This month’s guest blog features a Q&A with Richard Allan, an organic livestock farmer from the Avon vale.
Richard has farmed his beef and dairy herd for 15 years on a mixture of traditional pasture and woodland, adjoining Semington Brook and the River Avon. He has always had a keen interest in creating a more sustainable farming system and has planted over 30,000 trees and hedge plants to create a hedged pasture system that he uses for rotational grazing.
Why did you become interested in the Bristol Avon Catchment Market?
We’ve been looking at how we fund the expansion of our landholding model and the BACM offers a really smart approach to supporting nature’s recovery on farmed land. Our ‘model’ is essentially a mix of regenerative and organic farming methods – in other words, farming alongside nature. For me that’s the most important thing; giving a bit of space back to nature.
What type of Nature-Based Project are you providing to the Market?
We’ve got a brook that’s become canalised by a ditch from the Semington Brook and we have been looking at returning it back to what it once was – a wild water space. Putting this marginal land into a Nature Based Project draws a disproportionate benefit for wildlife and biodiversity over its current value for farming.
We hope it will eventually contribute to a wider wetland habitat. With this pond mosaic project, we will also be planting a variety of native scrub and tree species with the possibility of supporting local beaver populations and contributing to a valuable ecosystem.
How easy was it to get your Nature-Based Project underway?
It’s been a very easy process! We had done a lot of thinking beforehand in regards with what our aims are with the land and so it all sort of fell into place.
The initial landholder webinars were really helpful to get an introduction to the BACM and the process has continued since. It’s been a case of drawing each element up but it has been easier than other land-based agreements. The difficult bit has been how to approach the project costing but even that has been fun to work through.
Would you recommend the Bristol Avon Catchment Market to your neighbouring farms?
I’d completely recommend it. There’s a competence, understanding and enthusiasm from the Project Development Team and when you put those things together, it works. I am completely complimentary about it; I think it will be a very slick operation in future years and am happy to be participating at this early stage.
What advice would you give other landholders about getting involved?
- Just do it! - you can spend the next ten years thinking about this or you can just do it.
- There are very few farms where you don’t have a spare corner to do it.
- It offers resilience and diversity to your farm and its income.
My advice would be to take the leap and jump; learn how it works, experiment with it and see how it works for you. This has been easier than other land-based agreements from what I have seen so far and the sensible approach to establishment and management guidance is refreshing.
To find out more about how landholders can benefit from the Bristol Avon Catchment Market see here