
Patrick Holden, CBE
Founder & CEO, Sustainable Food Trust
atrick Holden is the founder and CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, whose mission is to work internationally to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable food and farming systems.
Between 1995 and 2010, he was Director of the Soil Association, the UK organic advocacy and certification organisation, where he played a leading role in developing the organic standards and market.
He currently leads a task force on measuring land use sustainability for the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), established by the then Prince of Wales in 2020.
Patrick trained in Biodynamic farming at Emerson College and has farmed for over 50 years on a 300-acre mixed organic dairy holding, now the longest established organic dairy farm in Wales, producing a raw milk cheddar from the milk of 85 Ayrshire cows.
He received a CBE for services to organic farming in 2005 and is Patron of the UK Bio-dynamic Agriculture Association. He became an Ashoka Fellow in 2016 and was awarded an honorary doctorate for his international work in sustainable agriculture by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David in 2022.