After a very long, wet winter, it’s great to be looking forward to spring. Winter was tough for many of our farmers and growers, so let’s hope better times lie ahead.

Our cover feature, Alternative Routes to Market was written by Katrin Hochberg and it explores ways of getting more organic produce to markets that reflect its benefits and cost, and makes it more affordable and accessible to local communities (page 22).

The Routes to Market theme continues through the other feature articles. John Turner and Charlotte Bickler look at population crops and the issues around getting them to market (page 20), while Megan Perry of the Sustainable Food Trust discusses the role of small abattoirs in local meat supply chains (page 36). Louise Ramsey reports on the success of East Ayrshire Council in getting organic and sustainable food into school meals and how this is boosting local businesses (page 33).

On the technical side, Katy Jo Stanton looks at soil health and some of the latest innovations that can help famers get a better understanding of their soils (page 40), while cow-calf

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The Soil Association Farming and Land Use Team contact dairy systems are the focus of the livestock technical (page 42), looking at some of the considerations that should be made before adopting such systems. Jerry Alford takes an in-depth look at the SFI options for organic arable (page 46) and Barbara Smith and Alfred Gathorne-Hardy investigate the role of polycultures in supporting more biodiversity and ask growers to get involved with their research (page 44).

You may have seen the Soil Association on news programmes talking about our new campaign, Stop Killing Our Rivers, which you can read about on page 6. Elsewhere, we have updates on the Organic Market Report ( p ag e 12), BIOFACH (page 16) and the latest field labs from Innovative Farmers (page 29).

This edition of Organic Farming magazine has been overseen by Katrin Hochberg and the Farming and Land Use Team at the Soil Association and a new editor will be taking charge of the autumn edition.

If you have any feedback on the magazine or topics you would like to see covered in future, please get in touch. We would love to hear from you.

The Farming and Land Use Team

ORGANIC FARMING MAGAZINE ISSN 1464–1224 ©Soil Association 2024 Registered charit y no. 206862 (England and Wales) Registered charity no. SC039168 (Scotland) Price £6.95 Published three times a year by the Soil Association Spear House, 51 Vic toria Rd, Bristol BS1 6AD 0117 314 5000 producer.support@soilassociation.org www.soilassociation.org Editorial queries: producer.support@ soilassociation.org Designer: Sue Gent sue.gent@gmail.com Advertising: Michael York EMSM Ethical Media Sales and Marketing michael@emsm.org.uk 01865 403339 or 07780 874279 Printed by Wells Printing in Bath Subscriptions: Membership department:

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