Where are we now?

Historically, our organic apples were tree ripened and marketed direct to major multiple retailers, organic box schemes and the wholesale markets. How things have changed.

A combination of Covid lockdowns, supermarket price wars, unhelpful exchange rates, increased wages and reduced availability of staff have not helped, but the above inflation increases in input costs (in particular energy, but also synthetic fertilisers) since 2022, have created a perfect storm to all but sweep away the small grower from the UK fruit producing arena. Added to this, our temperature and rainfall records maintained daily for almost thirty years indicate some disturbing trends; we are no more immune to climate change than anyone else and have seen mean annual temperatures rise by 1.5 degrees C and mean annual rainfall drop by more than 200 mm since 1995. Our strategy for the future must therefore adapt to take account of these general trends as well as the dramatically increased violence of individual weather events.

Since 2022 however, a glimmer of hope has shone on our farm in general and our organic fruit in particular. Environmental Stewardship payments from The Government Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) designed to replace the payments received from The EU via The Common Agricultural Policy have included help for organic tree fruit production. This has resulted in a slightly bizarre situation that has enabled us to make a living from growing the crop but not picking or marketing it; a novel and imaginative solution was required.

We now receive annual payments from DEFRA that recognise the importance of organically managed orchards and the environmental benefits such permanent crops deliver over and above the food value of the fruit crops themselves. Whether it is the Carbon sequestered by the trees and the permanent grassland beneath or the increase in invertebrates delivered by removing pesticides and allowing sheep to graze the orchards, the multiple benefits are plain; the economics however are more complicated.

The financial help from DEFRA is enough to produce the crop with a small margin, but the high harvesting and marketing costs combined with increasingly tight specifications and low sale prices realised mean that this help is not enough to enable us to afford to pick and market it; we have therefore entered into a partnership with London food charity, Felix. 

Felix provide and manage volunteers from companies wishing to contribute to the charity; the volunteers (1,008 from fifty companies over two months in autumn 2023) visit the farm and harvest our crop which is delivered to Felix’s four London depots and distributed via their network, free to those in food poverty.

The agreement that we have with DEFRA is due to run until harvest 2028; this should maintain and enhance the valuable orchard ecology whilst helping to feed those most in need. An added bonus is that by removing the need to comply with the multiple retailer’s arbitrary cosmetic and size specifications, 100% of the crop is now harvested and utilised (Felix have a budget to ‘juice’ any apples that are not suitable for fresh consumption) resulting in zero waste.

Under the same DEFRA scheme, the remainder of the farm is managed under strict specifications to deliver targeted improvements to soil health, biodiversity and air and water quality; we are paid accordingly. Grassland areas flooded throughout the winter are now managed specifically to attract, and provide overwintering sites for, waders and duck. Lapwing, Snipe and Teal abound and for the first time in over fifty years, we have recorded Lapwing chicks successfully reared on the farm. Skylark and Yellowhammer numbers have also rocketed

A critical aspect of this success is the year-round grassland management regime; a suite of measures are used which includes strategically grazing sheep to provide varying sward lengths and increased numbers of soil invertebrates. Initially, this was achieved using a flock owned by shepherd Kriss Woodhead and his wife Zoe ‘The Chief Shepherdess’ Colville, and was used all over the farm depending on the seasonal requirements of the different crops. Now Chris and Zoe, with whom we retain a close relationship, have a permanent home over in east Kent, Adam is starting to build a small breeding flock of Kent ewes of his own. This continues to work very well and is a truly symbiotic relationship as there is enough land here to provide whatever grazing Adam requires whenever it is needed without ever overstocking or prematurely revisiting fields at the same time enabling us to use these wonderful creatures to sensitively manage our land. 

Whilst on the subject of the benefits of livestock, another side-line introduced by Adam to ‘put a bit of pork on the table’ has turned out to deliver rather more than the expected sausages. In spring 2022, Adam bought three Tamworth piglets – two sows and a boar. The intention was to graze these and their offspring in the small areas of woodland on the farm and finish them off on the acorn pannage. These pigs are highly prized; rarely would pork of this quality be available commercially, but so successful have Adam and farm employee Duncan been with this enterprise that he has forged an ongoing supply relationship with Clapham pub, ‘The Pig’s Head’ which ensures the future financial viability of his small herd. The lambs produced by the union of the Kent ewes and the Hampshire Down ram they now have on the farm will also find their way to The Pig’s Head.

This piggy saga is a tale in itself, but suffice to say that these medieval forest pigs have been worth their weight in gold. Not only has Adam been paid a healthy premium for the pork, but we have also been able to use them both to regenerate woodland and to manage targeted grassland as part of the Turtledove habitat creation project that we host under the guidance of Kent Wildlife Trust and The RSPB.