Patrick Holden

Patrick Holden, is a UK organic dairy farmer, campaigner for sustainable food and farming, and co-founder with Anthony Rodale of U.K. The Sustainable Food Trust and U.S. Sustainable Food Alliance.

Background During his childhood Holden kept a variety of animals, ranging from mice and rabbits to budgerigars and myna birds, and would spend hours in his back garden studying the amphibians that migrated to the ponds he had dug as a boy.

In 1971, aged 20, Holden spent a year in the San Francisco Bay Area where he was influenced by the green movement. As a result, Holden returned to the UK and worked for a year on an intensive dairy farm in Hampshire before studying biodynamic agriculture at Emerson College (UK).

Holden then joined the back-to-the-land movement in 1973 and formed a community farm in Bwlchwernen Fawr, Wales. After the community dispersed, Holden continued to run the farm now known as Holden Farm Dairy - now the longest established organic dairy farm in Wales. Enterprises have included an 80 cow Ayrshire herd, the milk from which goes to produce Hafod, a cheddar style cheese; oats and peas; wheat for flour milling; and carrots which he grew for supermarkets for 25 years.

Alongside farming, Holden’s other work has included the development of organic standards and the market for organic foods, founding British Organic Farmers, trustee of the Soil Association, and director of the Soil Association (1995-2010). During Holden's 15 years in charge, the charity's staff rose from 5 to 180, and annual sales of organic produce in Britain rose from £50 million to £2 billion. and metric for measuring on-farm sustainability; campaigning for the re-localisation of supply chains, including small abattoirs; and linking healthy diets to sustainable food production. In founding the trust, Holden was partly aiming to bridge the divide between Organic and non organic farmers, which he regrets had become somewhat binary.

Honours Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) 2004 "for services to organic farming". Honorary doctorate from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. 2022