Farms are used to change, there have seldom been long spells of stability in agriculture since the post war drive to increase yields. Crop and livestock breeding science, machinery innovations and a raft of new inputs including fertilisers, pesticides and livestock treatments were all rolled out to increase productivity per acre. 

But recently the rate of change has accelerated – we have left the EU, direct farm support payments are being cut to zero and input costs have gone through the roof as war in Europe returns once again.

This has put huge pressure on farming budgets and what was done last year may no longer be profitable in the future. Farms will need to look at their inputs very carefully, examine their systems and put in place long term plans.

Regenerative agriculture can supply many answers to support farmers away from using high rates of inputs and encourages thinking for the long term. It has a foundation in caring for the soil and has many similarities to farming organically. The aim is to be in harmony with nature and not to rail against it.

So, what does this mean to farming practice?

Soil is best if not disturbed too much and it likes to have contact with living roots; it also needs feeding with a supply of carbon such as from animal manures, composts, straw and green crops, such as mustards and clovers, grown solely to be returned to the soil. Well cared for healthy soils are able to cycle nutrients and make them available for the growing crop. This cuts down on the need to apply very expensive inorganic fertiliser.

Growing legumes such as clovers can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, making it available for a crop grown alongside the clover or for a following cash crop, reducing the need to purchase costly nitrogen.

A long crop rotation gives a good break before a pest has a host crop to feed on again and by including fertility building crops in the rotation such as grass breaks with legumes and herbs, soil health and fertility gets a big boost.

Semi-permanent wildflower margins and strips in a cash crop gives a home for crop pest enemies so they can roam out into the crop predating and parasitising the pests controlling their numbers in a natural manner; a low-cost alternative to insecticides.

Growing grasses, together with a mix of legumes and herbs, in a rotation provides many benefits to both the farm and wildlife. The clovers and legumes not only support pollinator insects, they also fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and provide very palatable and digestible livestock forage. Deep rooting plants such as red clover and chicory are drought tolerant, will open up the soil structure and seek out minerals from deep in the soil. If maintained for several years, they can help control arable weeds and improve soil structure and organic matter.

To utilise the grasses, herbs and legumes it is likely that cropping farms will require the return of livestock; a major change as they could well have lost their animals many years ago as farms simplified. The benefit to soil health by the return of livestock dung is great and grazing can prevent the arable weeds from seeding back into the sward, the livestock acting as living toppers. The lack of expertise to manage the livestock can be overcome by letting out the grazing to a neighbour or by employing roving flocks of sheep or herds of cattle.

If you would like to see all these practices put into action, the short film below presented by a sustainable farming systems advocate and farmer, David Wilson who works closely with his two sons Luke and Benj.

David talks about how there are no quick fixes in managing farmland regeneratively and indicates how much effort and thought has gone into a truly integrated farming system that delivers high quality food. The animal and crop production work together to reduce costs and to improve soil health.

The natural worming properties of the plants grown for the sheep grazing are referred to as anthelmintic and are a good example of using nature to help the farming system; internal worms in young lambs are a severe block on growth and health. This top quality forage (grazing) has removed the now typical practice in UK farms of feeding cereal grain-based rations to sheep to boost production. In fact, the only animals fed grains are the pigs but production from grazing is encouraged by using mixes of grasses, herbs and legumes.

Grazing the pigs on blocks of this grassland means they have regular fresh forage and also they leave their dung behind and any parasitic worms it may contain. The sows only have one crop of piglets each year, that is they farrow once a year, compared to the norm of two to three per year. This reduced output is countered by adding value to the pig sales by producing cured and dried meats or charcuterie that are to be marketed directly from the farm. Some fat or marbling in the meat is an essential part of producing high quality charcuterie.

You may be surprised to hear David’s comments in the film on the poor price farmers receive for wool and yet how expensive wool items and garments are to purchase by the consumer. Consider this in the Cotswolds where the production of wool was the base of its economy for hundreds of years only to decline together with the weaving trade with the rise of steam power and the industrial revolution in the north of England. The extensive areas of grassland that were required to support the large numbers of sheep have been much replaced by an arable cereal growing landscape.  

We have tried to represent the convictions and reasons that David holds that have led him to this remarkable approach to farming. To directly quote David the farm is worked to produce “healthy food from a healthy environment”.