Can you believe that the first month of 2024 is already over? Well, time flies when you are having fun, doesn’t it?
Speaking of which, The Story can promise you lots of great tasting beef and pork from our farm. As you know, you’re not just getting great food but also products that we believe is building a landscape that holds more biological diversity and more carbon. I made a promise or a new years resolution to become a better advocate for farming and therefore i’m trying to write more, be more social, meet more people and run better healthier lifestyle and businesses.
During this year we will dig a lot deeper, pardon the pun, into so many subject matters from the soil, farming, food and the health, nutritional benefits that i believe lie in the root of how the food you eat is produced.
With January bringing some aptly named weather after my mother in law, Storm Irene, she threw us some high flooding on the farm blocking us in the lane and filling the fields so deep we could paddle board with kids, which was great fun spotting wildlife, birds and even some rouge trout straight out of Chew Valley Lake.
The cows and most of the pigs are inside at the moment waiting for the ground conditions to improve so we can get pigs out to pasture and waiting for the cows to calve in March, they are all enjoying hay and silage and the pigs going mad for our home grown peas/ barley and vetch share bales.
We were really lucky to have a premier of the film we have followed so closely since its successful crowd funding campaign, Six inches of Soil, it was a throughoughly enjoyable night and a fascinating insite into 3 young farmers experience of their 1st year experiencing the trails and tribulations of life as a farmer, the challenges and the rewards laid bare for us to enjoy and realise that the raw emotions involved is hard to not be affected when so fully immersed in the joys of growing and producing food.
As anyone involved in farming knows, there are good years and there are bad years, whatever type of farmer you are. Often mother nature remains the most powerful and unpredictable force over which we have limited control. As our climate changes, and weather becomes noticeably more erratic, I believe firmly that the only way to develop resilience on our farms and in the food system, is through regenerative agriculture. This doesn’t mean it’s easy. Painting regenerative agriculture only in wonderful rose-tinted glasses does not help the next generation of farmers to make the transition. Yes there are rosy days – but we are also continually learning and exploring how the solve the challenges we face – combining farming with nature – not against it – with today’s scientific understanding. That is why I want to share my advocacy and experiences with an honest and open account of the experiences throughout the year ahead.
I truly believe that the right way to farm is to farm in a way that regenerates our soils and biodiversity, rather than destroying them, reduces pollution and limits and sequesters emissions. This is best for our farm, for our neighbours, and for all of us on this globe. We may be part of a small band of farmers currently, but the tide has started to turn. As the impacts of climate change accelerate and farmers see the very real effects of what the current farming model is doing to their own farming business, more farmers, more consumers, more policy makers, and research companies, and eventually food companies will join us. And with time (hopefully not too much time) regenerative farming will the predominant way of farming.
