But what is sus­tain­able farm­ing and why is it important?

• Cli­mate pos­i­tive farm­ing means grow­ing crops and rear­ing live­stock in a sus­tain­able, regen­er­a­tive way, so our nat­ur­al resources are replen­ished rather than depleted.
• More sus­tain­able, nature-based farm­ing is vital for help­ing max­imise the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of farm­land, so we can con­tin­ue to feed the expand­ing glob­al pop­u­la­tion. It is pre­dict­ed that, by 2030, the world will need to pro­duce 50% more food and ener­gy, togeth­er with 30% more avail­able fresh water, whilst still adapt­ing to cli­mate change (Bed­ding­ton 2011).

• Farm­ers can help com­bat cli­mate change through the imple­men­ta­tion of sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices, such as Inte­grat­ed Farm Man­age­ment (IFM), which is a holis­tic whole busi­ness approach that uses tech­nol­o­gy and tra­di­tion­al meth­ods to deliv­er pros­per­ous farm­ing that enrich­es the environment. 

LEAF Open Farm Sun­day sees farm­ers all around the coun­try open­ing their gates to show the pub­lic how they are help­ing the envi­ron­ment through sus­tain­able farm­ing. Below are exam­ples of some of the farms who are tak­ing part in LEAF Open Farm Sun­day this year. Find out more here: https://​farm​sun​day​.org

A .J and C. I Snell, South Here­ford­shire

Event: 11.00am on Sun­day 27^th June 2021 – there are lim­it­ed spaces, so pre-book­ing is essential.

Address: A.J & C.I Snell, Wind­mill Hill, Hare­wood End, Ross on Wye, Here­ford­shire, HR2 8JS

About the farm: As one of the UK’s lead­ing fresh and frozen fruit grow­ers, A .J and C. I Snell are based near Ross on Wye in South Here­ford­shire. The 450-acre farm pro­duces near­ly 1,300 tonnes of 

straw­ber­ries every year plus rasp­ber­ries, black­ber­ries, blue­ber­ries and red­cur­rants. A .J and C. I Snell, has been LEAF Mar­que cer­ti­fied since 2007 and is also a LEAF Demon­stra­tion Farm. 

Join Antho­ny Snell and his fam­i­ly for LEAF Open Farm Sun­day and see first-hand how they farm sus­tain­ably: ​“We grow organ­ic and con­ven­tion­al soft fruits and berries, which are high­ly per­ish­able, so they are sold in both fresh and frozen form to min­imise food waste. We’ve already achieved ​‘net zero’ sta­tus for green­house gas emis­sions on the farm by improv­ing pro­duc­tion effi­cien­cy – grow­ing more food with reduced inputs – while lock­ing up car­bon in the grass­land that cov­ers the farm. Our fruit is grown on soil-free coir sub­strate and the ​‘table­tops’ for fruit grow­ing are installed on uncul­ti­vat­ed grass­land. We are also deter­mined to dri­ve down our demand for water and ensure that our use of this key resource is sus­tain­able. We have achieved this by har­ness­ing the heavy rain­fall typ­i­cal of the west of Eng­land through rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing for use in crop irri­ga­tion dur­ing spells of dri­er weather.

“We have also installed a series of water stor­age lakes on the farm which means that we now have the capac­i­ty to col­lect the rain that falls on our land and poly­tun­nels. This water, which is col­lect­ed in the lakes and then cir­cu­lat­ed through the poly­tun­nels through­out the grow­ing sea­son, would oth­er­wise run off our land and down the val­ley, con­tribut­ing to flood­ing risks. It also means we don’t place addi­tion­al stress on water resources dur­ing the peak sum­mer season.”

