Roland and Agnete Bonney moved to Stobo Home Farm in 2021. Taking over a traditional sheep operation they immediately stopped using all fertilisers and herbicides.

The farm sits between 200 and 300 metres above sea level in a catchment that runs down to the Upper Tweed, just above Peebles, Scotland. A very sunny south facing farm, which can dry out quickly, they like rain. Spud, their expert shepherd says, “In Peeblesshire you need sun and rain every week, all weeks.”

Having taken the fertiliser out of the system the farm has gone through a period of reduced production. So they have been working with a reduced stocking level and bought in hay which Roland sees as an investment in two forms. One, as feed for the animals, two, as a form of fertiliser, buying nutrients from other people’s farms. This has allowed them to de-stress the farm system.

“We needed a bit of time to understand what the farm can do.” Roland.

Roland has had a long career focusing on how to improve animal welfare on farms. The wellbeing of his animals is an absolute priority to him and Spud. They are not

strictly doing regenerative grazing but are not set-stocking either. They work with the amount of grass available, and they keep sheep in family groups. This makes the sheep easier to handle being in groups of 30 and 60 ewes.

The system is best referred to as adaptive grazing across many small fields. In a normal year, the stock will cover around half the farm at any one time. Regenerative grazing requires moving sheep more often than they like. Roland feels it is a system better suited to cattle than sheep.

What really interests Roland is getting people interested in where their food comes from. With public footpaths through the land including the John Buchen Way, Roland hopes that people will take an interest in what they are doing.

“I farmed on the outskirts of Salisbury (previously), with dog walkers everywhere. As a farmer you can either end up with the public as your enemy or you get to know them, Then they can become your assistant shepherding team and customer base.”  Roland

One of the aims on the farm is to increase plant diversity. Stopping using fertilisers is the first step towards this and immediately saw the return of white clover in the swards. Clovers are nitrogen fixers which disappear where nitrogen fertiliser is used. As if the land knows that the natural nitrogen fixers are required once more, clover has returned across the farm.

“We inherit a set of assets here that are valuable, Spud, our stockman, the landscape, the wildlife, the parkland and all the trees. There’s a lot that doesn’t need fixing, so we want to take our time and take care of all that, before making too many changes. Spud had been chasing his tail night and day with large numbers of stock, he worked ludicrous hours with no holiday at all. In the end, you can’t carry on like that. So, my approach is to just calm everything right down. I wanted to set a different approach. I didn’t want it to be frantic all the time.” Roland

Stobo is a 920 acre traditional hill farm, with around 800 acres of farmable land. This is a very beautiful farm with lots of trees and parkland. It’s a magical kind of place. There are two burns (streams) that run through it, which are well wooded. One is a sea trout stream, the other, salmon. They have otters in the garden and nesting osprey: one pair on one of the lakes on the farm, and the other on the hill. They come back each year to nest and raise their young.

“The year before last the Hill osprey pair had triplets. Then they had their flight school right over the courtyard of the house, training the babies to fly. You’ve never heard such a racket. It’s hilarious and a real privilege to get to watch them so close.” Roland

Part of the property consists of a three and a half acres water garden, where otters are often found. Roland plans to put camera traps up so he can learn more about them.

There’s also a lot of wild deer on the farm too, including sika deer which are non-native but make great eating. So the deer are culled to keep their numbers under control and prevent the excessive tree damage that they can cause.

The landscape of the farm is made up of a mix of parkland, with many oaks, beech, copper beech, and many other specimen trees, including silver firs and sequoias, some of which are very old.

There are some permanent pastures, around 20%, and then the rest is land that has, or can be ploughed. Some areas have been reseeded. Roland is working with Peter Byck – one of Arizona State University and Carbon Cowboys. Peter stayed with Roland for a week in the summer of 2023. The Carbon Cowboy team, who are releasing a new series called Roots So Deep, have been working with the likes of Gabe Brown to understand carbon sequestration in different farming systems and different depth of soil. Sequestering carbon and increasing biodiversity on the farm is of real importance to Roland.

“We want plants to grow up and flower to provide food for insects, birds and biodiversity in general. But what we also need, is what’s going on underneath the surface. We know on old sheep pastures white clover and other species’ roots will go down three or four metres, even though there’s only a few inches of plant above the ground.”  Roland

Roland and Spud are going through a process of transitioning the farm to a closed flock. They are developing a core breeding flock of North Country Cheviots, which are a traditional border breed suited to this environment. The farm is full of sheltered belts and geographical reliefs, so the sheep are always able to keep out of the wild Scottish weather.

The herd currently consists of 1150 ewes, some of which are brought in for lambing to make lambing more manageable, but the majority lamb outside. Ewe’s with triplets are brought in to support their development and help out the mother.

Roland really likes sheep:

“Once you start to delight in them for what they are, you begin to realise how incredibly well adapted they are, but you have to take a step into their world and start to see through their eyes. Then you begin to realise how smart they are and how much information they’re capable of processing and how difficult we make their lives and we don’t have to. And that’s what I like. We were trimming some trees on the track when Spud suddenly came around the corner with the tups (male sheep). I said, do you want to come on past? He said, no, they know where they’re going. They just pottered past us, Spud knows he doesn’t need to follow them all the way to the field.”

Roland is considering bringing the whole flock in for a period in midwinter to give the farm a rest. Then they will be fed on hay before being turned back out.

All the sheep are finished on the farm and sold direct, impressive for a hill farm, where normally sheep are sold on to a low land farms to be fattened for market. But keeping the sheep on the farm is part of Roland’s ethos. Currently they sell the lamb to Morrisons and M&S and on the older ewes go to the market. Roland wants to build the mutton market because he thinks a more mature animal creates a more interesting meat. This requires a knowledgeable customer such as we find here at Primal Meats.

It is going to be really interesting to watch the progress Roland, Spud and Agnete make over time at Stobo Home Farm.

“The key thing is not to change too much too quickly, to just take our time. We’ve made huge progress already, I’m really pleased. The sheep look fantastic. I’m really proud of what Spud has done with the animals.” Roland

Roland and Agnete, after spending most of their lives in Southern England have finally realised their dream of moving to a farm in Scotland. Roland loves to work with sheep and has been lucky enough to find this fantastic farm to steward and build up a first class flock of sheep.

Roland was a founder member of FAI Farms who have done fantastic work over the years moving the farming industry to higher welfare standards and more recently regenerative systems. Roland is now executive chair of Agrolo, a group that focuses on land use for social and environmental security for the future of everyone. Roland is also a shareholder at Primal Meats.

Spud their shepherd is father to a young family and one of Stobo farm’s greatest assets.