An Organic Farm

News from Andrew Bragg the farmer

The Sale of the Milking Herd

Last year I decided to sell the dairy cows. This was a difficult decision. Dairy cows have been at West Town for most of the last 3 generations. The Dairy herd has been part of my life for the last 24 years. Some of those gorgeous cows have been almost friends. All of them have gone to good homes; many of those homes are organic ones and some very close by. But the herd as it was is no more. A few days before the cow sale we had an evening of poetry where a few of us wrote poems about what the cows and the sale meant for us. We read poems to the cows on the Sunday before the sale.

For more information and to read some of the poems written to mark this moment please click here.

The main reason for selling was economic. With supermarkets dominating the marketplace and the practice of using foods such as milk and bread as loss leaders in those shops small farmers such as myself do not stand a chance.

But the land at West Town will still be used for producing some food. There will be a small beef herd and I hope to do my own producing of actual beef. If anyone would like to have West Town Beef delivered to their door please be in touch .There will also be more cereals such as wheat, barley, oats and beans grown.

What does Organic Farming mean at West Town

Chemicals

The land has had no chemicals applied to it since 1990.Only, during the 3 decades before then, have chemicals been used on the land. These came in many forms. Here at the farm the main one was ‘artificial fertiliser’. This was usually manufactured in large chemical plants using vast amounts of energy. Herbicides were then used to control the weeds. Fungicides to control the diseases on the plants and pesticides to kill the pests.

Now the only input onto the land is compost made from the animals dung and straw from their bedding in the winter.

On this organic farm as with most others clover is grown. It is an essential ingredient to most organic farms today. It has a unique property of being able to ‘fix’ nitrogen from the atmosphere. This helps to build up the fertility of the soil. We then use a rotation of crops. By growing ‘grass/clover leys’ for a number of years, perhaps 4 years, the fertility of the soil is built up and then using that fertility to grow cereals (such as wheat or oats) or vegetable crops.

Antibiotics

Antibiotics, or any chemical treatments on animals on organic farms, are not used routinely. We do sometimes have to use antibiotics when an animal is sick and the vet is called. For minor ailments and those that I know as a farmer I can control I use homoeopathy.

Certification

The land and animals have been treated like this since 1990.We achieved full organic status in 1992. The farm is certified as organic by the Soil Association. We have an annual inspection. This usually takes a whole day where all the farm records, the accounts and land are checked by the inspector.

The Future

The land is almost back to what it was before chemicals were applied. Its fertility and its vitality are improving all the time. I had thought of taking the farm onto another higher level in fertility and production. This would be ‘Biodynamic Farming’. But this method needs many more people to work the land. I have had 2 years of experience with these methods on a farm in Scotland and they were truly memorable times. Hopefully as the number of people involved at West Town increases we may be able to go towards this more sociable and meaningful way of farming.

Ongoing wildlife surveys are showing steadily increasing levels of biodiversity. This is also due to the other schemes that the farm is involved in. OELS (Organic Entry Level Scheme) and the CSS(Countryside Stewardship Scheme).

The world that we live in is changing rapidly. The levels of damage to the environment and to biodiversity have been dramatic through ‘chemical farming’ and are still going on. I hope that what is happening at West Town and the actions that we take here can be part of ‘the solution’ rather than part of ‘the problem’.

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Visit the Soil Association for information about organic farming and lots more.

Find out about Countryside Stewardship at West Town Farm.