Ben Raskin

Head of Horticulture and Agroforestry

Ben can help individual members with horticultural and agroforestry technical, marketing, supply chain, and networking queries.

He also holds specialist knowledge and experience that includes Community Supported Agriculture, woodchip, and starting up new horticultural businesses.

Ben has been working in horticulture for more than 25 years and has been with the Soil Association since 2006.

Ben co-chairs the Defra Edibles Horticulture Roundtable, sits on the boards of the Organic Growers Alliance and Community Supported Agriculture Network UK, and on the committee of the Farm Woodland Forum.

His own experience includes; running a walled garden in Sussex supplying a Michelin starred restaurant, working for Garden Organic at their gardens in Kent.

Ben also set up and ran the 10-acre horticultural production at Daylesford Organic Farm, before moving to the Welsh College of Horticulture as commercial manager.

More recently he is project managing an agroforestry planting at Helen Browning’s farm in Wiltshire and has acted as Horticultural Advisor and Board Member for the Community Farm near Bristol.

Ben is also an author of gardening books for children and grownups.