Category: Blogs

Calling Carmarthenshire growers and farmers who are interested in: setting up and running land-based stacked enterprises; integrated pest management and agroecology. Bwyd Sir Gâr Food have eight fully funded places on this day long farm walk and study trip at Abbey Home Farm, on Wednesday 2nd October 2024.

Will and Hilary Chester-Master took over the management of the farm in 1990 and set about establishing an organic system of farming from day one. They are both totally committed to organic practices and are striving to make Abbey Home Farm a truly sustainable place, both environmentally and financially.

Key points:

They run an organic farm shop and café on site. Their 650-hectare farm comprises of:

Cereals – 300ha – spelt, oats, winter wheat, spring barley, triticale, whole crop silage (barley, beans and vetch)
Veg, soft fruit, flowers and herbs – 93 crop lines with an intensive market garden, field scale, glasshouse, polytunnels, orchard, and lots of cover crops.
Dairy – 40 cows
Beef – 20 cows
Sheep – closed flock of 500 Lleyn and Lleyn Cross ewes
Pigs – Hampshire x Landrace and Glos Old Spot breeding sows, 2 boars & their progeny
Poultry – egg production (350 hens) and meat birds (4 flocks of 170 birds)

Milk and poultry processing on-site

Conservation:

OELS/HLS Environmental Stewardship Agreement

Bird habitats and feed sources, beetle banks, pond restoration and management, permanent headland margins
Preservation of archaeological features, enhanced hedgerow management
Management of SSSI Jurassic limestone to conserve wild flowers and grasses
4,500 m of hedgerows established since 1998
Cotswold dry stone wall restoration

Find out more at https://www.theorganicfarmshop.co.uk/ and https://agricology.co.uk/farmer-profiles/andy-dibben/

Transport will be available from Carmarthen Town at 7am returning on the same day ETA 6.00pm.

Please note, this trip is funded by a county specific UK Government Shared Prosperity grant ‘Food System Development Project for Carmarthenshire’. It is aimed at primary producers within Carmarthenshire or those wishing to supply into existing or emerging markets in the county.

To apply for a space please complete this form by the 23rd of September.

Bremenda Isaf has been a farm for a long time, but that hasn’t stopped it being a home to everything from otters to buzzards, and lichen to dormice. Farming and nature have co-evolved in Wales over millennia, and this farm contains homes for this array of wildlife – from the shingle banks of the Tywi to the marshy fields of the hills behind and the ancient hedgerows.

Species rich

The waters of the Tywi are famed for their populations of sewin and salmon, with birds such as moor hen, coots and the nationally rare little-ringed plover also plentiful along its riverbanks. The river itself and its associated shingle beaches, ox-bow lakes, etc. support a rich biodiversity both in and out of the water: the over-wintering birds make for an impressive soundscape. The Tywi valley is also home to 75% of the entire Welsh population of tree sparrows – so when you visit the site, keep your eyes peeled!

Inland from the river you might see dormice and rare fungi growing in the damp pastures, as well as whorled caraway – Carmarthenshire’s county flower. The old, solitary oak trees that stand guard along sections of the farm’s hedgerows are also important habitats for lichen, insects and birds.

Changes

We know from memories and older records of this area that many species formerly present have now been lost or become scare. Some of these are huge losses – the now endangered corncrake with its raucous notes used to be a familiar sound in this area. Other birds that are now rare in this region, including the kingfisher, kestrel and snipe, used to be common enough locally for children to collect their eggs.

Many of these birds have suffered from the decline in insects (to eat) and in suitable areas to nest and raise their young – all of which have suffered from the huge changes in farming over the past seventy years. In a landscape that used to have a patchwork of uses – growing wheat and barley, apple orchards, hay meadows and pasture – there now tends to be only one dominant crop, namely grass. Now, as the land is returned to organic, regenerative food production, hopefully new species will find a home here alongside farming.