Sustainable Farming Campaign Officer Job In London

Job Description

Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming

• Job title: Sustainable Farming Campaign Officer
• Gross Annual Salary: £38,158 full-time pro rata (post offered at 0.8 FTE). This is a paylevel 1 salary. This salary increases annually in April each year according to Sustain’spayscale and progression, subject to satisfactory performance. In addition, Sustain matchespension contributions up to 5% of gross salary.
• Hours: 0.8 FTE (28 hours / 4 days per week)
• Location: Role is office-based in Cambridge Heath, London. Sustain offers working from homeup to half of working hours, on request and subject to agreement after probation.
• Position type: Permanent contract (funding secured for until end of June 2026)
• Annual Leave: 25 days Annual Leave based on 0.8 FTE (comprises of 16 days Basic AnnualLeave + FTE proportion of public holidays + office closures) rising annually by 2 days to a toplimit of 29 days.
• Equal opportunities: Sustain is committed to being a welcoming and inclusive employer,including recruiting for diversity. Read more about our approach here.
• Right to Work: Entitlement to work in the UK. Sustain is not able to assist withapplications for work permits and cannot employ people living or working outside of the UK.
• Other details: Cycle to Work scheme available on salary sacrifice basis.

About the Sustainable Farming Campaign

Sustain’s Sustainable Farming campaign is central to the work of the Sustain alliance. Incollaboration with our working party of 46 farming, food, environment, animal welfare, publichealth and academic organisations, we have secured key improvements in national and localfarming policy and practice. We contributed to the government’s adoption of the ‘public moneyfor public goods’ policy farm payments; helped win the fair dealing and supply chaintransparency obligations in the UK Agriculture Act 2020; were a key player in securing a Tradeand Agriculture Commission to scrutinise the impact of post-Brexit international trade deals onstandards for animal and plant health, animal welfare and the environment; and have supportedwork to make the case and win investment for farmer-focused supply chains and retail, localfood infrastructure and better food trading.

Working together with farming, environmental and policy experts, our main aims currently areto:

• Make agroecological farming the norm in the UK – More farmers engaging, taking upEnvironmental Land Management (ELM) and going up ambition levels, with an increase in organic,agroecological, and ‘whole farm’ approaches. This means changing the policy, standards,incentives and finances of farming; attraction of public and private investment (and researchand development funding) directed to better models; as well as ensuring that trade deals andother farming-relevant policies actively support and do not undermine sustainable farming,biodiversity, climate and land-use goals. Finally, ensuring a holistic definition of foodsecurity is used by government.
• Support horticultural production: Policies are enacted to support the upscaling ofagroecological production of fruit, vegetables and pulses. Advocacy for and engagement with afuture horticulture strategy that favours de-centralised, agroecological horticulturalproduction as well as transition away from lowland peat.
• Cultivate fairer, more transparent food supply chains: Three main aims here areto:
  • De-mystify supply chain economics and expose inequities.
  • Reform regulation in the food supplychain to share risk and profits more fairly.
  • Increase farmer ability to be a ‘price maker’rather than a ‘price taker’ through support for co-operative farming and the local food retail‘bridging the gap’ trading that helps build shorter, more farmer-focused routes to market.
• Make more land available for diverse agroecological food growing and new entrants -including for peri-urban farms and horticulture enterprises, and local authority land use –locally and nationally; and opposing biofuels and other damaging land use.
• Support a Sustainable Land Use policy: Securing land-use policy fit for the climate andnature emergency and a just transition. Supporting organisations and processes looking atsustainable land use – for example the Nature Friendly Farming Network and the SoilAssociation. Political engagement to influence government thinking on how to define foodsecurity to encompass farming and farm worker livelihoods; a resilient, nutritious andaffordable food supply; from farming systems that support climate change mitigation andadaptation, and restoration of nature.

This role will provide project and campaign support to our Sustainable Farming Campaign. We areseeking a motivated, creative and well-organised person with great communications andteam-working skills, who can work alongside the Sustainable Farming Campaign Coordinator andother colleagues to help manage campaigns, research, consultation and policy-related activitieson sustainable farming, fair supply chains and related issues. The project officer will lead ondistinct areas of work, developing and running them to make a significant contribution to theSustain alliance’s ability to influence policy in order to achieve an agroecological system offarming and food production. The role will also provide administrative and communicationssupport to the campaign.

