Tag: farm

About the Rhiwlas

We are partnering with Flora and Richard the owners of this stunning farm near Bala in Wales.

Flora and Richard have been working with Caroline and the Wilderculture team to transition the farm to regenerative agriculture/Wilderculture and explore how to achieve ecological restoration through the use of hardy native livestock on their upland areas. The farm’s mountain ground of the farm includes a wide range of internationally important habitats including blanket bog, dry heath and wet heath.

The farming system.

The farm rears Welsh Black cattle and Welsh mountain sheep which are managed in an extensive and low input system. The farm is in the process of taking the next big step to becoming a truly sustainable production system that uses the livestock as a tool to sequester carbon, improve watersheds and restore biodiversity by transitioning to a combination of regenerative grazing and carefully planned conservation grazing on the mountain.

At Rhiwlas the mountain is run as an open grazing area with only a perimeter fence and no fences between several other farms. Currently, the sheep and a few cattle are managed in line with the prescriptions created to try to protect the feature habitats of the special area of conservation (SAC). The optimal stocking rate for each habitat is added together to dictate the number of livestock across the whole area. 

In Wilderculture we cover the importance of relative palatability and when designing grazing plans we group habitats in terms of palatability and forage production to help work out where grazers will spend most of the time and tend to overgraze if they are given the choice. 

Every grazing animal has a preference for certain species of plants which is commonly referred to as palatability. Palatability is however a complex concept and is not fixed, it can be influenced by learned behaviours, the current nutrient requirements of the animal and may change with the seasons or be influenced by complimentary nutritional offerings.

In reality, what appears to be happening at Rhiwlas is that the sheep spend too much time on the acid grassland and dry heath leading to overgrazing and a contraction of the area and species diversity of those habitats, and too little time on the blanket bog areas leading to under impact and an unfavourable condition. 

Overall this blanket management approach is leading to a loss of production for the farm and the decline of some very important and rare habitats. 

Working with Wilderculture, Flora and Richard are keen to understand more about the drivers behind the preferences of the livestock. 

In an exciting new project, Rhiwlas is one of the partners in the Partneriaeth Rhostir Gogledd Cymru/North Wales Moorland Partnership which has received EU funding under the RDP sustainable management scheme.

For over a year using a range of methods including satellite collars, camera traps and visual survey work we will be monitoring where the sheep and cattle – as well as wild grazers – spend most of their time grazing throughout the seasons. We hope to be able to start to build a picture of which habitats are being grazed preferentially and the percentage of time grazing livestock and wildlife spend on each habitat type. 

Creating this baseline is important and will help inform the development of grazing plans that can be more regenerative for upland habitat mosaics. 

We hope further research and trials will come of this initial piece of work and lead to the development of projects to teach active herding/shepherding skills along with the use of proactive complimentary nutrition as a tool for the regeneration of our uplands. 

Primal Meats are working with Rhiwlas to offer some of their 100% grass-fed meats to you as a way of supporting their transition to fully regenerative principles and practices.

About the Farm

The farm, based at Wytham in Oxfordshire, has recently won awards from the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group.

FAI Farms Oxford. Northfield Farm is a 1200 acre mixed livestock farm owned by Oxford University and managed by the team of FAI Farms Ltd. 

The farm has been certified organic since 2002 and has recently decided to take things to a new level by transitioning to regenerative agriculture.

In my capacity as a regenerative agriculture consultant, I have been working with Clare Hill and the farm team for the last couple of years to train and support in their transition.

The farming system.

The farm rears 90 cattle which are a cross between Saler, Aberdeen Angus and Stabiliser. The farm is transitioning to an outwintering system where there are areas of the farm that rest in late summer and ‘bank’ deferred forage for the animals to eat in winter. This approach reduces the amount of hay that needs to be cut and therefore saves money and fossil fuels as well as helps to pump more carbon into the soil from increasing the photosynthesis happening in the fields throughout the year. 

Outwintering allows cattle to behave more naturally and alleviates the potential disease and stress associated with housing cattle in a shed. The out wintering also saves the farm money in straw, the labour of feeding and mucking out and the environmental costs of storing and transporting manure. 

Listen to a podcast of Clare and myself talking about the farm transition.

The breeding program is focusing on breeding a ‘type’ that is a perfect fit for their unique regenerative system rather than focusing on a specific breed. This approach to breeding helps the farm select animals that are least likely to get sick and need intervention and is an important part of the proactive approach we take on regenerative farms. 

The farm also has a flock of three hundred crossbred breeding ewes once again selected for proactive health and management reasons to fit the new regenerative low input system. 

The farm includes a large area of species-rich meadows including SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) floodplain meadows. Hay from these meadows is strategically used in the outwintering bale grazing plan to add carbon to the soil and naturally transplant the wildflowers and supportive soil microbes to the less diverse areas of the farm. 

The farm is now PFLA approved and certified and the livestock have been on a 100% grass-fed diet for between 1-2 years. The products currently available from the farm can not yet be officially sold with the PFLA label as they are required to be born under the certification to do so.

About the Farm

The farm, based in Gloucestershire, has recently won awards from the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Glos Wildlife Trust and is a demonstration farm for Natural England.
The farm prides themselves on high welfare for all animals. They use rotational grazing, and the herd is moved daily. This ensures happy animals and healthy soils.

About the Team

The team is small but very hardworking! The farm pride themselves on being family-run and Ian, his wife Cathy and daughter Steph look after all aspects of the Farm and meat sales. Ian spends his time looking after the cows and calves. Each day Ian wanders the fields to check the cows and feed them hay in winter. In summer he moves the cows daily to get a fresh graze of the herbal leys (5 grasses, 5 legumes, 5 herbs) or the permanent pasture. Cathy and Steph market and sell the beef. The farm sells up to 400kg per month and still maintains a strong customer-focused business model. Their organisation and high-standards of packaging and labelling is why we love support them through their cow share initiatives.

About the Herd

Boyd Farms Organic Pedigree Hereford suckler herd are used specifically to manage 100 ha of Species-Rich Calcareous Grassland, created as part of a Higher Level Stewardship Scheme. The cows, calves, yearlings and two-year-olds are kept as a big family group and out-wintered on thin Cotswold Brash soils, supplemented only by late-cut hay from the wildflower meadows.

The calves are born on the farm and remain there for the whole of their lives. The herd is pedigree Hereford, Organic and Certified Pasture for Life.
The herd eat permanent pasture, herbal lays and hay and haylage from the farm. All of this is Organic. Calves remain with their mothers and wean themselves naturally. They have an organic, pedigree Hereford Bull on-site for all breeding. No AI is used.
The farm personally transports each animal to the local organic abattoir, which is a 40-minute drive away. The cattle remains calm to the end. The meat is all dry aged for 28 days, to ensure great flavour and no shrinkage of any cut.

Supporting Boyd Farm/ Nose to Tail Eating

This is a great opportunity to support a family farm who are managing their land regeneratively. You can support Ian, Cathy and Steph by trying one of their tasty cow shares. Cow shares are great because you are supporting nose to tail eating, ensuring no meat goes to waste and utilising your buying power to influence positives changes in farming.

The cow share is filled with high-quality, nutrient-rich meat which will help boost your health.

Packaging and Delivery

All meat is vacuum packed into manageable sizes. Labels on each packet include – Organic status, pasture for life certified mark, QR code for full trace-ability, the cows personal identification number and weight of packet. Orders are couriered out the same day for a next day delivery, which arrives before 5pm.
The delivery boxes are recycled cardboard, with sheep’s wool and food grade plastic insulation. Within this is a plastic bag holding the meat and ice packs.