Farmers get a bad press being blamed for river pollution (chemical fertilisers and pesticides and animal excrement), wildlife deserts in the countryside, again due to chemical use in lowlands, field enlargement, overgrazing on the hills and fells, mud on the roads from large tractor wheels and a high carbon footprint from meat production and chemical fertilisers. But farmers have been producing our food, doing what Government Policy and subsidy has encouraged them to do. Jill grew up on a farm but had no desire to go into farming herself. “It’s a long time since I had anything to do with the farming community so representing a rural ward, I felt it was time to get to grips with the issues facing farmers today. I’ve been trying to talk to a lot of people who farm.”
Getting started is always hard if you don’t have a family farm behind you, but right now lots of tenanted farms are being taken out of circulation because of easier profit to be made from rewilding and tree planting subsidies available, and land prices are very high. First generation farmers, Felix and Charlotte were lucky to stumble across kind landlords who are farming themselves and own several farms which are tenanted. Now they rent a house in Loweswater and land at Low Netherscales Farm in Embleton. They had been doing voluntary work on organic farms around the country, and going on agricultural courses, to gain the knowledge and skills they needed to set up their own farm. Not quite one year into their organic agricultural adventure, they will also be growing flowers for the local cut flower market. The environmental impact of flowers grown abroad (primarily Kenya) is huge, in terms of insecticide use, air miles and water use, as well as the potential for exploitative working conditions. Charlotte has worked as a florist so understands the cut flower market.
Felix and Charlotte face all kinds of hurdles including barn collapse in the storms, but they have big hopes including for a small farm shop where they can sell their produce direct to the customers.
Innovative schemes like profit-share or farm-share schemes are another way for beginners to get started. Way back in 2010, organic farmer David James set up a community orchard at Varnycrooks, Plumbland with help from Riversmeet, Cockermouth. People bought shares, which could be redeemed later for fruit, and helped plant and look after the trees. The trees were bought on larger rootstock, which is better for the soil and the fruiting, and were planted further apart than modern orchards to increase air flow to prevent scab infection without the use of chemicals. He also has sheep which graze under the trees, in the mob grazing method where are allowed in for two or three days four times a year, after which they are moved on to allow the grass to recover. The humming of the insects in the spring sunshine in the long grass and the fruit blossom is a joy.
David is also experimenting with perennial vegetables (rhubarb, artichokes, and asparagus) which he maintains are gentler on the environment, as are his annual vegetables which are grown with the no-dig method.
Grass-fed, organic beef cattle also grace his fields. If you’re going to eat red meat, this is the kind to seek out, no pelleted food is brought in from the amazon rainforest, there are no “ghost acres” (the acres used to grow animal feedstuff used by conventional farmers) involved in production.
Another couple doing innovative things is Peter Kerr and Michelle Hughes at Low Stanger Farm, Lorton with their organic veg-box scheme which has been running for 26 years. There are two hay meadows, and three orchard fields growing apples, pears, plums, damsons and cherries with a number of varieties of each species to help preserve a diverse gene pool. The vegetable fields are worked on a 7-year rotation, not the normal three, that domestic gardeners use. Salad crops are grown within two polytunnels but everything else is grown outside and stored in the ground. A fair amount of hedge laying and planting has been done with the help of the Countryside Stewardship scheme.
Nothing goes to waste, and not much is bought in. What can’t be sold, is fed to animals (a few cattle and sheep) and what can’t be fed to stock is composted.
Interestingly, working with the Rivers Trust and the Environment Agency, they enlarged breaches to the embankment which was put in in Victorian times to straighten the river Cocker which flows past the farm boundary. In times of heavy rainfall and high water levels this allows their hay meadows to flood, acting as floodplain should, to slow the flow and protect those downstream.
It was when milk prices crashed that Mark and Jenny Lee decided to do things differently. They had taken the family farm run on conventional lines - mechanised, high-input, feeding the Holstein cattle high energy rations and milking them three times a day – all about quantity of milk. They sold their herd and bought Friesian/Jersey crosses, then they had to change their type of grass and planted species rich herbal grasses which grow without the help of chemicals. Fertiliser has been reduced from 100 tonnes a year to zero. They have reduced field size first using electric fences and now by replanting hedges, so that the fields can be used for rotational grazing. By 2017 they had decided to go organic, the cattle are totally grass-fed, and their health and fertility have improved. The milk yield has dropped but the quality has improved. It is higher in taste and nutrients. As Mark pointed out: If you consider ghost acres, the yields are probably not that different.
When they couldn’t find a local buyer with an organic license to collect and sell the product they decided to make cheese and Torpenhow Cheese Farm was born. They now make 20 tonnes of cheese a year and have won numerous awards – the Brie known as Darling Howe won the Three Star Gold award in the Great Taste Awards and the Oak Smoked Cheddar recently won Gold at the World Cheeses Awards, to name but two.
Some of their extra milk was sold to Gelato Casa Bella for ice-cream making, and then Casa Bella moved to Park House Farm and became Three Hills Gelato, a premium ice-cream using traditional Italian recipes.
By introducing their Honesty Shop at the end of the lane where passers-by and Torpenhow residents can buy the products, they have fulfilled the third positive strand of the organic farming movement. Animal welfare and environmental benefit were given from the start, the community also benefit from a quality product available nearby.
The times they are a-changing. Many of the things that were thought weird and hippyish twenty years ago are gradually being incorporated into mainstream farming thinking and practice today, whether that’s more clover seed in the grass, a wind turbine or solar panels or heat recovery systems for milk cooling. There are still challenges ahead for farming, including the slashing of subsidies, but there are many farmers and growers in Bothel and Wharrels who are doing good things, and hopefully many more who will do in the future.
Cllr. Jill Perry
