Beatrix Oliver Project Manager Expand Bea joined FWAG in 2021 from the ELM team at DEFRA and spent her first three years managing the Gloucestershire team’s GREAT Project to boost regenerative agriculture. Her background is in social research, human geography, and facilitating community-building projects. Bea has an MSc in Food Policy and a certificate of higher education in Field Ecology, which she combined to specialise in researching the environmental and health value of agriculture. As of January 2024, she is co-ordinating the Upper Thames Catchment Partnership, the Farmer Guardians of the Upper Thames cluster group and the Gloucestershire Kingfisher Award scheme. She enjoys cycle-touring, camping and walking by rivers.
Edward Bonn Farm Environment Adviser Expand Ed joined FWAG SW in April 2022 and leads / co-ordinates a wide range of current projects, as well as offering land management advice through Countryside Stewardship, Woodland Management, and Sustainable Farm Incentives throughout Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. For these projects, he co-delivers the Upper Thames Catchment Partnership with Bea Oliver, engaging landowners and local groups in monitoring / improving watercourses and mitigating flooding. Ed also manages the GREAT Zerodig project in partnership with Zerodig Earth, to convert a 7-acre field into an agroecological site for demonstrating nature friendly farming, as well as linking in the Royal Agricultural University. His involvement with Zerodig stemmed from managing the GREAT project to transform Gloucestershire into a regenerative farming county. There’s also a 2-year project linked with the GREAT Zerodig site, to restore woodlands and improve their biodiversity, by training new entrants with practical qualifications and linking them to landowners requiring coppice restoration and thinning. Ed previously ran the Cotswolds National Landscape’s rural skills programme, offering a range of conservation-focussed and traditional land management courses, along with coppicing rotations and charcoal burning in various woodlands. He has completed the Basis Soils and Water qualification, has an MSc in Countryside Management from Scotland’s Rural College, and a real passion for engaging people with the wider countryside. Ed also co-organises FWAG’s volunteers with Jo-anne Leigh, providing opportunities to restore woodlands, dry stone walls, introduce Zerodig growing methods onto working farms, and much more besides.
Hannaya Watts Assistant Farm Environment Adviser Expand Hannaya joined FWAG SW in July 2023 and works on Countryside Stewardship applications, soil sampling and enjoys the process of natural flood management and boosting biodiversity in wetland and woodland habitats. She has worked with Maisie on Waitrose Dairy Reports and visits, gaining knowledge on the application of the Sustainable Farm Incentive in the farming systems. She studied in Norwich, for her undergraduate degree in Ecology and Conservation and Cirencester for her MSc in Sustainable Agriculture & Food Security at the Royal Agricultural University, where she combined practical and research-based learning in diverse agricultural systems. Hannaya is involved in GREAT Zerodig Project Horticulture Project at the RAU, setting up the site and communicating through social media and with the students to facilitate agro-ecological learning and looks forward to growing her own vegetables from the techniques taught on the site.
James Lunt Assistant Farm Environment Adviser Expand James joined the FWAG SW Gloucestershire team in September 2023, helping with mapping and general support for Gloucestershire advisers, and looks forward to learning more about the agri-environmental policy landscape and how best to help farmers transition to new ways of farming. He joins FWAG straight from his Undergraduate degree in Environmental Biology at the University of Nottingham, where he underwent a hedgerow management plan for the University farm as part of his dissertation. Alongside this, he has worked as an Ecologist throughout his degree, as well as having a lifelong appreciation of farming, with a particular love of native breed cattle and sheep, having worked on friends’ farms and owned his own flock of store lambs in the past. He loves getting involved in various aspects of the countryside, looking to take up hedge laying while working for FWAG, and is also a keen gardener, and reader, especially of anything involving history and geography.
Jenny Phelps Senior Farm Environment Adviser & Glos Team Leader Expand Jenny comes from a Gloucestershire farming family and has over 30 years’ experience giving on farm advice, the last 15 years of which has been with Gloucestershire FWAG. She is the Gloucestershire team leader having trained at the Royal Agricultural University and Seale Hayne College in Devon. Jenny leads on many projects including the Defra Environmental Land Management Scheme trials and the Gloucestershire Farm Advice Project. She also leads on the Farmer Guardians of the Upper Thames and hosts the Upper Thames Catchment Partnership. All her projects use the Integrated Local Delivery framework, which values and incorporate local and farming knowledge in cross cutting partnership projects. Jenny is working to develop an agroecological masters degree with RAU that will commence in October 2024.
