LJM Associates Ltd

    Really thrilled that our paper - Understanding positive animal welfare through good stockmanship: insights from UK sheep farmers has been published in Frontiers in Animal Science - do check it out  

Taking a moment for the spectacular sunsets or a sunrises over the last week has been awe inspiring. Nature is just amazing and connects us to all those who have seen spectacular sunsets in the past and those who will see the ones to come..  

Really good to see our paper published "Who Defines Good Welfare? Identity, Legitimacy and Discourse in Positive Animal Welfare" in Sociologia Ruralis - do check it out.

  I am leading a harvest thanksgiving service this Sunday so this week I will be focusing on the 'talk' element in the middle and what I will say. From a farming perspective, there have been better years, we have lost loved ones who won't be at the service this year in person, but we will remember them and yet as a rural community we have a lot to be grateful for..  Robert Louis Stevenson is reported to have said "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." Maybe I will start my thinking there..

  Really pleased to give a keynote presentation on agri-food strategy in the UK on Tuesday. Lots of reflection to prepare and deliver the session and brilliant question and answer element which got into the challenges agri-food businesses face and the opportunities they need to make space for. 

 Really pleased that our book chapter has been published "Assessing Food Safety Practices in Food Service Establishments Using Questionnaires and Observation." In: Stedefeldt, E., da Cunha, D.T. (eds) Food Safety in Food Services. Methods and Protocols in Food Science. Do check it out. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-5444-6_3

    Great leaders don't try to do everything, they focus on what truly matters. Focus is a choice: it begins with clarity about your goals and the impact you want to create. Use a simple filter: is it important, urgent or both, or neither? protect your time for high-impact work and say not to distractions that pull you off course. Prioritisation isn't about doing more; its about doing the right things well. When your actions align with your purpose, your energy goes further, and so does your leadership..

  So thrilled that our paper - Disruptive shocks in global agri-food value chains: a comparative analysis of impact trajectories across 12 case studies has been published in Global Environmental Change - a must read.. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103220

Twenty years ago we hosted multiple farm walks on our farm and since Covid and with other commitments things have gone a little quiet in the last few years. It was brilliant to host a group from Ledbury Naturalists Field Club last Saturday and walk around part of the farm talking about nature, climate and adaption.

  In business, productivity isn’t about how much time we give to a project, its about the economic and social value we create.  Yet we structure our days around desk dairies, meetings and emails, not delivering performance and output. The result is often high levels of activity for low impact. Our  highest-value work designing strategy, problem-solving, and decision-making requires peak mental focus and energy so we need to channel our time to what delivers for us and others.  At a team level, this matters even more. Back-to-back meetings and constant switching in each meeting and across a day from topic to topic often without delivering resolution drains our personal and our collective energy. We need to give ourselves time to focus and deliver output. We can batch meetings into specific windows, build mental recovery time into the day and guard our personal energy. If not we face burnout and disappointment that we have not achieved what we set out to.

Where do you go to be mindful? Everyone of us should have a place where you can go to that.. a place for a few minutes which can help you recharge and renew. With the rain, we are very thankful for, the grass will recover soon.. "Be happy in the moment, that's enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” Mother Teresa

 Really thrilled that our paper has been published in Gastronomy - do check it out.