Sustainability

We stay up to date with recommendations by Defra, the Committee on Climate Change and the Sustainable Food Trust, and proactively try to implement these to continue to reduce our emissions.

 

The latest CCC report can be found here: 

https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Sector-summary-Agriculture-land-use-land-use-change-forestry.pdf)

​

Low-carbon farming practices

• We have replaced a lot of artificial fertiliser with organic fertiliser (digestate).

• All fertiliser is precision used

• The slurry and farmyard manure from the cattle is recycled as feedstock into an anaerobic digestion plant

• We feed our cattle as much homegrown produce as possible and are always looking at how to increase this further.

• We have implemented technology to help monitor livestock health

• We don't plough and we prevent soil compaction

• Genomic testing to improve the breeding in the dairy herd

• Increasing milking frequency to three times a day

• Precision feeding of the dairy cattle

• We have a crop rotation including beans, lucerne, cover crops and grass leys

​

Afforestation and agro-forestry

• We have a tree and hedge planting policy around the estate, with at least a few hundred trees planted every year and over 30,000 trees planted in the past 30 years. 

• We have tree plantations and a woodland management programme.

• We continue to identify areas with woodland potential, for future planting

• We're investigating planting the lower parts of our permanent grass banks used by cattle, to double benefit the livestock and enhance the land-use.

 

Bioenergy crops

Our break crops are all bioenergy crops

​

Agricultural productivity

• Improved grassland management to increase stocking density on permanent grasses

• Improved grassland management to increase silage yields

• Precision drilling, spraying and harvesting

​

Other

• We're looking to change / adapt our tractors and farmyard based machinery to be biogas powered

• We generate and use as much of our 'own' electricity as possible

• We capture rainwater from our sheds into large lagoons

• A majority of our fields have a 2m to 4m headland around the outside