Happy Back British Farming Day! Today we celebrate British Farmers and all they do to feed the nation with the highest quality produce, while taking care of our countryside and environment. However, this celebration does not end today, it is to be cherished every day of the year, as we sit down to enjoy delicious local produce. Here is a bit more about what we do…

As farmers, we take great pride in the crops we produce and working with nature to grow them sustainably. This year we are growing Soft Wheat, Winter Beans and Winter Barley, all of which will enter the food chain in a years time. We undertake many practices to ensure that we let nature take its course, whether that be variable rate spreading or timing the ploughing and drilling of our land to ensure minimal land exposure, therefore minimising gas release from the land in contact with oxygen. We have also started to incorporate cover cropping into our rotations on the farm. This is a great way of keeping the land covered, while adding nutrients back into the soil in a natural way through the plant themselves. This is a method we employed prior to planting the vineyard, where we planted rye (see article here). Click here for a quick explainer on cover cropping.

It is essential to us that we care for the ecosystems around the farm, to protect the environment, and with it our industry, for future generations. Farmers have been on the frontline of climate change for many years now. We work with the weather every day and have felt the effects of the changing climate very acutely, in a way which has been very problematic for our businesses. For example, the field where we have now planted the vineyard had been converted mainly on the basis that our traditional crops no longer grew here successfully. Soft, wet winters meant drilling (planting) our seeds with heavy machinery was impossible as we simply slid into the mud. Anything that we did manage to drill was then killed off by springs which were far hotter and dried than usual. As farmers, we are constantly looking for new ways to react to climate change in order to protect our crops, and with it, the nation’s food supply. In addition to some of the methods highlighted above, we also use solar energy to power our farm buildings and this year, we have planted special wildflower, bird cover and pollinator zones, to encourage bio-diversity across the farm.

As for our crops this year, some will go for human consumption and others will be fed to animals. Many crops now also go into energy production, another way which British farmers are trying to react to climate change and be increasingly self-sufficient. Our crops will most likely go for biscuits, brewing (beer), pearling (soup) and animal fodder. Even the stems of the crops, called the straw, will be used, either as organic matter to be ploughed back into the land, or as animal bedding to keep livestock warm in the winter.

The high quality and cleanliness of our farm produce is demonstrated by our Red Tractor accreditation. When you purchase a Red Tractor product, you can be assured that the produce and the farm from which it derives, has undergone serious testing, assessments and mountains of paperwork, in order to prove the quality of the product. A lot goes into our accreditation, but we feel it is what sets us apart from produce from further afield, as a mark of quality, local produce. Find out more about Red Tractor Standards here.

So next time you are shopping and see a red tractor or a British flag, think of the farmers behind it, and what they do for the nation.

Thank you for your support of British farmers and their produce. #backbritishfarming