Roisin Beck Taylor, flower grower & florist, Verde Flower Co., Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK)
Growing up in a rural area in County Durham, England, where she helped on a farm as a teenager, Roisin Beck Taylor feels a deep connection to agriculture. Working alongside her mother on her small-scale flower farm for a few days a week during the covid pandemic changed her life. Since then, the researcher and campaigner took over from mum Caroline Beck at Verde Flower co., researching climate change adaptation both at her part time job and with her hands in the soil on the farm.
She didn’t grow up on a farm, but spent many hours helping out on a neighbouring farm. As a result, Roisin Beck Taylor maintained a connection to agriculture through her education and work. Today, the Nuffield scholar travels the world researching the impact of climate change on flower farmer practices. That is, when she’s not between her own flowers.
Deep connection to agriculture
“I’m a flower farmer, florist, researcher and campaigner working in Newcastle Upon Tyne in England”, Roisin introduces herself. “My background is not in farming, although I always had a deep connection to farming as I worked on a local upland hill farm from the age of thirteen, most days before school and on weekends”, Roisin, who grew up in a rural area in County Durham, England, says. “It’s a landscape filled with moorland, some woodlands and lots of sheep farming. Most would describe the landscape I grew up as ‘low value’, but as is often the case growing up and working in a particular landscape, it etched itself onto my soul.”
During her nine years working on that farm, Roisin worked with sheep, horses, dogs, pheasants and pigs, learning critical heritage skills, like dry-stone walling, along the way. “Working on the farm gave me another family, and it gave me a deep connection to the farmed landscape. But without the generational ties to the land, nor the available income to go into farming, I went off to university to study one of my many other interests.” Roisin obtained a degree in Human, Social and Political Sciences, but was always brought back to farming through her courses in archaeology, politics and social anthropology. “My dissertation for my social anthropology course looked at the how our farming community used a secondary economy of exchange using bartering and sharing across the farms and how it sustained an otherwise relatively poor farming community.”
Verde Flower Co.
After her degree, Roisin returned to the farm whilst helping her mother out and learning to flower farm along the way. “It took me four more years to return to the land and begin working at Verde Flower Co., but I’ve been unable to let go ever since”, she explains. “Mum has left the business now, and I grow alone, but I hope to one day employ her part-time to grow again.”
Verde Flower Co began in 2016, as a small patch of rented land, by Roisin’s mother Caroline Beck, who is a garden writer. “Mum finally wanted to turn her hand to growing cut flowers”, Roisin says. “As a luxury crop, she knew the potential to grow a high value crop was there, and at the time there were not many small scale growers in the UK. Accompanying her growing she also worked to bring attention to the struggling British cut flower industry by writing about many of the other small scale growers around the UK.” A few years, and two changes of location later, she found herself based in a two-acre (0.80 hectares, red.) Victorian walled garden in County Durham, England. During the early months of covid, Roisin joined her mother. “I had been furloughed from my policy job for a conservation organisation, so I started working with Mum on the flower farm for a few days a week. This changed my life. I became acutely aware that the critical work of climate change adaptation and mitigation could take place most effectively on the ground, working with the soil.” Six months later, when the time came for Roisin to return from furlough, she decided to only return part-time, maintaining two days a week on the flower farm.
Farm land availability is a huge problem in the UK, and the rent market is very unstable. Caroline and Roisin unfortunately found out the hard way when they lost their rented land with poly tunnels, a glasshouse and outdoor growing space, just a few years after founding Verde Flower Co. “After losing our rented space, I have been traveling the world learning from other flower farmers about adapting to impacts of climate change on farm. In April this year I took over a tiny urban growing space in the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne as a temporary space to grow flowers and showcase the possibilities of growing in urban spaces. The space is only temporary and this year, as I conclude my research with the Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust, I am seeking out land to rent to grow on a larger scale once more.”
A day in Roisin’s life
“A typical day varies”, Roisin says, “because I’m not only a flower farmer, but also a florist. I also have a part time job as a nature campaigner, a role that focuses a lot of energy and time on pushing for greater nature-friendly farming practices.”
“On a farming and floristry day, I’ll wake early to walk the dog before collecting up my tools and walking down to the urban flower farm. As this is more of a trial plot at the moment, I’m working on thinking carefully about what my key crops will be year on year, what I would like to specialise in and thinking about bringing in enough investment to either purchase the required infrastructure for a new farm set up, or to purchase land.” This means a day may involve trialling new crops, testing what they look like in a bouquet or vase or making social media content to showcase the business and the possibilities of growing in an urban space for Roisin. “The joy of a small space to test is the lack of maintenance or weeding that is required. I plant densely to ensure I can get the most from my crops, which means ‘editing’ beds sometimes, but broadly I spend a lot of my summers harvesting and making up bouquets for clients.”
