Hay on Earth is a sustainability-focused series of events at Hay Festival. At the Hay on Earth Forum each year we explore current issues, new developments and technical advances.

At this year’s Forum we bring you four events focusing on the future of food. This full day ticket gives you entry to all four events:

• 2.30pm Louise Gray and Kimberley Wilson talk to Andy Fryers: Food Anxiety
• 4pm Jake Fiennes: Land Healer
• 5.30pm Louise Gray, Ian Rasmussen and Bryce Evans: Milltir Sgwar: The Next Chapter – A Square Meal on a Square Mile
• 7pm Gareth Wyn Jones, Mark Lynas, Solitaire Townsend and Martin Wright: Food for the Future – Should We Trust in Tech?

Who picked your Fairtrade banana? Where do all the wonky carrots go? And if we’re being encouraged to eat five-a-day, just how much damage are we doing to the world we live in through food miles? We all know that as a nation our mental health is in crisis. But a crucial part of the solution – what we eat – is being ignored. Gray, author of Avocado Anxiety and Other Stories About Where Your Food Comes From, tracks food from farm to fruit bowl, unpacks the dilemmas we face in trying to eat well and ethically, and helps us discover the impact that growing fruits and vegetables has on the planet. Psychologist Wilson, author of Unprocessed: How the Food we eat is Fuelling our Mental Health Crisis, reveals the role of food and nutrients in brain development and mental health. They talk to Hay Festival’s Sustainability Director Andy Fryers.

Jake Fiennes is on a mission to heal the land we’ve destroyed, and change the face of the British countryside. The conservation manager at Holkham in Norfolk, one of the country’s largest historic country estates, has taken a radical approach to habitat restoration and agricultural work, which has brought back wetlands, hedgerows, birds and butterflies over 25,000 acres of land. He takes us through the farming year and the natural cycle of the seasons, and delivers a manifesto urging us to rethink our relationship with the natural world before it’s too late. In conversation with Caroline Cook, Head of Climate Change, Baillie Gifford.

The way we consumed food changed during the lockdown, and has continued to evolve as we face new challenges with our food supply. Is food globalisation still viable in an uncertain age of dramatic geopolitical realignment, climatic and environmental peril and colossal challenges to food production and distribution? We urgently need fresh, innovative and sustainable ideas to address such existential threats.

Louise Gray is author of Avocado Anxiety and Other Stories About Where Your Food Comes From; Sheila Dillon is a food journalist and presenter of Radio 4’s The Food Programme; Duncan Fisher is co-manager of Our Food 1200, a community benefit society re-building a local food economy in Bannau Brycheiniog, Powys & Monmouthshire ; Ian Rasmussen is a senior lecturer at the University of Chester and a Slow Food Cymru Wales member; and Bryce Evans is Professor of Modern World History at Hope Liverpool University. They discuss the Welsh concept of Milltir Sgwar – square mile – which promotes belonging to and being immersed in a small community. Are we bold enough to revert to a more localised approach to food production: a square meal on a square mile?

British farming is in crisis: we import a greater proportion of our food than we used to, our countryside suffers more than ever from agriculture-related pollution and biodiversity loss, and farming is a major contributor to climate change. Does technology, from high-tech, precision, smart, vertical or underground farms to lab-grown alternatives to ‘natural’ food, have the answer? And if so, could tech bring down the curtain down on 5,000 years of British agriculture? Our panel of experts – Welsh hill farmer and TV presenter Gareth Wyn Jones, author and journalist Mark Lynas, sustainability expert and author of The Solutionists: How Businesses Can Fix the Future Solitaire Townsend, and environment journalist and photographer Martin Wright – discuss whether a rewilded Britain is a feasible vision, or the worst kind of ‘techtopian’ fantasy, and if there’s a happy medium for farmers and consumers.

Guides from the Brecon Beacons National Park will lead a gentle walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye. Two of the Park’s leading ecologists share their knowledge of some of the local flora and fauna. You’ll be joined by a guest from the Festival programme.

Hay-on-Wye is based within 520 square miles of beautiful landscape that makes up Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park. The National Park is driving change to bring about a sustainable future, meeting our needs within planetary boundaries. Their Hay Festival series of gentle walks will take you into the town’s local environment while offering the opportunity to learn more about the Park’s work and its treasured landscape.

Please wear appropriate footwear and outdoor gear.