Frog­mary Green Farm, Somerset

Event: 11am – 4pm on Sun­day 27^th June 2021

Address: Frog­mary Green Farm, West St, South Pether­ton, Som­er­set, TA13 5DJ

About the farm: Frog­mary Green Farm is a LEAF Demon­stra­tion Farm, show­cas­ing best prac­tice in sus­tain­able farm­ing. The 202-hectare farm is run by Nick and Claire Bragg. Frog­mary Green Farm is an arable farm with high envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards run­ning through­out the farm. Nick and Claire are almost self-suf­fi­cient in terms of elec­tric­i­ty and heat­ing on farm and across their diver­si­fi­ca­tion busi­ness­es after the imple­men­ta­tion of an anaer­o­bic digester. 95% of the heat­ing used on farm comes from their own sources, which means the need for tak­ing pow­er from the grid is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced, and the pow­er is com­ing from a sus­tain­able source. Join Nick and Claire for LEAF Open Farm Sun­day and see first-hand how they farm sus­tain­ably, along with trac­tors, farm machin­ery and ani­mals. Food and drink are also available.

Ghyll Bank Farm,Cumbria

Event: 11am – 3pm on 27^th June 2021 

Address: Ghyll Bank Farm, Rais­beck, Orton, Pen­rith, CA10 3SG

About the farm: Ghyll Bank is a mixed live­stock upland farm with native breed cat­tle, pigs and sheep. Run by hus­band and wife team Jen­ny and Lenny Bowes, the farm is com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able farm­ing and use no arti­fi­cial fer­tilis­ers. They also employ grass­land man­age­ment tech­niques to ensure they utilise graz­ing, sheep and cat­tle are total­ly grass fed and nev­er receive any addi­tion­al feed, and soya free feed is giv­en to the pigs. 

Jen­ny Bowes explains more: ​“We have under­tak­en a car­bon audit and are on our way to becom­ing car­bon neu­tral in the near future and we recy­cle all our farm waste. We also test sheep poo to reduce the amount of worm­ing med­i­cines we use and have reduced sheep num­bers to man­age them in a more nat­ur­al way. We are work­ing with the Lune Rivers Trust on flood mit­i­ga­tion projects and our farm is help­ing to slow the flow of water to the Riv­er Lune. Anoth­er way we are help­ing the envi­ron­ment is by restor­ing sev­er­al tra­di­tion­al hay mead­ows and plant­i­ng more trees and hedges. We have also plant­ed wild bird feed strips on the land to encour­age more birds and intro­duced sev­er­al bee hives.”

Join Ghyll Bank Farm on LEAF Open Farm Sun­day and meet their sheep, Belt­ed Gal­loway Cat­tle, Long­horn Cat­tle and native breed pigs. Activ­i­ties include sheep shear­ing demon­stra­tions, children’s activ­i­ties and fun com­pe­ti­tions for all the fam­i­ly. Vis­i­tors will be able to see sus­tain­able farm­ing in action, from restor­ing tra­di­tion­al hay mead­ows and sourc­ing soya free pig feed to reduc­ing car­bon and using no arti­fi­cial fertilisers. 

Treg­ul­las Farm,Cornwall

Event 12pm – 4pm on 20^th June – there are lim­it­ed spaces, so pre-book­ing is essential.

Address: Light House Road, The Lizard, Near Hel­ston, Corn­wall, TR12 7NL

About the farm: The most souther­ly farm in main­land UK at the Lizard Point, Treg­ul­las Farm in Corn­wall is part of the Lizard Nation­al Nature Reserve and SSSI (Site of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est) for wild flow­ers. A small herd of Dex­ter cat­tle graze the cliffs in win­ter where the rarest flow­ers grow. Cat­tle are selec­tive graz­ers and if man­aged well will keep the long grass down and allow the wild flow­ers to thrive. The farm is known for being in the loca­tion where the icon­ic chough returned to Corn­wall in 2001. Rona Amiss from Treg­ul­las Farm explains: ​“To help our thriv­ing chough and bird pop­u­la­tion we have cat­tle that graze all year. We use no per­sis­tent worm­ers which helps inver­te­brates in the soil to thrive and pro­vide ade­quate feed for the birds. By cut­ting silage late and grow­ing cere­al crops with reduced seed rates, we are able to give sky larks and ground nest­ing birds the oppor­tu­ni­ty to nest. We also use herbal leys and mixed crop­ping to improve our soils, as well as plant field mar­gins and trees to keep our streams clean and healthy.” 