“Right now, an afternoon or evening looks like crop planning, working on a business plan, producing and editing social media posts, and often holding introduction calls with new bridal clients. These client calls are vital, as they allow me to better plan my crops for the following year. There tend to be trends in colours, flowers and styles that help me plan alongside my staple crops what might sell well the following year. These calls also give me a sense of how many guaranteed sales I am able to make, and what I need to grow for those, thinking about what other sales I need to make and whether they’re wholesale or direct to client. I would like to have more time for reading up on areas I want to develop like composting and more regenerative agriculture research but the summer is a tough time to fit it all in!”
Women in flower farming
If Roisin feels lucky to be working in an area where she sees a lot of other women, she realises that there is still a difference in perception towards woman in agriculture or horticulture. “As a woman in horticulture, I operate in an interesting space. I am fortunate to work in a smaller horticulture sector that is filled with women, often women who have changed careers and are working to advance not just their own businesses but the wider sector.”
“Working on the farm as a young teenager was often a revealing experience. My bosses protected me and ensured I always felt heard and respected, but on the occasions where we went out onto other farms it was expected that I was not a farm hand but a vet nurse, but never that I could be an actual farmer.” There is still a sense sometimes in mainstream agriculture spaces that she is a ‘women playing with flowers’, Roisin continues, “which as a grower makes me feel both exasperated and furious.”
In the cut flower world, where Roisin operates, a lot of women come from a previous career and are working in a new sector, meaning they did not have the privilege of inheriting a farm or farming land. “I work hard to ensure that women in this space feel part of the wider industry, with both my research, my social media and my networks because we’re always stronger when we are able to share knowledge and not simply compete. Women are incredible bringers-together of community and facilitators of spaces where knowledge can be shared so this should be a celebrated asset rather than denigrated as it can sometimes be.”
Challenges
For Roisin, the two keenest challenges of cut flower farming have been access to land and the impacts of climate change. “I’m working on sharing solutions for both of those problems for others through my Nuffield farming Scholarship research and working with other flower growers and land owners to create a resource where potential new entrants are able to access land”, Roisin explains. “Access to land in the UK as a new entrant is already a challenge, but add in a lack of capital funding and it borders on impossible.” Roisin is currently working with Olivia Wilson from SSAW Collective and Wetherly Flowers to bring together land owners and potential new growers to access to land via a simple website map. When it comes to the impacts of climate change, Roisin is currently writing up her research following her travel to New Zealand, Kenya and the Netherlands visiting growers to understand how climate change is impacting them, their ability to produce cut flowers, and what they’re planning to change in the future to better prepare for the changes on the horizon. She will then set out to share these findings with relevant sector bodies, government and other growers in the sector.
Despite all the difficulties that come with her new chosen career, Roisin would not want to do anything else. “I love growing cut flowers. I love that it is a constant challenge and requires a lot of work to learn new skills or to find new solutions. I was not born to sit at a computer every day – although that remains a large element of my work – and I have a huge ambition to grow a business that is not only sustainable from an environmental perspective, but also fills a gap in the market – getting more British flowers to the florist and retail market in the UK. Being able to pick flowers you have grown is wonderful, transforming them into something that makes your client gasp is really worthwhile, but working with other growers to help them understand the changes on the horizon and how to adapt to them is the greatest aspect of my work.”
The most challenging moment of her career as a flower farmer was losing the space in the walled garden. It is, however, symptomatic of one of the big problems for horticulture and agriculture in the UK: an unstable rental market for growers meaning farmers aren’t able to reliably invest in our their businesses without fear of losing it all. “It felt like genuine grief, but whilst it was a terrifying and devastating moment, it also gave me the space to step back from growing and travel around for my scholarship, connecting with other farmers, growers, and clients. The last eighteen months have given me the opportunity to understand my industry with much greater clarity, and see where the central issues for the British cut flower industry lie.”
“One of my favourite moments was bike-packing around the Netherlands, visiting glasshouse growers, and seeing the innovation and desire to develop their businesses to be resilient to the changes that were being pushed by the Dutch government and the consumer. Cycling between glasshouses, meeting growers and exporters, and learning about resilient business was not only beneficial to me and my business, but has given me lots of critical information to share with other growers in my community. Whatever my business grows into, I want to maintain space to continue to travel and meet other growers to share information, and to take inspiration from growers doing things their own way.”
A network of women
As a woman in agriculture, Roisin is convinced it is crucial to stick together as women, connect with each other and learn from one another. “My advice for any young women wanting to get into agriculture is to find another woman who inspires you in the space and ask if you can either shadow her for a day, or have coffee or tea with her to talk through her experiences in the industry. Really work at building up a network of women who offer you inspiration as well as information about the industry, these women will give you incredibly valuable and honest advice that you might not get from sector representatives.”
“Agriculture and horticulture are hard sectors to work in, but that does not mean they are not full of joy and passion. Every farmer I have met so far has been full of passion and determination, so connect with as many of them as you can, make notes, and share that advice with others. Don’t climb the ladder and then pull it up behind you, be generous and thoughtful with those who come to you for advice too.”
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This article was published in Women in Ag Mag 2024-003. Click here to read the magazine
