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Potatoes 

Farming Little Britain  

Farming Little Britain

Hereford grower Stuart Hutchings describes his farming system as integrated but there's a lot more to it than thinking twice before reaching for the spray can he says.

Close to the Welsh border at Leinthall Earls near Leominster Stuart manages a 900 ha mixed farm, which he describes as a microcosm of Britain. "It's 40% pasture, 20% woodland and 40% arable on land ranging from 130m to 300m above sea level. We run 240 suckler cows, 1,000 ewes and an arable rotation including 80ha of potatoes." Varieties grown are Claret, Estima and Orla, all for pre-pack.

The potato enterprise has been built up since 2002 in reaction to low cereal and beef prices and he says is integrated in the sense that it has enabled the farm to make best use of its core resources; land, labour, machinery and capital. "It's filled the previous workload gaps to sustain a full time staff of seven. We could have gone the other way and run the place like a ranch but that wouldn't have done much for local employment."

Topography is the main challenge Stuart faces in growing potatoes. All the fields are sloping and exposed to erosion risk so soil management - a core principle of integration - is a priority he says. Two tactics he's found to be successful are deep cultivation of headlands at the bottom of slopes to create buffer strips and careful location of gateways. "Even with 500mm of rain from May to July last year soil only got washed out of a field once."

The farm's plentiful supply of farmyard manure makes a valuable contribution to soil management too. "Although we have good silt and silt clay soils drainage can be a problem. All our potato land gets 40 t/ha of cattle manure and it really helps the structure and to retain moisture. It's a good practical alternative to irrigation and as we feed the stock with home-grown grain we retain nutrients on the farm."
Getting the local community involved with the farm and stewarding its landscape and wildlife are just as important to integrated farm management as the way day-to-day management decisions are made though he stresses. The farm has just come to the end of two Countryside Stewardship schemes and is two years in to an Entry Level Scheme.

Management of the farm's habitats goes a lot further than what's required to tick ELS boxes though. The alder trees that grow along the banks of the farm's brook are nurtured and coppiced so dormice can link up with other populations. And on the higher permanent pasture the bracken is actively managed to support a rare butterfly - the High Brown Fritillary - whose caterpillars live on violets.  

Stuart is clearly committed to the educational value of farm visits for school children and has just gained the CEVAS (the Countryside Educational Visits Accreditation Scheme) qualification, which helps with the structuring of farm visits and integrating them into the curriculum.

"It can be difficult convincing teachers of the value but once you get them out on the farm the penny drops. Last autumn we had three groups of 30 Year Seven children and it's great to see the buzz they get out of being on the farm and getting to understand it."

Looking to the future Stuart also sees the opportunity for commercial gain from the integrated approach. "It's very difficult for us to compete just on lowest price - we've got a lot or physical challenges. What I want to market is the whole sustainable ecosystem that customers are buying into when they choose our potatoes."