Sustainable Farming

The farm has been a member of LEAF since 1993.

LEAF promote and support more sustainable farming to create a resilient food & farming system for future generations. LEAF is at the forefront of sustainable farming, working with farmers, food producers, scientists and consumers to inspire and enable sustainable farming that enriches the environment and engages local communities. Through the promotion of Integrated Farm Management, LEAF farmers take a whole farm approach, looking at all areas from crop & livestock production, to landscape & nature conservation, to community engagement and more.

Our crops are grown to LEAF Marque standards. The farm is a LEAF Demonstration farm, welcoming visiting groups to learn more about the sustainable principles that inspire us and our business.

More information can be found here

Crop Establishment

Sustainable practices are at the forefront of our mission to cultivate healthier crops and soils. Since 1998, instead of the plough we've embraced zero tillage and minimal cultivation techniques, incorporating cover, and catch crops into our planting strategies for both autumn and spring cropping. Our ongoing research is dedicated to discovering innovative biological solutions that reduce reliance on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, while also enhancing the efficiency of our machinery through smart farming technologies.

Carbon Neutral

We are leading the way, achieving carbon neutral certification by the United Nations since 2020. Our approach involves measuring, reducing, offsetting, and removing carbon from the environment.

As we continually assess our carbon footprint, we remain dedicated to reducing emissions, with the ultimate goal of becoming a net zero business.

Conservation

Since 1987, we have made significant contributions to environmental conservation by planting over 8,000 trees and 8 km of hedges. We have restored five field ponds established wildflower margins, and erected owl boxes, all to enhance diverse wildlife habitats for native plants, insects, birds, and other animals.

Collaborating with research partners, we monitor biodiversity on the farm to assess the positive impacts of our conservation strategies.

We maintain well-signposted public rights of way for people to enjoy.

Renewable Energy

Solar panels on our barn roofs harness the sun's energy to provide around a quarter of our electricity requirements. Purchased electricity is supplied from renewable sources. Rainwater is harvested saving thousands of litres of mains water used each year.

Carbon Farming

Through sustainable or regenerative farming, soil has the potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, increasing the soil organic matter and overall soil nutritional health, whilst reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. On one field which we have been monitoring, the soil organic matter has increased from 3.8% to 6.7% between 2002 and 2024.

Duncan was a partner of the AgricaptureCO₂ project to encourage farmers globally, to become part of the climate change solution.

Cover crop talk made it into the Farmers Weekly Our farm manager hosting BASE-UK on a cover crops visit. The morning was finished off with a fish and chip supper	Simtech APL480 Drilling into loosened ground 2026
Mist A misty valley view from one of our fields	Simtech APL480 The first field done with the new drill
CA Lime We applied granular gypsum to help with drainage on the farm	T7.225 and Terrano
T7.225 cultivating The first time we had the new tractor on the cultivator	sunrise harveting cutting the oil seed rape at 5am before it becomes too hot and dry.
sunset barley	Duncan wildflowers One of our many wild flower margins we have to support nature
Beans and Flowers We try not to leave any bare space so nature has no gaps, this is a bean crop with some oxide daisy up against them. This helps our beneficial insects maintain our crops	Bee Hive We have a local be keeper on our farm with hives situated in the best places
1960s Grove Farm Harvesting A blast from the past. Its always good to see how far farming has progressed over the years	Moleplough Here we have Robert mole ploughing one of the fields. To pay credit to Roberts skill as a operator this is being done without the aid of GPS technology.
Weetabix sign Since 2023 we have been suppling our local food producer, Weetabix, with wheat from out fields. We now work closely with them on their Pioneer Plus project to reduce the amount of carbon produced when growing the crop.	Stubble Harrow After combining we run a Stubble Harrow over the fields, this removes any light capping and mixes in any seeds or spilt grain so we can control them before the next crop is sown.
Wild bird mix Around the farm we grow cover crops to feed the wild birds throughout the winter, we rejuvenate these areas every spring so they have plentiful food for the next winter.	OSR crop One of our fields of oil seed rape which is destined for the Mellow Yellow factory
Daisy the bee Its always good to see our efforts are worth while.	Butterfly on OSR The oil seed crop is a very early flowering crop which provides a vital food source for insects in the late spring period before other food sources are available.
Oak and OSR This shows just how early the oil seed flowers, note the trees are yet to put out leaves	Grass margin We are starting to see some rare species coming into our wild margins.
Wild flowers	New hedge We have many age ranges of hedging around the farm and we can always find somewhere to plant some more.
PROW Throughout the farm on the public rights of way we have information signs telling you about the work we are doing for conservation.	Hedgehog Its really nice to see nature around the farm, especially beneficial species like this hedgehog.
Drilling Sowing a summer cover crop into freshly harvested wheat stubble	harvest barley We have our own combine which allows us to cut the crop when it is ripe, ready and ripe to protect the soil and reduce our storage costs.
Kubota GD Direct drilling oil seed rape. Its amazing how small a tractor you need when you don't move the soil	Butterfly on thistle
bee on phacelia A bumble bee on some established cover crop	Wildflowers
Wildflowers daisy	Wildflower There are rare orchids starting to flourish on the farm.
tree planting	Stuart A picture of our farm manager in the wild. Here Stuart is taking 1meter deep soil samples to assess our soil carbon
Wildflowers butterfly	Bottom Farm This is the entrance to our yard on a nice spring day
NDVI plan NDVI field map for vari-rate nitrogen application	snowy office Our offices in the winter