Planton Farm

Clare Hill
Farm manager

Farm name
Planton Farm

Farm type
Mixed-Farm

Location
Shropshire, England

Farm size
32 hectares

Primary soil type
Medium clay loam

Temperature range
-5° – 28° degrees Celsius, USDA 8A

Average precipitation
780mm/year

Social structure
Farm business is registered as a company, which is owned by 3 shareholders in a partnership.

Sales channels
Eggs and some vegetables: sell directly to two outlets (local café and organic shop)

Beef & chicken: primal meat, operates as a platform – a shop-in-shop

Produce
Farm side: Pasture-raised regenerative beef, vegetables (tiny part), pasture-raised eggs and chicken (biggest),

Educational services (separate from the farm side)

Contact

Planton Farm‘s transition to regenerative farming

Climate Farmer since
2021

Previously organic

History

Clare was working in the food industry as an agricultural manager for supermarkets and national farmer unions. However, she missed the practical sides of food production
2012 she started farming, got some sheep, and got into some grazing patterns, and more and more into grass-fed integration
2014 they started a share farming contract with a landowner and scaled up the sheep herd
2017 she took over FAI farms (organic- but max productivity)
2019 they achieved a complete pasture-only management

Previous practices

Reducing inputs (mostly grass feed) until fully pasture feed only
Total mixed ration (TMR)
Grains are based in a winter diet
De-stocking the sheep
Organic rotation (once per season)
Overall, a rather static system

Investment costs

Water infrastructure: pipes, tank, barring the installation)
direct sales infrastructure: knowledge and storing of the meat
consideration of shade and shelter
Tree planting: time, energy for devaluating the land
destocking: issues with accounting: looked like a loose lost while reducing the stock, also systems had to get back to balance

New practices

Winter Grazing
❍ Rotational Grazing

Rotational Grazing
❍ Rotational Grazing

Challenges so far

Latter of the landlord “to not takeing care of the land” – as they stopped mowing the grass
Mindset of others/ society: Non-understanding of the outsides about their management decisions, receiving push backs on the grazing management while dealing with other people’s panic (OPP)

Outcomes so far

Measure with soil mentor, EOV, baseline carbon test (seeing in the future where it goes)
Ecological changes through the process: diversity of plant species and grasses in the pasture (ancient grasses)
- diversity of plant species and grasses in the pasture (ancient grasses)
- herbal ley option (SFI): clover, plantain
- diversity of birds: owls on the farm, buzzards, etc.

Learnings of your journey

Designing a regenerative system. Start with really taking a step back, consider the whole system, and ask yourself what it is about. What are your goals? What is your personal context? Making a plan of how you want your farm to look: how profitable do you want/need to be? Do you want your children involved? Do you want to have a holiday? Is it about full-time or how much time can you dedicate?

It is about designing a farming system around all those questions and considering them holistically. Afterwards, bring everyone needed on board.

“I got two children, 9 & 5, and I feel really scared about the future they will grow up into. I want to do as much as possible to help the world, through a way of growing food in a resilient way. I want them to learn how to do that, as survival skills might become more important than ever before. Hopefully that means also to provide a more secure space for everyone of their generation.”

— The reason why Planton Farm decided to become a training farm

Future ambitions

Showing that a small scale farm can be profitable, as a whole food system, as we are growing much food in terms of volume of nutrition

Prove that you can make a living from an 80-acre farm. 80 acres is huge and more than enough to make a living from!