CPD roundup: February 2024
Welcome to February’s CPD round-up! This is where I share a quick summary of the continuing profession development (CPD) I’ve completed during the month.
The Institute of Translation and Interpreting recommends that all members, including Qualified Members (MITIs) like me, do at least 30 hours of CPD per year. I normally end up doing rather more than that, and I normally only include subject-knowledge CPD (and sometimes some translation skills CPD) in this public summary. You can find out about the other types of CPD that the ITI recommends here and my previous summaries here.
Subject knowledge
Writtle Farmers Club Conference
I’ve spent quite a lot of time at Writtle Agricultural College this month (or ARU Writtle as it’s now known), particularly at the Writtle Farmers Club Conference. It’s always interesting going along to these sorts of events, partly because I come away with lots of ideas for my allotment, but mostly because it seems like you can’t organise any sort of farming event these days without regenerative and more environmentally friendly agriculture being a key topic of discussion - a very welcome development! This conference was no different, as the list of talks makes clear:
The state of UK civil food resilience
Farming and the environment - an ecosystems-based approach
Regenerative agriculture - principles and practices at Writtle
Local food - is it viable?
Wildfarmed
Panel discussion on young people and the future of farming
Communication, led by the organisers and hosts of Groundswell
Why we need animals
As I normally do with these whole-day events, I won’t go into each session individually, but here are some key takeaways:
The UK is shockingly unprepared for any shocks to our food system, like wars, and food does not feature anywhere in the government’s resilience framework.
There needs to be greater efforts to create a connection between land use, farming and people, with a new network of local resilience forums to prepare us for any disruption to one of our most vital supplies.
Resilience needs to be both top-down and bottom-up - we’ve had plenty of top-down, but not much bottom-up
The principles/pieces of regenerative agriculture are: farm-specific, restorative, holistic, systemic, promoting of food culture, supportive of food sovereignty and mindset.
There’s no reason we can’t have more local food, but there needs to be an evolution in trust to move towards more distributed systems rather than institutional (i.e. supermarkets).
The idea that farming is facing a choice of nature or food is a false dichotomy that we need to ditch.
There aren’t really many secrets in farming - there is huge potential in sharing knowledge and breaking down the idea that farmers are competitors to each other. A lot of our ideas of natural competition come from a Victorian obsession - collaboration is the real answer.
There is so much potential for ‘enterprise stacking’ (more on this in the upcoming review of The Solutionists).
Farmers need to realise that they farm “by consent”, and that consent will be withdrawn if the system breaks down.
Pride and enjoyment are essential to surviving and thriving in agriculture, not just profitability - you have to be proud of the thing that you sell.
Rare breeds and traditional varieties are much hardier and better adapted to the UK environment than more “productive” varieties, and they are ultimately more productive for farmers because they need less care and intervention.
Mark Gregory - A Life in Landscape
This was my second trip to Writtle College this month, this time as part of their Horticulture Lecture Series, organised in cooperation with The Worshipful Company of Gardeners. I don’t know what the collective noun for a group of gardeners is, but ‘worshipful company’ is as strong a choice as any. I probably shouldn’t admit this in public, but I’m not a huge fan of the Chelsea Flower Show, or at least of attending it in person. I like to watch it on the telly where you can actually see the gardens from inside - something that you can’t normally do as an average member of the public. Mark Gregory on the other hand has seen the Chelsea Flower Show from every conceivable angle, including from inside many award-winning gardens, which he designed and built. It was an interesting evening, and I, of course, found all the details about how the show, and Mark in particular, is working to make the whole thing more sustainable.
RSK First Thursday Club - Time and a plaice: Fish rescues, a brief overview of what you might need to consider and when
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRPvW-DNPEY&list=PLnitr_yxGf0yyOuQwL1ZRNARiKGWt3XWI&index=1
I do love a pun name, and this was a really interesting session on something I had never thought about - actively moving fish out of a body of water, whether temporarily or permanently. It also highlighted for me how little public attention goes to preserving fish biodiversity for its own sake rather than as a source of food, especially when looking at fish in rivers, rather than ‘big name’ marine life. (It also made me feel very ignorant about how bad I am at identifying types of fish.) There are interesting connections here between the tips and guidance on planning to move fish (electricity is sometimes involved to stun them, which surprises me) and some other reading I’ve been doing on the Essex Fish Migration Roadmap, following at talk held by the Chelmsford group of the Essex Wildlife Trust.