David Miller

David Miller

Wheatsheaf Farming is a joint venture contracting company owned by the farmers involved to give economies of scale. I manage the business – the total hectarage is around 700 hectares across 3 farms and the base for the operations is Folly Farm. Wheatsheaf is non-profit and charges the client farmers a hectarage fee to cover all fixed costs which is paid monthly.

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Paul & Nic Renison

“Our motivations for better grassland management are to be productive without the use of sprays and fertilisers, and to farm in an ecologically ‘right’ way – a regenerative way – so everything is getting better rather than worse…”

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Andy Dibben, head grower at Abbey Home Farm beside early season cooking apple Rev Wilks

Andy Dibben

“My approach for producing organic fruit and veg is a systems approach, so I don’t look at irrigation, pest control, planting and weeding separately… the system is set up as one whole organic system and trees are integral to this…”

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John at Shimpling Park

John Pawsey

“My aims are to leave the farm’s soil in a better condition than I received it, increase biodiversity and make a profit!…”

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Mark Lea

Mark Lea

Green Acres is an organic mixed arable and sheep farm that my wife Liz and I have been farming organically since 2000. We are certified organic with OF&G. The farm has generally been in a five-year rotation including clover based leys for silage or grazing, wheat, oats and peas, but this is changing with trials ongoing into direct drilling crops into clover living mulch understories. A small Hereford suckler herd was sold in 2021 leaving around 250 New Zealand Romney ewes. They are managed deliberately to compliment the arable side of the business.

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Mike Mallett

Mike Mallett

Mike Mallett is farm manager of Maple Farm Kelsale, a 138-hectare family farm situated 3 miles from the Suffolk coast. The farm converted to organic in 2004 and is mostly arable with some permanent pasture, large areas of woodland, some vegetables and fruit, and laying hens.

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Andy Howard - Bockhanger Farms Ltd

Andrew Howard

“My whole philosophy revolves around improving soil health, so we try to minimise practices that damage soils and use certain practices to increase soil health…”

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David and Ellis

David Thomas

David Thomas is farm manager for Riviera Produce Ltd, a LEAF Marque certified business, which farm over 6,500 acres in west Cornwall on managing director David Simmons’ family farm, and also work with 6 other local growers who collectively manage 1000 acres of crops. Riviera Produce Ltd supply many of the UK’s leading supermarket chains…

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Wendy Seel

…They are “organic, grown with nature, small scale and local.” The vegetable cropping is just under 10 acres and is part of a larger 130 acre farm – 50 acres are young mixed native woodland, 5 are unharvested crops for winter birds, and the remainder are grass (grazing for both cattle and sheep, hay and silage) and cereals…

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George Young (farmingGeorge)

“Fobbing Farm is a 1,200 acre (485 hectare) zero tillage and zero insecticide arable and livestock farm in south Essex… My main goals in farming are two-fold: farming with nature as much as I possibly can, and achieving as diverse a range of nutritional diversity on the farm as possible…”

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Standing in a field margin of oxeye daisies bordering a field of wheat

Callum Weir

Wimpole Home Farm is an organic 589 hectare (1,419 acre) mixed livestock and arable farm near Cambridge. It is part of the National Trust’s 2,500 acre Wimpole Estate, and is the only lowland farm run in-hand by the National Trust.

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Julian Gold. Photo: Cotswold Seeds

Julian Gold

Julian Gold is farm manager of 800 hectares of Hendred Estate in Oxfordshire on the edge of the Berkshire Downs. He talks about how he transitioned from “the industrial bandwagon” of piling inputs into crops, lots of fertilisers, lots of chemicals, and being part of the problem, to being part of the solution – and farming in a way that is less harmful to the environment and biodiversity…

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Chris Jones

Chris Jones

“We were founder members of the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association and the ORFC. We’re very interested in expanding our knowledge and finding out what we can do better and with the same amount of land hopefully continue producing more and better food but at the same time fixing more carbon for a longer time as well…”

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Andy Barr

Andy Barr

The realisation that they were using more and more pesticides, herbicides and fungicides on the farm and essentially getting less effect from them has driven Andy’s long-term goal of sustainability and reduced reliance on non-renewable resources (along with a deep concern about the decline in insects and biodiversity).

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Dan Bussey

“We are working towards a regenerative agriculture model, restoring soil that was becoming less and less fertile and having symptoms of poor health such as blackgrass, low worm counts, poor soil structure, low soil organic matter, soil erosion and poor drainage.”

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Ashton Hawker

We are a mixed farm set across 1600 acres of Cotswold Brash, the stony, thin and relatively heavy soils that run through Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and beyond. The farm is at roughly 350 m with an average rainfall of 28 inches. The main operation of the farm is dairy and beef production; we keep around 400 […]

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John and Paul3

John and Paul Cherry

We having been farming the land at Weston for 34 years and have moved from a plough and press system to max till, to min till. Then in 2010 we made the decision to drop cultivations altogether and go no-till. It became apparent that the best way to learn about no-till (or conservation agriculture) was […]

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Ian Wilkinson

Ian Wilkinson

Cotswold Seeds purchased the farm in 2013 with aim of developing it as a centre for farming diversity, demonstrating how small family farms can use sustainable farming practices whilst maintaining a respectable income. The single most important factor in achieving this goal is improving and maintaining soil quality.   We’re experimenting and trialling different methods […]

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Richard Suddes

The farm is based at the village of Cornsay near Consett in Co. Durham. The altitude, weather and soil type on the farm are all challenges! It is a mixed arable and beef farm with a 120-cow pedigree limousin enterprise. I manage the farm with my brother Karl (who manages the beef enterprise) and in […]

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Jake Freestone

Overbury Farms is an integrated part of Overbury Enterprises which has been in the same family for over 250 years. It is a mixed farm that produces a range of crops including wheat, barley, oilseed rape (OSR), pease, linseed and soya beans. We also let out certain areas of our farm to specialist growers who […]

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Jez Taylor

The market garden at Daylesford is placed on a gentle, south-facing slope with 6 polytunnels and is located adjacent to the main restaurant/shop/farm complex; a 20 acre field at the heart of the Daylesford Estate. The garden is divided by 10 m fruit tree lined grass avenues forming a grid of land blocks in which the […]

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Richard Gantlett

Richard Gantlett

Richard farms beef cattle and cereals biodynamically at Yatesbury House Farm, on the Wiltshire downs near Avebury. In a series of videos, he describes his farming approach and practices being implemented at Yatesbury, all of which focus on the importance of nurturing, and the interrelationship of, the health of the soil, cows, crops and people. […]

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John Renner

John Renner

We are lucky enough to farm on the border of the spectacular Northumberland National Park, between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Alnwick. North Bellshill and Amerside Hill are mixed farms together extending to 202 hectares (500 acres). We have an expanding herd of Aberdeen Angus suckler cows, and an expanding flock of Texel and Suffolk cross ewes. We […]

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Charles Dowding

Charles Dowding

The main output from Homeacres is salad bags, which contain washed and mixed leaves of many flavours, which vary with the seasons. I sell over a tonne every year to local restaurants and shops, and I also sell 5 boxes weekly from June to December. The polytunnel and greenhouse are used for protected crops, while […]

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