Meet The FWAG South East Partners
Colin Hedley
Sussex
Colin grew up on a family farm on the Hampshire Coast and kept a suckler herd until 2007. He took an Higher National Diploma (HND) at Shuttleworth College before joining Sussex FWAG in 1991. He was the CLA’s National Conservation Adviser from 2002 until 2005 dealing with issues such as the development of the ELS and HLS schemes and cross compliance. Starting his own consultancy in September 2005 he has been highly active in helping farmers and land managers apply for and manage HLS and CSS agreements. He started Three Harbours Beef to market meat reared on SSSI coastal grazing marshes but after over 10 years and several false dawns had to admit defeat and cease trading in 2019.
As well as advising a wide range of farmers, land managers and non-government organisations Colin is involved with facilitating three landscape scale, farmer-led, cluster groups. These are the Arun to Adur Farmer’s Group, the Rother Valley Farmer’s Group (for which he shares the facilitation duties with Seeseana Wright and the Arun and Rother Rivers Trust), and the South Downs Farmer’s Group which runs from Warnford across to Kingley Vale National Nature Reserve and down the Ems valley.
He is keen to help farmers achieve proper rewards for environmental management and therefore a truly sustainable future. Particular work interests are grazing systems, regenerative agriculture and uncommon arable plants. In his spare time Colin enjoys walking, hedgelaying, woodland management and falling off a surfboard in Cornwall.
Contact
Email: colin.hedley@fwagsoutheast.co.uk
Mobile: 07866 443053