I know I've got a little veggie patch in my garden. And...

I'm thinking, oh my goodness, we've got to get out and sort it out soon, so we have veg for the summer. But what I love is that my rhubarb comes back every year, and I don't have to do anything, and it's just there, and it comes back better every year. You know, I think actually in this busy world that we live, that kind of perennial growing is perfect, isn't it? Because we're able to access local seasonal fruit and veg.

that we don't have to spend hours doing. And like you say, it just looks after itself. And that is definitely, I guess it's looking at the pace of the world that we're living in and how we can fit in this sustainable way of producing food into that.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (47:18.624)
So I really want to create an example for another thing that I'm working with which is a company called Wilder Work. So to try and help finance some of these ideas and to possibly invite investment, Wilder Work is bringing in corporate away days, entrepreneurs, to sort of rewild their senses, to sort of reground and to

to experience and understand the dynamics of the soil and how food is grown, where it comes from. So we're sort of creating these real bespoke like wild adventures, but yeah, I'm trying to sort of create this adventure here where you come and that's not just for the corporates, but you know, for everyone really.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (48:10.868)
enjoy this sort of perennial idea because you don't see these perennials or much many of these perennials in the shops. I can reel off a list of stuff that you will have never heard of and you'll never see in the in the farm shop or the supermarket that you can grow quite happily here without any inputs and it can take care of itself and those are the things that we're going to have to work with in the future.

and what we've worked with in the past. I mean, if you look at indigenous communities around the world, they have a real amazing relationship with perennial foods in forest environments, and that's how they've sustained themselves for millennia. And it's really, you know, when it comes to sustainability and regenerative practice, it's all around the perennials for me. And I think we need to really, you know,

As I'm going and doing this market garden, what we can do with that market garden is essentially we're building the soil health up over a few years and we will, after a few years, start putting perennials in there and then we'll move on to another space because that's the way we should set things up, I think. It's not like just putting trees into a field, that doesn't really work. You really need to sort of work, you need to really get involved.

we as human beings, as human keystone species, we need to really get in there and understand the environment and help build it from the ground up with a sort of regenerative permaculture type design, reevaluate and redesign continuously for a number of years. But once you've got that established, it can look after itself. And I really think that that's the future of food.

India (50:01.396)
Yeah, so excited for you. And I think this is a really great way, great place to round up the podcast actually, you know, this is, this is the future of food and, and how, and like you say, we're going to have to adapt and amazing that you are.

you know, educating the next generation because that is where that is where it's going to happen, isn't it? So I always like to round up this podcast with the same question to my guests, which is looking back at the ripples you made in your life. What are the biggest learnings from the great outdoors that you have found for keeping your mind and body healthy?

Ed Kyrke-Smith (50:37.504)
you

Ed Kyrke-Smith (50:42.782)
I think really it's just looking up once in a while and an understanding looking down. I think it's just observation really. Observation is really the key. If you stop and you look around you will find like a sort of infinite beauty in nature all around you in a blade of grass, in the leaf of a tree, in the mycelium in the soil. It's just you just have to stop and look.

and you'll get everything you need from that.

India (51:13.012)
and be totally inspired and I think that's perfect. Well thanks so much Ed for chatting with me today and I'll make sure I put all of that new website you're talking about and everything in the show notes so that anybody who's interested in finding out more can click and do just that. So yeah.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (51:31.36)
Yeah, can I just finish? But I mean, if people want to come and learn a bit more, especially this year, I'm very much open to volunteers here at Rebel Farmer HQ, the Willows, and people can find me on Instagram and the websites that you'll put in the notes. And I just, yeah, do invite people to come along. It's not hard work. It's more of a social type thing where we're really sort of discussing how we change the food system while just doing some nice.

nice workout on the plot. It's a lovely time. We've got some lovely volunteers. If you'd like to join in, if you're local enough to join in. Yeah, it's nine till three on a Tuesday at the moment.

India (52:12.084)
Oh great, I'm just thinking my stepdad is recently retired and is looking for some time to be spent outdoors so I might point him in your direction. Thanks Ed, thank you. Woohoo, well done! Right, I'm going to stop that recording.

Ed Kyrke-Smith (52:23.456)
Thanks so much.