Jenny Salter Sustainable Food Places Co - Ordinator Expand Jenny began working with FWAG SW in Gloucestershire in September 2022 as Sustainable Food Places Coordinator. This involves supporting the Gloucestershire Food and Farming Partnership, FWAG SW, Feeding Gloucestershire, and other key stakeholders across the county, to realise the potential of Gloucestershire’s membership of the national Sustainable Food Places programme. Gloucestershire was successfully awarded Sustainable Food Places Bronze Award in November 2023 and we are now looking ahead towards Silver. Jenny’s background is in Geography and Environmental Science, which she taught for many years before studying for a MSc in Sustainable Development in Practice at UWE in Bristol, where she focussed on sustainable food systems. She is really enjoying her role getting out and about in Gloucestershire and meeting people from all parts of the food system who are interesting in more sustainable food and farming. When not at work or studying, she can most often be found in the garden or down the allotment pottering about.
Jo-anne Leigh Senior Farm Environment Adviser Expand Jo-anne has been working with FWAG South West since 2012 and provides land management advice for farmers and landowners who are looking to improve their farm business by working with nature. Jo helps farmers apply for Countryside Stewardship schemes such as Countryside Stewardship, Woodland management and SFI to improve wildlife habitats, water quality and implement Natural Flood Management throughout the county of Gloucestershire and South Worcestershire. Jo-anne has been involved in and co-ordinates several projects in addition to CSS across the county to improve water quality, soil health and wildlife corridors and connectivity on a landscape scale. The main projects delivering these outcomes are include Water with Integrated Local Delivery, WILD project, the Natural Flood Management, NFM project in Worcestershire and the facilitation group on Bredon Hill and surrounding parishes Carrant Catchment Area Restoration Project, CCARP. A key social and active group in Gloucestershire is the FWAG volunteer group which is co-organised by Jo and Ed; the group operates around Cirencester, working on coppice management and river restoration.
Maisie Jepson Senior Farm Environment Adviser Expand Maisie joined FWAG SouthWest in October 2020. She is from a tenanted, mixed farm in Worcestershire and takes time off each year to go back home and help with the lambing. She has a degree in Conservation Biology and Ecology and completed an MSc in Denmark, in Agri-Environmental Management. Maisie is FACTs and Basis Soil and Water qualified and is also on the Environmental Advisers register. At FWAG SouthWest she has predominantly been helping clients with Countryside Stewardship applications as well as coordinating a project planting shelterbelts, and helping deliver the Thames Water Catchment Fund. She has previously worked for ADAS as an Agricultural Consultant, doing nutrient management planning, soil sampling, carbon foot-printing, as well as helping the policy and economics team with research projects. She has also worked for the CLA as a Rural Adviser, and now sits on their committee in Gloucestershire.
Nicky Jameson Senior Farm Environment Adviser Expand Nicky (Nicola) joined FWAG in August 2023. Prior to that, Nicky spent 23 years working for Natural England and its predecessors. 19 years was spent in Gloucestershire working with landowners on agri-environment schemes such as Higher Level Stewardship and CS Higher Tier, including protected sites and commons and gaining experienced local knowledge of the County. For four years Nicky worked in Catchment Sensitive Farming in the Avon Warwickshire Catchment, part of the Severn River Basin, advising on water quality, soil health, farm infrastructure, wider land management and accessing funding to implement a wide range of on-farm measures.
Sarah Wells Senior Farm Environment Adviser Expand Sarah offers on farm advice on a range of topics including Countryside Stewardship schemes, environmental land management such as habitat creation, nutrient management planning (including NVZ regulations), resource protection and soils advice. For the past two years Sarah has also been involved in drawing up environmental plans for farms in order to satisfy environmental obligations set by retailers. She is experienced in a number of survey techniques and in producing digitised maps through the use of GIS software. Sarah coordinates a number of projects including the facilitation of Payments for Ecosystem services projects throughout the Upper Thames catchment, which focusses on responsible pesticide use and minimising the risk of pesticides reaching surface waters; and the Rest Assured project which aims to help farmers struggling with the complexities of regulation, and to help farms to access funding to support the farm business.