In 1790, whalers from Nantucket are invited to found the port of Milford Haven in west Wales. But what does the arrival of these hardy Quakers mean for the local population? And what is the meaning of the beached whale that preceded them? As two cultures clash, concern swerves into hysteria against the incomers, and a local preacher plans a grotesque, Jonah-inspired fate for the whalers. Nathan Munday, a writer and trainee minister, talks to writer and broadcaster Horatio Clare about how his novel Whaling explores our relationship with nature, the boundary between faith and superstition, and the world of immigration.

Our food system is one of the most successful, most innovative and most destructive industries on earth. It sustains us, but it is also killing us. Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of fast food chain Leon, creator of the National Food Strategy and author of Ravenous: How to get Ourselves and our Planet Into Shape, talks about how we can take action to make things better, drawing on health, farming, and environmental and food security.

Bring your best ideas to this solutions-focused workshop session. Facilitated by sustainability entrepreneur Andy Middleton, Chief Exploration Officer at the TYF Group, and joined by Juliet Davenport, Founder and former CEO of Good Energy, and Simon Sharpe, Director of Economics for the UN Climate Champions and author of Five Times Faster, we’ll look at the key issue of energy. We’ll discuss the scale of the issue and a range of solutions, how to action them, how they might impact on their lives and how to manage the change.

The war in Ukraine has created an unexpected energy shock. But it has also hastened a dramatic redesign in how energy is generated and consumed. New giant investments in wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and ocean power have been impressive. But there are ominous signs that the corporate commitment to move away from fossil fuels is weakening because of the big money still being made by oil and gas producers. The battle to decarbonise our energy is not even nearly won. How do we balance energy generation, energy security and energy poverty, at speed and scale?

This workshop is part of our Hay Festival Planet Assembly, a daily, inclusive conversation over ten days involving lay people, scientists, commentators and experts. We want to empower everyone to be accelerators and multipliers for the dramatic policy transformations that are needed immediately to tackle the acute climate and biodiversity emergencies.

Sign up to our free Planet Assembly daily briefing

A panel of world-class business leaders provide insight into how they’re putting sustainability at the core of all strategies, removing uncertainties driven by global challenges, and forming a foundation of security, growth and resilience. The experts will discuss the UK and EMEA findings from the United Nations Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study on Sustainability. Joining will be Anna Marrs, president of global commercial services at AMEX, and Jitesh Gadhia, chair of the British Asian Trust, a member of the House of Lords and former senior managing director at the Blackstone Group.

Aged 43, now mayor of London Khan was unexpectedly diagnosed with adult-onset asthma, and so began his journey to becoming more educated about the dangers posed by air pollution and climate change. In Breathe: Tackling the Climate Emergency, he shares how he underwent a political transformation that would see him become one of the most prominent global politicians fighting elections on green issues, talks about some of the ways in which he believes the environmental discussion can be put back on track, and shares how anyone can win the argument on climate. Khan was first elected mayor in 2016, and re-elected in 2021. In conversation with science writer, broadcaster and author of Nomad Century, Gaia Vince.

Yearning for adventure, cellist-singer and environmental activist Smout embarked on a month-long odyssey to Iceland, travelling by boat via Orkney, Shetland and the Faroes. These experiences inspired her entrancing and transportive solo show Eyjar, the Old Norse word for ‘islands’. The show explores our connections to place, the different lenses through which we view the land, and what that means for our relationship with nature. Join Smout for an evening of visceral storytelling, bristling with atmosphere created with live-looped cello, haunting melodies and deeply felt lyrics that are never too far from the sea.

The River Tigris – the birthplace of civilisation – has been the lifeblood of ancient Mesopotamia and modern Iraq, but geopolitics and climate change have left it at risk of becoming uninhabitable. Writer, broadcaster and explorer Leon McCarron shares stories from his incredible, beautiful and occasionally dangerous journey by boat along the full length of the river, recounted in his book Wounded Tigris: A River Journey through the Cradle of Civilisation. Sometimes harassed by militias and relying on the generosity of a network of strangers to reach the Persian Gulf, McCarron explains why it’s crucial to save this extraordinary river, and what its survival, or destruction, could mean for us all.

McCarron talks to actor, author and broadcaster Tony Robinson.

