HRH The Duke of Cornwall, who has been supporting farming communities and promoting the importance of sustainable landscapes for over 50 years, was awarded the Farmers Weekly Lifetime Achievement Award 2020 in a virtual ceremony earlier this month.
The Prince, who was invited to share his thoughts in Farmers Weekly on the future of the country’s small family farms and his vision for the future of agriculture, spoke of how touched and surprised he was at being honoured with the accolade.
In his acceptance speech, recorded via video message for the virtual award ceremony, The Prince talked of his passion for sustainable farming.
The Duke of Cornwall stressed the urgency to decarbonise the global economy, including conventional agriculture in order to avoid mass extinctions and large parts of the planet becoming uninhabitable. As a consequence of this situation, farming is ‘facing the biggest shake-up in decades’. Whilst acknowledging these global challenges, The Prince also spoke of new opportunities and a willingness amongst the farming industry to do things differently.
Impressed by farmers ingenuity on his visits around the country, The Prince discussed the transition to new approaches to farming, by encouraging farmers to consider their existing assets from a new perspective. The Prince highlighted how the Duchy of Cornwall are auditing every farm to identify where such improvements can be made.
In his acceptance speech, The Duke also spoke of the fight to prevent the extinction of our ‘unique native breeds’. Referencing Brogdale Farm in Kent, the home of ‘4000 varieties of fruit, but most notably over 2,400 varieties of apples’, The Prince spoke of how the Duchy of Cornwall helped rescue Brogdale Farm from an uncertain future.
To read The Duke of Cornwall's words in Farmers Weekly, click on the link below.
HRH The Prince of Wales on FW Award and farming's future - Farmers Weekly (fwi.co.uk)
Every member of staff of the Duchy of Cornwall has had the opportunity to become ‘carbon literate’ as part of the Duchy’s continued commitment to environmental sustainability and our application for status as a Carbon Literate Organisation.
Read more
Exceptionally, last year the Duchy reported a fall in the income generated for The Duke of Cornwall. That £1.83million reduction, a fall of 8.2%, has been reversed this year, and the surplus generated this year is £23.0million, an improvement on the last “normal” year (2019/20). This includes a record spend on property repairs...
Read more
The Duchy has published a full report of greenhouse gas emissions, both from its operations (Scopes 1 and 2) and its full value chain (Scope 3).
Read more