Author of Designing Regenerative Food Systems: And why we need them now
Marina O’Connell is a successful grower, farmer and educator. Born of seven generations of Dutch nurserymen from Boskoop in Holland which is famous for fruit trees, she celebrates the professional women now pioneering the transition to resilient food production and to re- localising the food economy.
Marina, the Apricot team and her family have turned the bare land at Huxhams Cross Farm, Totnes, Devon, UK, from being ‘a miserable bit of land’ as a local farm contractor called it in 2015, into a productive, beautiful, community connected and profitable farm.
She has action researched the use of biodynamic, organic, permacultural, agroecological, regenerative and agroforestry methods in her work. She leads by example. People from all over Britain and the world visit her farm and go on her courses and a Devon apprenticeship scheme for regenerative food systems. She is consulted by farmers asking her to help redesign their farms away from industrial farming, and by farm estates needing help to undertake the successful transition to resilient food systems by 2030.
