Growing purpose in prisons

Why was a change needed? What problem were you trying to address? 

In 2014 the Prison Service owned 42 farms. We were the second largest owners of farms behind the Coop. However, since then there has been a decline in prison farming – only 14 of our 119 prisons do any form of farming – which has had an impact in three ways. 

First, prisoners were no longer acquiring key skills to help them gain employment in this sector on release and to prevent them from re-offending. Second, the evidence about the wellbeing benefits of prisoners being in touch with the land is clear from North America; if you show an animal love, it will love you back, it gives prisoners a purpose and helps them make a difference. It also helps to reduce stress levels and in turn reduce levels of self-harm. 

Third, the prison service has a huge food contract worth around £60 million a year to feed 83,000 prisoners. The potential for prison farms to provide healthy and sustainable food for inmates is huge and there was just something about getting prisoners to grow food to understand where that food comes from, the benefits of fresh food, and by doing this they can improve their diet, their nutrition, their learning capacity and contribute to sustainability. 

What were the prompts that inspired you to take action to reignite prison farms? 

I participated in the Forward Institute Fellowship Forum on food and responsible leadership in March 2021 with Henry Dimbleby (founder of Leon), Dave Lewis (former CEO of Tesco), Tamara Finkelstein (Permanent Secretary, Defra) and Sarah Mukherjee (former BBC Environment Correspondent), and they talked about the National Food Strategy. 

Even though the conversation was about junk food and the UK's response, it sparked me to think that we used to grow our own food in prisons, making our own bread, growing our own vegetables and potatoes, owning our own hens for eggs and producing our own bacon and sausages. We were pretty much self-sustainable. 

The Forum made me wonder about the food we now buy, a lot of which is freeze-dried and not the freshest, so I saw an opportunity to think about how we can make the diet of prisoners healthier and how growing their own food could bring them pride through meaningful work as well as contribute to sustainability. 

After the Forum I was introduced by Henry Dimbleby and a Cohort 6 Fellow, Tamsin Cooper to Elizabeth Buchanan, NED at Defra and special advisor to Waitrose, Saputo UK and McDonald’s, who effectively brought together a group of industry experts to advise me on how to go about reigniting prison farms. 

They suggested we look at more sustainable ways of growing crops including aeroponics and aquaponics, as prisoners who gain those skills will have a really good chance of gaining employment upon release as those skills are in short supply. 

The second prompt was a prison visit in 2021 to HMP East Sutton Park in Kent. While I was there, I met a prisoner who seemed a little bit down and I asked her if everything was okay. She told me she didn't get much sleep last night and I politely said I'm sorry that's the case. She said this little one was ill, and it turned out to be a piglet. 

She hadn’t slept because she couldn't wait for dawn to break so she could see how he was. She told me how much it meant to her to make sure the piglet was getting the best care. The governor noted that the prison had reduced levels of self-harm because prisoners’ farming duties created a duty of care to the animals. 

What did you practically do? 

Initially, I discussed the idea with my discussion group, and they were enthusiastic and could see the possibilities of where this idea could go. 

Then I started to get excited about it because my initial change challenge was about collaboration in the Department, which had an enormous scope, and I was struggling to distil it down to a question I wanted to examine. The idea of prison farms offered me an alternative practical thing to work with. 

The Fellowship was key to helping me – everyone should access the wide network of people. Tamsin, another Fellow, connected me with her network of contacts including Elizabeth Buchanan, who I would describe as a force of nature who leads very confidently from the back, and Naomi Duncan, who leads Chefs in Schools. 

They both got very excited about the idea, and the advice I got from them and others in the group of experts was key to me starting small rather than taking a ‘big bang’ approach. The group were willing to help once I’d sorted out what my strategy was going to be, but importantly they advised that we need to include the full circle of educating, growing food and educating kitchen staff on nutrition all the way around to why this is really important. 

I also got our Prison Industries team, who used to run prison farming, back involved. They got excited because they then had a senior sponsor in the department who was willing to push this through and really drive it. 

Now we've got our first aeroponics crop in HMP Hewell in Worcestershire up and running. We’re working on reintroducing farms in seven prisons including one in Wales, starting with the SW alliance of prisons. We’ve also agreed with our prison contractors to distribute for free any surplus food from one prison to another where there aren’t farms and where the surplus exceeds the need we’re able to sell in local markets, and the proceeds are reinvested into buying seeds and equipment. 

Our approach to reigniting the farms led to me being invited to the John Lewis Sustainability Conference, which peaked people’s interest. At the event I read an account from a prisoner who said the experience of being on the prison farm has meant she’ll be getting into farming upon release, and it’s changed her life as she never imagined she’d get involved in farming. 

In summary, I was able to share a story – a narrative of what I wanted to change. I got the right people around me with the right advice, I started small and I was clear about the outcome. 

What were some of the factors that enabled you to make change?

Early on I recognised that I didn't have all the answers to solve this problem. Every time I brought together the group of experts, it was about not wasting their time because their time is really valuable, and I really appreciated it all. 

The second factor was I was able to inspire confidence. I went into the conversation being confident about what I wanted to do, and I personally stated that we don’t need to worry about financing as I will get it over the line, so I shielded the team and for the first time in 10 years they had a senior sponsor. 

I also realised that I need to be tenacious. I was personally invested in – and enthusiastic about – the idea. I also realised quickly we needed a mandate, so with the team we put a project initiation document together that set out what we were going to do. 

This gave the team the licence to do this. Most people in the department and the agency know who I am, and they also know that I don't get involved or invest in things that I don't think are going to take off. This is something that no-one else was doing and no-one else is thinking about. 

What did you learn about yourself? 

I’ve learned a lot. It doesn't all have to be done within an instant. The world I sit in, things often need to happen really quickly but this was about taking a more considered approach and listening to advice, not assuming we've got all the answers. 

Often when I’m in a leadership mode I feel I have to drive things, but in this instance it was clear it’s not my expertise. I didn’t have a clue about how to get land ready to farm or to grow crops or what different types of soil you need, which meant I had to be very humble. 

The active listening skills we learned on that Forward Institute programme came into play. Really listening to what people were saying, internalising it and taking it away to follow up. For me, it was a different side of my leadership that I hadn't used in a very long time and for that I had to show a degree of vulnerability, telling people I know nothing about this and that I’m in their hands. 

The Forward Institute also helped me to open up and look at things in a different way, as well as to take time to think about who you are, what you do, why you do it and how you’d want your leadership to show up. It was important to get perspectives from other sectors to realise the problems that we experience, as what I experienced as a leader is often the same as in other sectors. 

I've said quite a few times that I purposefully protected the time around the Forward Institute sessions in my diary because I learned quite early on in my career that if you want to get something out of what you're doing, you have to invest. 

Any final advice for other Fellows? 

You need to find something that you really believe in. Once you’ve identified your initiative and you wake up in the morning thinking ‘that's what I want to do’, you’re committed, so make the time. 

And once you've done that, stick with it. You're the only one that can drive it. You're the only one that can set it on a path for success, so take the time to do the setup correctly. Make sure you run it as a project, get the funding and use the Fellowship to help you get outside perspectives.