The Privilege of Learning to Forage: Why Wild Food Education Must Change

Wild food is emblazoned, hash tagged the heck out of and sung about everywhere these days.

Over all social media channels and outlets, via a few precious slots on tv shows, and even the glossies have been quick to go with the ever-growing consensus that wild food is fabulous.

I concur.

I have been working full time in this sector many years now and I’ve had the pleasure and honour of writing such pieces. I also love taking a wicker basket and filling it with both delicious and gourmet edible fungi for an Instagram shot too.

However, I feel it is imperative that wild foods here in the UK are thought of as more than just as a picture-perfect subject matter for social media, or a way to add an occasional wild injection into our regular meals, which I am hugely passionate about too!

Wild foods, I believe are the future in terms of feeding, or at least providing a valuable percentage of nourishment into our daily meals here in the UK. For everyone. They are incredibly important as a serious consideration for feeding our country to some degree in the future.

Many of us in the teaching or education of wild foods industry who are running both workshops and sessions up and down the UK, and indeed abroad, (because it is an industry now, however unaligned with the vocation that word feels to write), are seeing both a surge of uptake, but also, I hear that there are accessibility issues. And I experience it too.

My public wild food wanders are attended by individuals, and even family, friendship groups or couples with some level of disposable income that they make, or can make available on occasion for hobbies, interests, lifestyle choices, workshops, or classes.

(Thankyou lovely people who keep me in a vocation that I adore!)

There is, however, a poverty/class discrepancy. Those that wish to learn how to access wild foods come from all social classes.

The people I do not see on these public walks are those who already are living closest to the edge-those who already are and would be hit first and hardest with ongoing changes/price fluctuations or disruptions to our food systems. They are already likely experiencing poverty or limited food choices due to low income or budget. And perhaps too, they lack skills or confidence in how to bake or cook. This is common in my sessions e.g. working with Bridge in Northamptonshire, a substance misuse organisation.

The ones I do meet facing food poverty or in marginalised groups are usually via some small funding monies that a charity chooses to apply for/use by booking their members a session with me or another wild food educator in their area. These people accessing these services wish to learn just as much, if not more, as those that have disposable income to do so for pleasure and as simply a recreational/lifestyle activity.

When my children were small and I was a stay-at-home single parent, I achieved my degree in history, which I was, and am indeed, still incredibly interested in. Predominantly my attention was pulled towards subject matter surrounding the survival of humankind, natural disasters, and impactful events e.g. ice ages, droughts, epidemics and pandemics that have shaped history, crop diseases/failures, and all the things that have impacted humanity over time. The move as we evolved from hunter gatherers to skilled farmers, and to war and economies and how countries coped during unsettled times to feed and clothe their people.

The cost-of-living crisis is not going away. Food is still where we all must spend large proportions of our incomes from whatever means, be it benefits or employment.

Why is it that it is still so difficult for those that are already on the breadline to access wild food education? Is it that what we teach is not valued by decision makers as worth investing into? Is it that some people don’t perhaps understand its importance still, even after all this time and lessons peppered throughout history?

I am not by any means devaluing any of the affluent/privileged clients that I teach, far from it. However, I feel there is a wide gap between my paid for public sessions that the average person can browse and book onto, and the few and far between funded or free sessions that I deliver to those most likely to be affected, or are already feeling the brunt of food poverty here in the UK.

These are the people that might be more impacted by the ripple effects of things such as the cost of living crisis continuing, benefit shortfalls and delays, zero hrs contracts and insecure work, public service cuts, interest rates, mortgage and rent hikes, And my favourite ones to muse- if you can call them that- climate related events and agricultural disruption, war possibilities, trade disruptions, runs on the food banks/charitable services, trade disruption and tariffs. Plus, the cuts to services/funding pots at both county level and nationally.

Of course, many people would be impacted by these things, but for those in or on the cusp of poverty already it only tips the scales yet more into the negative for the knock-on effect of poor mental health, a reduced sense of self-worth, impacted well-being and even suicide and self-harm etc. What happens if all the ‘smart price’/’essentials’/value stuff gets hoovered up in a moment of panic?

Increased change is needed I believe, by wild food education being rolled out as a part of the curriculum and through other avenues, or via easier to access funding opportunities for wild food educators like myself, who are sole traders who cannot, or do not wish to become a CIC or charity.

This could be achieved through local councils and grant schemes allowing and supporting them to link in more with their local communities for paid work and regular educational session delivery for local people. There is change still very much needed I feel surrounding this.

