Comment – Something going on
A few eyebrows have already been raised about the almost ‘colocation’ of the Cereals Event to Groundswell, the regen agriculture festival, a mere 9 minutes drive and 2 weeks apart in June next year.
As if that wasn’t frustrating enough from a participants point of view, now, Direct Driller@Cereals has emerged as a partner event alongside Cereals (and not a “me too” regen event).
Given the distances involved and the cost of driving my flock of geese down to both events now, as an upland regen peasant, do I a) attend both, grazing my geese on the side of the A505 and slowly wend my way south west twixt both events, b) choose one or t’other (bearing in mind the quality of the mead at Groundswell last year), or c) say sod it and do it all via the medium of X (formerly known as twitter).
I know I am being flippant with the above comments, but there is a serious point here, it cost big money to take part in any event or working demo, and its clear that event organisers want a ‘slice of the action’. This has the potential to divide an already polarised audience (can anyone clearly define regen ag for me, my Dad calls it mixed farming?) and force potential exhibitors to choose on the basis of previous success and budget.
One wonders whether potential exhibitors were consulted in this move or is it just a ‘land grab’? My limited experience is that events have to deliver distinct benefits for all parties (visitors, exhibitors and organisers) to have a shelf life. That and the magic word ‘ trust’. Who do you trust to deliver the goods?
That aside with a mere 85mm in the rain gauge this week in the Peoples Republic of Killington we won’t be worrying about harvest too much.
Here’s to a drier few days so we can all get on.
Enjoy your week.
Andy
Note – If you can’t sleep fretting about ‘what is regen ag’ you could do worse than read this article on current regen research.