In this simple stew Isabella Palmer creates a delicious and sustaining meal from simple ingredients. Nutritious and nutty black barley grains are paired with sweet butternut squash and served with a bitter salad to balance the rich stew.

Isabella Palmer's buttery shortbread is made a little special with fragrant cardamom. Millet flour plays the role of more usual rice flour or cornflour for that melt-in-the-mouth texture - only with a nuttier flavour.

A diverse blend of grains, seeds and nuts bring varied textures to this festive granola. Cranberries and traditional winter spices add Christmas flavours. Jarred up, this granola makes a wonderful gift for friends and family.

These spiced jammy bars, topped with a crumble of oat and black barley flakes, are perfect for packed lunches, afternoon treats or served warm with ice cream as a delicious dessert.

When you buy the Kayapó's PI'Y Brazil nuts, you’re doing more than experiencing a (delicious!) taste of the Amazon rainforest. Each purchase has significant agency attached to it. It acts as a vote for a more just, sustainable system, contributing to the financial independence necessary for the Kayapó to continue their commitment to protecting the rainforest. We call it Solidarity Trade.

James Bucher grows carlin peas for us at Hall Farm in Knettishall on the Suffolk-Norfolk border as a mixed bi-crop and with no pesticides or synthetic fertiliser, one element in his transformation of the farm from intensive input-reliant production to working with the soil and nature.

Read the chapter on the history of beans from Pen Vogler's Stuffed: A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain. Now out in paperback, Stuffed tells the stories of the food and drink at the centre of social upheavals from prehistory to the present.

Barleybird is a community interest company founded by Hodmedod to build understanding of agroecology and work to change food systems.