Happy Earth Day 🌍
From primary teaching resources (calling all science leads out there!); educational enrichment visits to learn about food and farming via the Beacon Farms network; our geometry offering; consultancy and ongoing research; we’re playing our part in making Nature accessible to all educational settings, for the sake of a more sustainable future 🌍
How are you marking #earthday2026?
Learning from nature 🌳
The natural world forms the basis of our King’s Foundation education programmes across the subject areas we teach, including...
🎨 traditional arts and crafts
👗 sustainable fashion and textiles
🪑 furniture making
🌾 horticulture and sustainable food systems
🔬 STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths)
🏛️ architecture and the built environment
🍽️ hospitality
All inspired by The King’s philosophy of Harmony 💚
Listen to our King's Foundation staff and Richard Dunne, Director of the Harmony Project, speak about our work in the education space.
Browse upcoming workshops, courses and programmes at the link in bio 🔗
📚 What does Harmony mean for education?
For our final post in our #FindingHarmony series, we're taking a look at education and asking, how can we integrate the philosophy of Harmony into our education system?
The SFT has been working alongside The Harmony Project to develop school visits as part of our Beacon Farms Network – last year, we were able to support 10 of our Beacon Farms to deliver 80 school visits for over 1,800 schoolchildren across the country; for many it was their first time on a farm.
We believe that outdoor learning and farm education has a significant role to play in preparing young people to engage with and care about the environmental challenges we're facing, which will inevitably impact their futures.
Scroll through to find out more ➡️
If you'd like to learn more about the philosophy of Harmony, you can watch 'Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision' on Amazon Prime – a new documentary from the @kingsfoundation which explores King Charles III’s lifelong commitment to the environment and Harmony and features contributions from the SFT’s CEO, Patrick Holden.
📖 Further reading and resources:
🎥 Watch King Charles III’s speech at the SFT’s Harmony in Food and Farming conference
/news-views/the-harmony-debates-foreword-by-king-charles-iii/
🧑🏫 Harmony in practice: The Harmony Project’s teaching resources .uk/teaching-resources
🌿 Harmony in education at a time of crisis, by Richard Dunne /news-views/harmony-in-education-at-a-time-of-crisis/
📸: Photos by Jason Taylor.
#FindingHarmony #FarmEducation #OutdoorLearning #BeaconFarms
Last week, the Harmony team and trustees headed to @sheepdrove , an organic farm in Berkshire, for a day of reflection and future planning. Between strategy sessions, milestone celebrations and buzzy breakout groups, we were treated to a tour of the farmland, including a special meet and greet with Sheepdrove’s prized bulls 🐮
2026 has been a busy year so far:
🌱 International developments, with projects in South Africa, Ukraine, Iceland and Zimbabwe to name just a few
🌱 Further developments in the Beacon Farms network and a busy calendar of school bookings taking place across the network throughout spring and summer this year
🌱 Our Learning in Nature Research programme underway in close to 100 schools, supporting Nature-based learning activities in primary schools
🌱 Further science resources available across all year groups, embedding Nature within science learning from Years 1-6
🌱 A new office to act as THPHQ! 💚
Sheepdrove was the perfect venue for our strategy day - and also happens to be one of our Beacon Farms - thanks for hosting us, @sheepdrove ! 🐄 🥦 🐑
#learningfromnature #sustainabilityeducation #teachingresources #naturebasedlearning #foodandfarming
“It’s not either or – it’s not children OR adults – it’s ALL of us.”💯
Speaking at a recent Beacon Farms Network event, Professor Tim Lang shared why reconnecting people – from young to old – with food, farming and nature matters more than ever in an increasingly urban society.
🍓 From small school gardens to urban and rural farms, these spaces give children the chance to plant seeds, grow food, learn where it comes from and build a lifelong connection with the natural world.
They also open up important conversations with families and communities about the future of food and farming.
Creating opportunities for people to experience food growing first-hand is a vital part of building a healthier, more connected food system. 🌱
➡ To find out more about the Beacon Farms Network follow the link in the @susfoodtrust bio.
This event at Dagenham Farm took part as a collaboration between @susfoodtrust , @growingcommunities and @harmonyorguk . Filming was done by @danielcfilms .
A special day today! Happy 100th birthday Sir @davidattenborough 🌱
Your endlessly enthusiastic devotion to our planet and all that inhabits it has opened eyes, hearts and minds to the awe and wonder of the natural world. Thank you for every journey you have shared with us 🌍 💚
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
🛢️“We've built a food system entirely based upon fossil fuels. We have to unroll that.” — Professor Tim Lang.
At our recent event at Dagenham Farm, hosted alongside @GrowingCommunities and @harmonyorguk as part of the Sustainable Food Trust’s UK Beacon Farms Network, Professor Tim Lang spoke about the escalating shocks facing the global food system — and why this moment demands a fundamentally different approach.
