Sustainable Farming on Kingsclere Estates

We are a fairly traditional working farm but we work a little bit differently to most farms. Not only are we certified organic, but we practice regenerative agriculture. This means that the way we manage the farm is holistic - we don’t just look at what we want to produce on the farm, we view the land, animals and environment as a whole that needs to be managed together.  

Previously, we were farming arable crops, but we found that our yields weren’t increasing and it just wasn’t going to work in the long term. We changed our approach in autumn 2012 and switched to grass and bought 1500 sheep. We’ve continued to adapt our farming methods over the last few years and have worked hard to farm better – better for the soil, the animals and everyone we work with. 

By going back to mixed farming, planting herb-rich leys and rotating the animals on the fields rather than continuing solely with the arable, we’ve turned things around. We have multiple uses for the same ground, allowing the cows and sheep to graze the herby pasture, using their dung to fertilise the soil naturally and working with nature, rather than against it.  

We’re not just thinking about the land, soil and animals – we keen to have a positive social impact too. Over the last few years we’ve ensured that we have fewer members of staff, but more partners; allowing us to have more time to work on other projects and giving more opportunities to our partners to develop their own businesses.  

We’re proud of what we’re doing on the farm. We want our partners to have a positive experience working with us, our livestock to have the highest level of welfare standards (we’re sure they eat better than we do!) and we want our customers to have the best quality produce from us too. We’re also interest in talking to people about what we do and we want to make sure there are opportunities for people to learn from our farming methods and for us to learn too. If you have any questions, please get in touch!