Vis­i­tors are invit­ed to vis­it Treg­ul­las Farm for a com­mu­ni­ty event which includes fun children’s activ­i­ties includ­ing mak­ing seed bombs with local­ly grown wild flower seeds. There will also be sheep shear­ing demon­stra­tions, talks about nat­ur­al wool, self-guid­ed farm walks, guid­ed pond dip­ping, bee and pol­li­na­tor dis­plays, a BBQ, a local food­mar­ket and much more.

Hamp­ton Estate Farms, Farnham

Event: 10.30am – 3.30pm on 27^th June 2021

Address: The Estate Office, Elstead Rd, Seale, Farn­ham GU10 1JF

About the farm: The Hamp­ton Estate Farms form part of the Hamp­ton Estate, a tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­tur­al estate nestling on the south­ern side of the Hogs Back. They have a pedi­gree pas­ture fed beef herd and grow hops for region­al brew­eries through­out the UK. 

Bill Bid­dell from Hamp­ton Estate Farms explains how they farm sustainably: ​“As cer­ti­fied Pas­ture for Life pro­duc­ers, we rear our cows with a regen­er­a­tive ethos which ensures our soils sequester car­bon. Our hop gar­dens in Put­ten­ham are the last remain­ing com­mer­cial hop gar­dens in Sur­rey and we con­tin­ue to grow high qual­i­ty tra­di­tion­al Fug­gle hops using the lat­est prac­tices such as Inte­grat­ed Pest Management. 

“Our estate wood­lands extend to 1,170 acres and com­prise a mix of com­mer­cial conifer, chest­nut cop­pice and broadleaf plan­ta­tions. We active­ly man­age our wood­lands with­in a twen­ty-year long-term for­est plan agreed with the Forestry Com­mis­sion. We also aim to con­stant­ly increase our car­bon seques­tra­tion. As a bench­mark, we con­duct an annu­al car­bon audit across the entire estate which shows that that we have reached net zero emis­sions. Our exten­sive wood­land replant­i­ng, hedgerow cre­ation schemes and build­ing the soil organ­ic mat­ter in our pas­tures, ensure that we sequester more car­bon than we emit. 

“The estate’s elec­tric­i­ty is gen­er­at­ed from 100% renew­able sources, and we recy­cle all our agri­cul­tur­al and com­mer­cial waste. We have two wood­chip bio­mass boil­ers, which pro­vide heat and hot water for our com­mer­cial offices and res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties. We use wood­chip from the estate to fuel the boil­ers, cre­at­ing a cir­cu­lar econ­o­my. There is a vari­ety of bio­di­verse habi­tats around the estate that are derived from the geol­o­gy of the area. The estate’s valu­able habi­tats are home to many pri­or­i­ty species includ­ing impor­tant bird species; night­jar, nightin­gale, wood­lark, red kites and buzzards.”

Vis­it Hamp­ton Estate Farms for LEAF Open Farm Sun­day and find out more about its regen­er­a­tive approach to farm­ing. Meet their pas­ture-fed cows, explore the beau­ti­ful wood­land trail, watch the forestry demon­stra­tion, learn about sus­tain­able soil man­age­ment vis­it the chick­ens and goats, watch the birds, learn about a for­est school, plant a tree, run wild on the hay-bale play­ground, sit in a trac­tor! Home-made Pas­ture Fed Pic­nics will be avail­able to buy on the day and for enjoy­ing in the pic­nic pad­dock. Each pic­nic fea­tures Hamp­ton Estate salt beef and sausages and tasty treats from local producers. 

To find out more about LEAF Open Farm Sun­day and how to book on to an event, please vis­it: https://​farm​sun​day​.org

-Ends-

You can read the full press release here.