NATURE’S champions
‘We all need to work together to protect the natural world’
Helen Browning, 59, is chief executive of the Soil Association (soilassociation.org), the charity that looks after the way we eat, farm and care for the natural world. She lives on an organic farm in Wiltshire with her partner, Tim, and George, a retired greyhound.
Growing up on my dad’s farm, I’d build dens out of straw bales in the fields at harvest, and walk for miles with my dogs. I forged a deep connection to the countryside, which I knew few people were lucky enough to experience. Dad farmed dairy cows and beef, sheep and arable crops but, back then, farming was all about intensive production, with new sprays and chemicals introduced without question.
During the 1970s and 1980s I saw the farm change with the introduction of ever-bigger machinery. Hedgerows, and the wildlife that depended on them, started to disappear, and I feared farming was heading down the wrong track. I felt there had to be a different
