Farming
Our farming operations cover around 400 hectares on owned and rented land within a 5-mile radius of our Hyde Farm site. Our soil is generally a naturally drained medium clay loam overlying gravel near the River Thames, and chalk in our other locations; average annual rainfall amounts to around 675mm but with seemingly increasingly erratic timings.
Apart from 20 hectares of grass and environmental plots, we grow all combinable crops of cereals, oilseeds and pulses for sale to end use destinations within a ~ 50 mile radius. All crops conform to the Assured Combinable Crops Scheme which concurs with our aims to produce high quality crops in a sustainable, traceable, and environmentally responsible manner.
Technology plays an increasingly important role and in recent years we have invested in GPS equipment to help guide machinery efficiently, allow variable applications of seed and fertiliser across individual fields, and to create soil, nutrient, and yield maps to aid management decisions.
We have been practicing regenerative agriculture methods for over a decade, with soil improvement at the heart of our rationale and focussed to:
- Stop annual disruption of the soil’s natural physical and biological processes
- Harness the soil’s natural structuring and nutrient cycling abilities
- Help mitigate increasingly erratic rainfall patterns
- Mobilise latent nutrition reserves
- Maintain ground cover for constant interception solar radiation
- Reduce fuel and wearing metal costs
- Create a regenerative system positioned to compete in the global marketplace