“None of it was a well-thought-out plan”, Nick Viney explains from her farmyard on the edge of Dartmoor, on a sunny winter’s day. Since meeting Nick through friends at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, I’ve been eager to hear about Nick’s veterinary backstory, which paved the way to her fascinating journey into permaculture and regenerative agriculture.

Nick describes herself first and foremost as an artist, but she combines this with her unique and multifaceted role as a regenerative farmer and mentor, glamping host, independent consultant reimagining farms, landscapes and foodscapes, manager at Rewilding Coombeshead, director of Keep It Wild, and elected Councillor on West Devon Borough Council. In her words, her varied work “blends art, agriculture and Nature recovery”.

But Nick started her career as a veterinary nurse, so I started our conversation by asking how her veterinary training led her to become a leading voice in regenerative agriculture.

Veterinary beginnings

Nick left school at 16, without a sense of direction, and armed with “no useful career advice”. So, after a false-start studying business at college in Plymouth, she convinced her step-father to employ her at his veterinary practice, under a government-subsidised youth training scheme, YTS. Nick combined work with studying veterinary nursing at Bicton College of Agriculture, and found her niche in mixed practice.

“It was incredibly varied, from speying cats to caesaring cows – we were short-staffed so I got loads of responsibility. I couldn’t have thought of a more interesting, multi-faceted role. A role that kept us at the heart of the rural community.”

The veterinary practice grew, and with her step-father’s retirement came an opportunity for an employee buy-out, which she organised with another vet nurse and two veterinary surgeons.

Nick became a practice co-owner, but her “workaholic” tendencies began to take its toll. Running the practice with 3 young kids at home, the work was never done, and she found herself “working day and night, with no off-button”.

“I’m really good at setting things up, coming up with an idea, and putting good people in place - but I’m not the person to be running it day-to-day. I have a creative brain”.

Back to art

Our conversation turns to art, which has always been Nick’s passion and vocation. During her childhood, being an artist was “not considered to be a real job”, but she ensures this identity remains front and centre of her public profile. Nick tells me her work always draws on her creativity, helping her to craft unique messages through public engagement projects, for example as Artist In Residence at Groundswell 2022.

Art is also where Nick found solace when she eventually experienced burn-out in veterinary practice. Whilst looking for a ‘little lockup’ in France, Nick and her family bought a derelict farm, where she dedicated a much-needed year-out to her art work, growing food, and rearing livestock. Realising she needed to extend this time away from the practice for her wellbeing, she ended the year by parting ways with the business and ultimately stepping away from veterinary practice for good.

Range clearing on Dartmoor

Nick returned to the UK, and spent 20 years working as a ‘range clearer’ on Dartmoor. Riding on horseback with working dogs, she moved livestock for the military, keeping watch from lookout huts. This time was an awakening for Nick, leading to an evolving passion for Permaculture Design and Holistic management.

“I am obviously some sort of activist, and [being a range clearer] wasn’t a job where you could be an activist…I was looking at a highly degraded and actively degrading landscape, day in day out…It’s grazed by commoners with grazing rights and this post-industrial landscape continues to suffer."

“My interest was in growing at the time, I’d experiment with all kinds of techniques ….and then I discovered Permaculture.”

Permaculture and Holistic management

On discovering to the work of Bill Mollison, Nick recalls a 'penny drop' moment when she dived headfirst into the world of permaculture through a Permaculture Design Certificate course on Dartmoor. Its guiding principles perfectly aligned with her own evolving ethos around food production and the need to regenerate landscapes.

“When you haven’t been able to articulate something for so long….then the doors fly open.”

Permaculture paved the way to Nick’s education in Holistic management as a land management tool. The principles of planned grazing made perfect sense to Nick, and since then, she has been “obsessed with grazing livestock”.

Initially preoccupied by the damage she felt she had done with her own livestock, Nick’s grazing management became more experimental and ambitious. She challenged herself to see how fast she could affect positive change using her animals as ecosystem engineers.

“This land breathed a massive sigh of relief. When you see change like that – I first got walloped with guilt for previous mismanagement, then almost evangelical about trying to correct it.”

Over time, and the more she studied and connected with other practitioners, Nick reflects that she’s become ‘less dogmatic’ about one single methodology. She now deploys a hybrid approach with the knowledge she has amassed.

“I’ve never been round the farm the same twice – I move the animals differently, introduce the randomness you see in nature, and couple that with being very precise."

“It’s about animals in nature and our role as humans within these now incomplete ecosystems. For me in my context, it’s about observing an interaction between plants and animals – insects to large herbivores to trees to soil biology, and the interplay between all those things. And Water! How we – as stewards or guardians, then guide the behaviours of those animals to create symbiosis and regenerative systems.”

Amassing her knowledge, Nick is now one of the Founding Farmers of EARA, The European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture.

I come away from my conversation with Nick feeling incredibly excited to be able to share her unique story with the veterinary world. Although her career ultimately steered away from veterinary practice, I get the sense the experience was formative for Nick in her early career, and armed her with an acute understanding of her own limitations as well as her superpowers. Following her passion and listening to her own needs helped Nick to carve out her unique niche, blending art, grazing animals, and nature recovery.

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Thank you to Nick Viney for generously dedicating time to talk to Vet Sustain and share her story.

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Links

Explore Nick’s work further via her website – Nick Viney – Consultant Land Artist

Book to stay at Nick’s glamping site - Leewood GlampingRewilding Futures

Learn more about Permaculture – permaculture.org.uk

Discover Holistic Management – Savory Institute

Book UK Holistic Management courses – 3LM Savory Hub (reference Nick Viney)

European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture - EARA