95% of my sessions are delivered to those with disposable incomes.

It is already happening in some more forward-thinking circles and sectors a little. Here in Northamptonshire, I am involved with a bid project in the Nene Valley area, including wild food and food preservation. Occasionally other wild foods educators are delivering funded community sessions too.

For many however, there are barriers around many of us being business owners and not CICs or charity organisations, who meet far more funding criteria. Hence have we have been met with difficulties securing funds to deliver sessions, and often with frustration too from those we are asking, who cannot bend the rules re the strict frameworks for funding eligibility that they must stick to. 

Keeping within my remit as best I can, my observation is that there are wild foods, delicious wild foods that are easy to learn and with an educator, thriving in the hedgerow, that can be foraged sustainably, whilst the fields of crops they flank, fail on occasion. 

Our parks, village greens and town green spaces should, and could hold so much more (nutritional) value as well if the support was there for communities to reconnect positively and learn them as a wild food source.

If we look back to when there was a shortage of Vitamin C during the Second World War here in the UK, we suddenly went hedgerow crazy needing a hasty alternative that was always there, harvesting our native rosehips amongst other wild ingredients. With a lack of oranges, the need for Vitamin C was so important, groups were set up to harvest the hips, and they were processed by communities in earnest to meet demand.

Processed. An important word. There needs to be the supplementary education atop of the wild food education here in the UK, where upon people are educated by those in the wild food industry re both the native wild foods seasonally available to them, and then also the ways to utilise these wild foods/rekindle valuable culinary skills both safely, easily and simply. This will enable people to make achievable meals, bakes and snacks etc in real life, or how to preserve them to use later, for example jam making from both wild and seasonal gluts etc.

As a nation we have largely forgotten our recent food history. Back when the Second World War was behind just behind us, the nation gradually started to unclench its cheeks and began to breath more freely again. Subsequently food anxieties surrounding rationing diminished over the years, and ready meals hit the shelves here, following in the footsteps of the American ‘Tv Dinner’ trend overseas that started there in the fifties.

Which is great. Today when the desire to cook is lacking, any meal is better than no meal arguably. But it is common knowledge they are convenient yet unhealthy for us all. Have we traded skills for convenience, traded quality over the needed time to prepare better food? With life being so busy for all of us, it is so easy to save a couple of hours by means of ready prepped, ready-made and our reliance on the supermarket for everything.

Don’t get me started on the supermarket cyber-attacks recently happening the length and breadth of the UK.

Would we be all out nibbling at the hedgerows if the system fractures or glitches for a time? Will we have an identification book on hand to make a hedgerow salad if the harvests are poor? There are numerous 'what ifs'.

Jam making, bread baking, fermenting, and supplementing everyday meals with wild foods should not just be a novel gift voucher experience for Christmas to redeem in the spring.

A wild food education is for life.

Simple enough in theory to roll out nationally, bringing with it gentle life skills that impact positively in areas including exercise, fresh air, connection to nature and weight loss/improved well-being.

I’ve even quit alcohol and smoking thanks to wild food learning as have many others. So it can impact positively addiction etc too.

It should be accessible learning for all of us in an ever-changing world.

It would I believe firmly save the NHS a few quid too with some investment.

Thankyou for reading.

Lizzy Mary-Jane Farmer

The fresh free foods I am eating this week 20/11/2025: Chickweed, three cornered leek, nettles, blewit mushrooms, snowy waxcaps, common sorrel, dock seed (added to bread, porridge etc).

This is not inclusive of my preserved wild foods larder goods.

I welcome please any conversation, comments, or observations on this subject. I am delivering a talk to the Public Health teams in West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire in January 2026 and would value any reflections from this briefing to inform and enrich those discussions.

Miss Lizzy Mary-Jane Farmer 

Wild Food Educator/Founder – Tellus Mater 

Email: tellus‑mater@hotmail.com 

Website: www.tellus‑mater.co.uk

Instagram: lizzy_maryjane_farmer

LinkedIn: Lizzy Mary-Jane Farmer | LinkedIn

Location: Northamptonshire, UK 

Credentials & Recognition:

• Bronze Award for Sustainable Business, Weetabix Food & Drink Awards 2025

• Delivered six‑week wild food and baking education programme funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund

• Founder, Tellus Mater — specialising in wild food education and community food resilience

• Featured in Country Living, Country & Town House, Sainsbury’s Magazine, and Eco Kids Planet Magazine, Great British Food Magazine, Slow Food UK.

• BA (Hons) History and Psychology, The Open University

• Certificate in Humanities