Bring your best ideas to this solutions-focused workshop session. Facilitated by sustainability entrepreneur Andy Middleton, Chief Exploration Officer at the TYF Group, and joined by Phil Kloer, Deputy Chief Executive of Hywel Thar University Health Board and geriatitian, Rose Anne Kenny, we’ll look at the key issue of health. We’ll discuss the scale of the issue and a range of solutions, how to action them, how they might impact on their lives and how to manage the change.

Our health systems are creaking due to ageing populations, Covid, and recruitment and funding challenges. The impact on wellbeing of the climate emergency and loss of biodiversity is serious and not yet fully understood. Our bodies are not built to handle the new stresses of heat, pollution and the breakdown of natural systems. We need a new map for change that meets the needs of current and future generations. How do we create an economy that puts the health of people and nature first?

This workshop is part of our Hay Festival Planet Assembly, a daily, inclusive conversation over ten days involving lay people, scientists, commentators and experts. We want to empower everyone to be accelerators and multipliers for the dramatic policy transformations that are needed immediately to tackle the acute climate and biodiversity emergencies.

Sign up to our free Planet Assembly daily briefing.

One of the biggest challenges in tackling the climate emergency is not technical, we know what we need to do - it is in how the necessary change is communicated. How do we communicate the seriousness of the situation and avoid the pitfalls of despair and despondency. What are the key issues and how does the messaging need to change depending on the audiences?

Johan Rockström is an internationally recognised scientist for his work on global sustainability. He helped lead a team of scientists that presented the planetary boundaries framework, first published in 2009 and updated in 2015.

Mike Rann is chair of the Climate Group and former Premier of South Australia from 2002 to 2011. He was also Climate Change Minister, the first in Australia.

Take a photographic tour of some of Earth’s most fascinating islands with Duane Silverstein, executive director of Seacology, an NGO that works to protect threatened island ecosystems and cultures around the world. From the beautiful and exotic to the remote and unheard-of, he looks at what makes islands so special, the threats they face, why they must be saved, and how working respectfully with indigenous islanders is crucial. Duane is in conversation with Adam Rutherford, geneticist and the presenter of BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science and co-presenter of The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry.

Bring your best ideas to this solutions-focused workshop session. Facilitated by sustainability entrepreneur Andy Middleton, Chief Exploration Officer at the TYF Group, and joined by Philip Lymbery, Global CEO of farm animal welfare charity, Compassion in World Farming International and Jane Davidson, former Chair of the Wales Inquiry of Food, Farming and Countryside Commission and current Chair of Wales Net Zero 2035, we’ll look at the key issue of food. We’ll discuss the scale of the issue and a range of solutions, how to action them, how they might impact on their lives and how to manage the change.

Food supplies are under intense pressure and what we’ve taken for granted is no longer guaranteed. To continue functioning, local economies and sustainable livelihoods must be able to thrive, both in the UK and all producer countries. Plant and animal diversity, as well as the welfare of farmed and wild species, must be protected. How can we design a food production system that reverses damage to nature and restores climate balance?

This workshop is part of our Hay Festival Planet Assembly, a daily, inclusive conversation over ten days involving lay people, scientists, commentators and experts. We want to empower everyone to be accelerators and multipliers for the dramatic policy transformations that are needed immediately to tackle the acute climate and biodiversity emergencies.

Sign up to our free Planet Assembly daily briefing.

Guides from the Brecon Beacons National Park will lead a gentle walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye, joined by the BBNP Writer in Residence Rebecca Thomas.

Hay-on-Wye is based within 520 square miles of beautiful landscape that makes up Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park. The National Park is driving change to bring about a sustainable future, meeting our needs within planetary boundaries. Their Hay Festival series of gentle walks will take you into the town’s local environment while offering the opportunity to learn more about the Park’s work and its treasured landscape.

Please wear appropriate footwear and outdoor gear.

Explore the political, cultural and mythical history of Wales, and get a glimpse of what lies ahead for us all when it comes to climate change, with writers Tom Bullough and Julie Brominicks. In Sarn Helen, Bullough takes us on a walk along Sarn Helen – Helen’s Causeway – the old Roman Road that runs from the south of Wales to the north, weaving in conversations with climate scientists and showing the likely impact of climate change on Wales, while Brominicks celebrates the language, landscape, peoples and biodiversity of Cymru past and present in The Edge of Cymru, exploring themes of belonging and cymreictod (Welshness), trying to find clarity, courage and possibility in the environmental crisis.