With increasing disruption linked to conflict, there is a risk that supply chain crises — like interruptions to artificial fertiliser supplies — are used to reinforce the very systems that created so much vulnerability in the first place. Instead, Tim argues, we need to urgently transition towards lower-input, more ecological and resilient food systems that are less dependent on fossil fuels and better equipped to withstand global shocks.
🌱 Our day at Dagenham brought together educators, policymakers and food leaders, exploring how farms can reconnect people with food, farming and the realities of building a more resilient future.
With a lunch prepared by @hughfearnleywhittingstall using ingredients from the farm, the event highlighted the power of 'seeing is believing' experiences in shaping public understanding of food and farming.
🎥 Watch Tim Lang’s reflections in the clip.
🔗 Learn more about the UK Beacon Farms Network via the link in our bio.
💡What's wrong with the price of food? Patrick Holden, CEO of @susfoodtrust , and @alicebholden of Dagenham Farm discuss how food pricing has become distorted.
💰Currently, food that appears to be ‘cheap’ at the checkout often costs the most when it comes to our health – and the health of our planet. On the other hand, sustainably produced, healthy food can be very expensive at the checkout and unaffordable for many of us.
This is something the @susfoodtrust is exploring through its work on True Cost Accounting. True Cost Accounting seeks to fix this distorted pricing by ensuring that polluters pay for the damage that’s caused, while farmers who are growing healthy food in harmony with nature are properly supported and rewarded for the benefits that they’re delivering – like healthy soils and wildlife habitats.🦇
➡Learn more about how this works in practice via the @susfoodtrust website (link in bio).
🗣This conversation took place at @susfoodtrust ’s recent Beacon Farms event at Dagenham farm, hosted alongside @growingcommunities and @harmonyorguk
✉️ If you’re interested in supporting the development of the Beacon Farms Network or the work at Dagenham Farm, please get in touch with us via [email protected].
🎬 @danielcfilms
🥦 Last week, alongside @growingcommunities and @harmonyorguk , we brought together educators, policymakers and food leaders at Dagenham Farm to demonstrate a simple but largely overlooked solution to improving food education: using working farms as classrooms.
The event, held as part of the @susfoodtrust UK Beacon Farms Network, explored how urban farms can reconnect children with where food comes from – offering practical, sensory experiences that can't be replicated in the classroom or on screens.
🌱 We believe that time spent on farms can be transformative. Currently, around 1 in 3 children are leaving primary school overweight or obese, and many never have the chance to see how their food is grown. Farm visits can help to bridge this gap, showing how the health of soil, plants and animals impacts our own health and wellbeing, and inspiring a deeper connection with what we eat.
We were also delighted to be joined at Dagenham by chef and broadcaster, @hughfearnleywhittingstall , and Madam Mayor Princess Bright ACCA, Civic Mayor of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, highlighting the growing role of local leadership in supporting community-based food initiatives.
👉 Learn more about how the Beacon Farms Network is bringing together sustainable and regenerative farms to act as educational platforms via the link in our bio.
✉️ If you’re interested in supporting the development of the Beacon Farms Network or the work at Dagenham Farm, please get in touch with us via [email protected]
🎬 @danielcfilms
Alice Holden at Dagenham Farm 🌱
If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to grow your own food, this is a lovely place to begin.
Alice is looking for volunteers to join her in the garden at Organic Dagenham Farm with Growing Communities. You do not need any experience, just an interest in learning and a willingness to get stuck in 🌿
Come along on Thursdays at 12 pm from 🗓 30th April and learn how to grow it all alongside Alice.
To get in touch, email [email protected] 📩
We exist within a rich ecosystem of teacher led organisations directly supporting teachers in schools across the country
We believe there’s more than one way to peel a potato / and many interconnected and complimentary approaches to greening your curriculum
@harmonyorguk@cape_alliance@betterplaneteducation@globalactplan@greenschoolsproject
What do food, farming and the environment look like through the eyes of children? 🌱🐄👩🌾
That is exactly why we have been working hard with the Beacon Farm @susfoodtrust@harmonyorguk and our local show @discoverfarming to open our gates to school children and welcome them onto the farm.
To help them get a bit muddy, get a bit closer to where their food comes from, and maybe most importantly, fall in love with the countryside around them 🤎
Because if they love it, they are more likely to want to look after it, work in it and enjoy it as they grow up.
We are here to give them the space to ask, challenge, respond, explore and leave with big grins, full tummies and probably a bit of straw in their wellies too 🌾😄
60 kids through so far this year and now a little pause while we calve the girls, before welcoming more through the gates later in the year 🐮✨
It might seem a bit out of the depths of dairy farming and we are all very busy but it’s part of the farm here’s values people who come to work here understand that it’s not for everyone but the reward that comes from ….happy to answer any questions
Totally depends on farm to what you offer or how much you offer going into schools too is a great option too
Play to your strengths like with everything ….absolutely hats off to teachers who do this everyday
#Farming #FoodEducation #BeaconFarmProject #OpenFarm #countrysideeducation
Big thank you to @dorsetnationallandscape who enabled us to gain funding for some of the classroom making all weathers possible
