Leasowe Farm is situated on the South East side of Radford Semele, just outside Leamington Spa, Warwickshire (see map).  The farm covers an area of about 145 acres, which, until recently, was divided into roughly half arable and half pastureland, and encompasses a stretch of the Grand Union Canal.  There is also an area of mature semi-ancient natural woodland (about 6 acres) and just before Christmas 2005, we planted up another 10-acre field with a new native woodland, with the help of a grant from the Forestry Commission and many hugely helpful local volunteers!  Tom’s family (the Ingalls) bought the farm in 1994 and have continued to manage it using conventional agriculture methods since then.  This has included growing crops such as wheat and field beans on the arable land and grazing sheep and cattle on the pastureland.

Although the Ingalls have generally adhered to conventional farming methods, they have also brought many conservation benefits to the farm since it came under their stewardship.  This has included, among other things: the digging of ponds; planting new hedges; bringing many of the existing hedges back into management (including laying some, and cutting others on a 3 year rotation); planting wild flower meadows; and entering into DEFRA’s Countryside Stewardship Scheme for things like leaving 6 metre field margins and beetle banks around the edges of arable fields.

As things are now…

We, Tom and Caz (Tom’s wife) Ingall, moved on to the farm 4 years ago and in the last year decided not only to make this our permanent home, but to also take on a partnership role in the running of the farm.  One of our strong stipulations if we were to stay, however, was that the farm took quite a radical shift in its agricultural practices.  This mainly meant that the farm had to change into an organic system and that we started to employ much more environmentally sensitive and sustainable methods of working the land.  As a result,  we are now well into our organic conversion period (2 years) with the Soil Association , and as such, will be fully certified organic  by 22 May 2008.

 
Pastureland:

Since the Ingalls took over Leasowe Farm, the pastureland side of the farm has been rented out to a local sheep and cattle farmer.  The agreement is that he keeps a number of his sheep and cattle on the land for up to 8 months a year, giving the land a rest from overgrazing for the remaining 4 months.  While this agreement works well, these animals are not managed organically, which means that, among other things, they are dipped, wormed, and generally looked after using non-organic methods.  During the summer months, the farmer also spreads a nitrogen fertiliser over the land to ensure 'better growth' of grass throughout drier periods.

It is really important that the grass in the pastureland is kept under control, and the obvious way for this to happen is for it to be grazed.  Ideally, we would love to have an organic flock/herd grazing this land.  However, we are not really at the stage  where we are prepared for this to happen.  Keeping animals on such a large scale is not something that we ourselves are really keen to take on, but the possibility of either renting the land out to an organic sheep or cattle farmer, or for someone with their own flock/herd to become more involved with the farm and graze the land with their animals are possibilities we are very willing to consider in the future.  As we do not know any organic farmers that would like to graze their animals on our land, however, our only option for now is to continue renting out the pastureland to the same local farmer with his non-organic livestock.

Soil Association organic standards state that non-organic animals can be grazed on certified organic land, but not for more than 120 days per year.  As this does not fit in with the amount of days that has been agreed with the farmer who rents the pastureland,  the only conclusion we can reach is that, as it stands, we would not yet convert the pastureland part of the farm to organic. 

Arable land:

It was positively decided last year that we are ready to take over management of the arable side of the farm.  We have a lot of interest in agro-forestry practices and have many ideas of what we would like to grow on the land in place of the conventional wheat and bean crops that have been grown here in recent times.  At the end of summer 2006, in order to build up the fertility of  the soil and start on the whole process of organic conversion, we sowed a rye grass/clover rich ley on the majority of the farm that was previously used for arable crops.  In order for us to adhere to high organic standards, this would ideally be left for 2 years (with regular topping or grazing).  After this we can grow what we like (to a degree!) and sell it on the market as ‘certified organic’.

Our main project for winter 2006-07 was to plant up a nut orchard, which we have now done on 5 acres of the land.  We're growing hazels, sweet chestnuts, walnuts, and heartnuts (a Japanese walnut), which we will hopefully be able to start cropping in a few years time.

As well as the nuts, we are also growing shiitake mushrooms on logs in our woodland, the first crop of which we hope to get in the next couple of months.  

Our aim is certainly to make both our nuts and mushrooms available for inclusion in the vegetable shares over the next few years.