Farming Clusters
We are part of the Martin Down Farmer Cluster – where we pool together our efforts to improve wildlife habitats on a landscape scale as the farmers that border the National Nature Reserve at Martin Down. We have an ‘open week’ in June each year where we open the farm to local schools and host an Open Farm Sunday event.
Our conservation policies are focussed on providing habitats that support pollinating insects; winter food for farmland birds and spring nesting cover for ground nesting birds. We have growing populations of corn bunting, yellow hammer, lapwing, native grey partridge and also turtle dove. Soils are vital as sink for sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and our min or no-till practices are designed to maximise the contribution we can make to society’s need to mitigate climate change.
Our crops end up as flour for biscuits and some bread-making; Carling and Carlsberg beer; animal feeds and our oilseeds will end up variously as cooking oil, bio-fuel to be blended with diesel or frying.