29/09/2026
To mark the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste today, we're spotlighting Katie Hastings who spent 20 years growing food, but structural barriers, such as accessing land for farming, made it difficult for her to sustain this path as a livelihood.
She is one of four women featured in The Land that Holds Us, a documentary directed by Dr Rachael Durrant, senior research fellow at the University of Sussex Business School. The documentary shows how women farmers relate to land in the UK and the wider social systems that shape their work.
Katie now works as a seed sovereignty coordinator, supporting growers working to preserve and revive rare seed varieties. Her story highlights the conditions that shape who can start organic horticulture or continue with land-based farming in the UK. Some of these conditions, which act as barriers against women's entry and career progression in land-based work, include high land prices, insecure tenancy, limited infrastructure, and financial instability.
Katie’s experience raises a broader question: what is lost to food system resilience and diversity in the UK when women committed to its design and management are unable to remain in farming?
These issues are also explored in Women Back to the Land, the research project behind the documentary.
Watch the full documentary and join the wider conversation about land access, gender, and the future of farming in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNMD96v-GEk
