SMB College Group is celebrating Leicestershire winning the Silver Sustainable Food Places Award, and is proud to play a significant role in providing healthy and sustainable food production education through its Agriculture, Countryside Management, Horticulture and Land-based Engineering programmes.
The Sustainable Food Places Award is designed to recognise and celebrate the success of places taking a co-operative, holistic approach to food, highlighting cases in which areas have achieved significant positive change on a range of key food issues.
Currently, there are a total of 16 Silver awards in the UK, with one of which now sitting here in the Midlands in Leicestershire!
This award is for the place and the partners involved across every part of the food system, from farming and food processing and the places we buy and eat food; through to food banks, community fridges, kitchens and gardens; and policy makers and health practitioners – the College is proud to play a role in consolidating Leicestershire as a Sustainable Food Place!
Alex Gray, Countryside Management Lecturer at SMB College Group’s Brooksby Campus, said ‘It’s great to see the college farm transitioning towards a more regenerative mindset. Over the past few years, we have been establishing a 20-acre regenerative grazing project which features alleys of adaptively ‘mob grazed’ herbal leys. These rich, and species-diverse pastures are interspersed by avenues of mixed hardwood and fruiting tree species. This field has become the most productive grazing field at the college and a noticeable haven for wildlife.’
Alex, who is also the Projects and Curriculum Quality Lead for Land-based education at the college, added ‘Over the course of the year, I have witnessed first-hand a notable increase in bird, insect and even amphibian life, across what was formerly a relatively sterile arable field. The lessons we have learnt this year, and the growing confidence we now have in this approach, has seen the college sign up to the new Environmental Land Management scheme. With this in place, we plan to expand the percentage of the farm that is managed regeneratively and, in doing so, boost biodiversity and carbon cycling whilst maintaining exceptional animal welfare and productivity.’
SMB College Group has a long history of delivering high-quality land-based education, with the Brooksby Campus having been an Agricultural college since the end of the second world war. Courses on offer include full-time Level 3 programmes and T Levels (both equivalent to studying three A Levels) and a range of apprenticeships, through which students can earn while they learn.
The College continues its commitment to sustainable, healthy and accessible food in Leicestershire, and will help to work towards enabling people to make better food choices to support better health outcomes, to combat food poverty, encouraging a thriving and sustainable food economy, and to reduce environmental impact.
To find out more about the College, browse the wide range of courses on offer, or to make an application, visit the website at https://www.smbcollegegroup.ac.uk/.