Tasks and responsibilities

The Officer will have a varied and stimulating workload, and will work closely with theSustainable Farming Campaign Coordinator; also in collaboration with Sustain’s seniormanagement, campaign staff, working party members and project partners. The Officer’sresponsibilities will include:

• Taking a lead role in running specific projects, including research, briefings, policywork, engagement with partners and policy-makers, media activities and campaign development tofurther campaign objectives as part of the campaign strategy.
• Initiating and managing defined research projects on key themes. This might be, forexample, on co-operative farming and/or supply chain economics and fairness.
• Keeping up to date with national news, the work of relevant organisations, and policydevelopments on food, farming, climate change and nature loss, and solutions promoted bySustain and our working party members, to inform our supporters and national campaignactivities.
• Helping to arrange and run engagement activities for public and specialist audiences, suchas report launches, webinars, events, speaker opportunities and panel discussions to inform andbroaden our supporter base. This will include targeted work to reach new and diverse audiencesand people or groups currently under-represented in our work.
• Contributing to Sustain’s engagement and communication activities that seek to inform andinfluence parliamentarians and local area decision-makers. This could include helping tocompile briefings and consultation responses, and representing Sustain at government andpartner meetings, calls for evidence, hearings and in the media.
• Contributing to public-facing communication work of the Sustainable Farming Campaign, forexample helping to consult on, compile, publish, edit and distribute reports; consultationresponses; blogs; news items; e-actions; press releases; website and social media content, andregular newsletters.
• Helping to run our well-established expert working party (involves 46 organisations andquarterly meetings), including supporting the Campaign Coordinator with working party meetingpapers and other preparation, taking minutes, producing briefings, managing the database ofcontacts, supporting contributions and stakeholder relationships, and pursuing follow-upactions in a professional and timely manner.
• Contributing to initiatives and learning that help Sustain and colleagues meet ourambitions on diversity, equity, inclusion and racial justice, both internally and through ourout-ward facing and influencing activities.

The Officer will also:

• Contribute to the mutually supportive culture of Sustain, among the staff team, campaignpartners and project participants.
• Support the maintenance of excellent financial, data and other records and reporting, tohelp with accountability to funders and stakeholders.
• The post holder will also undertake any other responsibilities in connection with the workthat may arise from time to time.

Personal specification

Sustain is seeking a motivated, creative and well-organised person with great communicationsand team-working skills, who shares our commitment to improving the farming and food system,and who has the following skills and experience:

• Background, interest and experience in sustainable farming, farming / food policy, orenvironment.
• At least one year’s experience of influencing policy, practice and/or campaigning forchange.
• A demonstrable commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and racial justice, with theaptitude to support or develop relevant initiatives within the context of the role.
• A confident and experienced communicator with fluent spoken and written English,exceptional oral and written communication skills, with attention to detail and the ability totranslate complex data and policies into accessible language, engaging stories andcommunication materials.
• Experience of implementing communication plans and generating media and social mediacoverage, as well as using communication tools and approaches to influence public opinion anddecision-making to achieve campaign goals.
• Experience of undertaking and managing research projects, preferably those that involveworking with the input of a range of stakeholders.
• Experience of relationship building and team working to achieve shared goals, preferablywith experience or understanding of working in networks and/or alliances.
• Ability to work independently, with high levels of self-motivation.
• Good project management, time management and organisational skills, including reliablemanagement of data.
• Entitlement to work in the UK (Sustain is not able to assist with applications for workpermits).
• Availability to commence work promptly following the recruitment process.
• A demonstrable experience and understanding of ethical and sustainable farming and/or theeconomics of farming. A good understanding of UK farming policy is a benefit.
• Skills in digital communications, campaigning and social networking.
• Experience of working with editorial, design and IT colleagues to generate compellingcommunication materials.
• Experience and aptitude in using MS Teams, Zoom, Miro or other online meeting, webinar andfacilitation tools, as a participant and as an organiser.
• Experience of consulting stakeholders and developing and supporting shared positions,objectives and written outputs.
• Experience of working with parliamentarians or other decision-makers to support policydevelopment.
• Confidence to put forward a case in meetings with people from diverse roles andbackgrounds.
• Experience in arranging, chairing and/or facilitating meetings and events.
• Experience of working on a funded project and reporting to funders.
• Good presentation and public speaking skills and ability to work effectively eitherin-person or via online platforms.

Diversity

The person appointed will contribute to the mutually supportive culture of Sustain (includingstaff and project participants) in which equality and diversity are not just respected butpromoted. Visit ourwebsite here for some useful advice if you are applying for a job at Sustain.

Sustain is recruiting for this role as part of our Ethnicity Confident and Disability Confidentschemes. Applicants who meet all the essential criteria, and who let us know voluntarily (viaour Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form) that you would like to be considered in this way, willhave an enhanced chance of gaining a first-stage interview. 

Sustain welcomes applications from everyone regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, class,socio-economic background, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion and/orbelief. We are happy to discuss and consider flexible working at the point of hire. Weparticularly encourage applications from Black people and people of colour, and people withdisabilities. This is because these groups are currently underrepresented at Sustain. Where twoor more candidates are judged to be of equal merit, priority may be given to a candidate whobelongs to a group less represented at Sustain.

• a Covering Letter telling us about your experience and how this relates to the personalspecification (maximum two pages)

As we are recruiting for several positions over this period, please put SustainableFarming Campaign Officer in the subject line of your covering email along with yourname.

Deadline: 10am, Friday 31 May 2024

First stage interviews for this position will take place online on 12 and 13 June 2024 withsecond-stage interviews to take place in-person the week commencing 17 June 2024. Pleaseindicate in your application if you are not available either of these weeks, although we cannotguarantee we can accommodate requests for alternative timings.

This role is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.