PROGRESSIVE FARMING TRUST LIMITED

Registered charity 281276 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as EFRC, ELM FARM RESEARCH CENTRE ORGANIC ADVISORY SERVICE, THE ORGANIC RESEARCH CENTRE, THE ORGANIC RESEARCH CENTRE, ELM FARM

The Progressive Farming Trust is committed to developing sustainable land management and food production systems based on organic/ agroecological principles; fostering knowledge exchange and influencing public debate with sound evidence, to help meet human nutritional needs with safe, affordable, high quality food that enhances the natural environment and ensures the health and wellbeing of all.

Objects

3 OBJECTS3.1 THE CHARITY’S OBJECTS ARE SPECIFICALLY RESTRICTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION BY THE PROMOTION, ENCOURAGEMENT AND ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE OF, AND RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTS INTO AGRICULTURE, ORGANIC FARMING AND TECHNICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL SCIENCES AND APPROPRIATE OR INTERMEDIATE TECHNOLOGY WHETHER WITHIN THE UK OR OTHERWISE.3.2 NOTHING IN THE ARTICLES SHALL AUTHORISE AN APPLICATION OF THE PROPERTY OF THE CHARITY FOR PURPOSES WHICH ARE NOT CHARITABLE IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 7 OF THE CHARITIES AND TRUSTEE INVESTMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT 2005 AND/OR SECTION 2 OF THE CHARITIES ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 2008

Area of benefit: THE UNITED KINGDOM AND OVERSEAS

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: Education/training · Environment/conservation/heritage · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Milton Keynes, South East, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that unrestricted reserves fell to £377,751, a reduction of £199,563, due to low net contributions from Horizon Europe projects and challenges in securing statutory grants. Per the trustees' report, the charity entered into a post-balance sheet agreement to transfer its research operations to RSK ADAS Limited to improve financial sustainability, while focusing future efforts on the Agricology knowledge exchange platform.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Godfrey Wilson Limited. Discloses 5 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Campaigns and political activity policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• Investment
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures
• Volunteer management

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Corporate structure

• Registered company of the charity Companies House 01513190

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Lucy MacLennan — CEO (source)
• Honor Eldridge — Chair (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Company officers (Companies House)

Current officers of the charity’s own company per the Companies House register, cross-checked against the Charity Commission trustee list by name. A director not on the trustee list is usually a timing or naming difference between the two registers — check both records before drawing conclusions.

• BERGSETH, Brock James, Dr — director, appointed 27/03/2026on trustee list
• SKINNER, Nicholas Charles — director, appointed 27/03/2026on trustee list
• MILLER, David Timothy — director, appointed 12/02/2026on trustee list
• OULTON, Martin Alister — director, appointed 12/01/2026on trustee list
• BOLTON, Susannah Mary Lee, Dr — director, appointed 25/06/2025on trustee list
• HIRD, Victoria Louise — director, appointed 01/07/2024on trustee list
• ELDRIDGE, Honor May — director, appointed 16/06/2021on trustee list
• DWYER, Janet Caroline, Professor — director, appointed 16/06/2021on trustee list
• MACLENNAN, Lucy Caroline — secretary, appointed 03/02/2020

Official officers record.

Property (HM Land Registry)

2 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (2 freehold). All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/03/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~4.5 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.7 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (94% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 11.7% of total income — above the median for charities its size (5.3%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• BROCK JAMES BERGSETH
• DAVID TIMOTHY MILLER
• Dr Susannah Mary Lee Bolton
• HONOR MAY ELDRIDGE
• MARTIN ALISTER OULTON
• NICHOLAS CHARLES SKINNER
• Professor JANET CAROLINE DWYER
• Victoria Louise Hird

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Throughout England And Wales

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with REAL FARMING TRUST.

• REAL FARMING TRUST income £930k
• THE PROFOREST INITIATIVE income £2.6m
• SUSTAINABLE FOOD TRUST income £1.7m
• LAWES AGRICULTURAL TRUST income £2.9m
• FOOD MATTERS FOUNDATION income £303k
• GLENDALE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY income £162k

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.