Sustainability Policy

Sustainability policy and Green Story!

We are passionate about our sustainability credentials as we reconnect people with nature by providing farm stays in the form of agritourism on our working farm. The ethos of our bothies is for guests to slow down, relax and rejuvenate. The wood fired stoves enforce a slower pace of life and encourage mindfulness while waiting for the kettle to boil surrounded by nature. Board games, reading, sketching and talking are what a stay at our bothies is all about -a complete screen detox! Each bothy is bespoke and designed and built by our family. The actual builds are based on agricultural materials to compliment the landscape with the majority of materials recycled reused and repurposed. All of our spaces are fully insulated to the highest specifications. One bothy has a solar panel and all have lots of candles for guests to create an atmosphere and reduce their use of electricity! We provide low energy light bulbs, environmentally friendly fire lighters, compost bins and recycling bins and directions where guests can recycle glass to help reduce landfill waste. We ourselves recycle all plastic, paper and carboard from packaging. We also reuse and recycle worn and tired bed linen and towels.

We are currently in the process of applying for our Green Tourism Award.

We are a mixed farm integrating arable crops with our breeding flock of ewes to enhance agricultural biodiversity. We grow barley for the local malt industry and we incorporate legumes into a multi species grass ley to maximise animal welfare, carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling.

We focus on growing and sourcing home grown feed and forage for our sheep to minimise our carbon footprint. We lamb our ewes in the middle of April, this is very much a family affair with our children hands on with the new borns! We strive to rear our lambs on grass which is why the diverse legume mix grass leys are of paramount importance.

Where possible we minimise cultivation and incorporate green cover crops to ensure permanent cover to build soil health and fertility. We sow wild flower strips to support natural pollination of spring crops and provide habitats for wildlife. We actively taking steps to support nature on the farm by aiming to plant trees and hedging when we can.

We are dedicated to increasing agricultural biodiversity, soil health and enhancing productive land use in synergy with wild spaces.

We feel a social responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint and have voluntarily undertaken a carbon audit of our farming enterprise. The result of this for the year ending 2020 was 1.61kg C02eper KG of output. We take a holistic approach while embracing technology to aid farm decision making and reduce unnecessary inputs.

There are always improvements to be made and we seek to review our processes regularly in order to embrace such improvements. We fully take responsibility as the custodians of our land and rural surrounding to protect and enhance it for future generations to enjoy!