Meet our members: Tom and Mary Edmondson
Tom Edmondson farms beef, sheep, arable and chickens at Cranley Barn Farms, near Milton Keynes, with his wife Mary.
Tom began gradually taking over the running of the family farm in 2012, which was contract fattening pigs at the time and also had a contractor managing its arable land.
His move towards regenerative practices was partly driven by seeing good results from the use of a cover crop after he took control of the arable operation in 2015.
Beginning with an experiment
“The soil had been farmed chemically for years and it was grey and cold and horrid and it would grow blackgrass for fun,” says Tom.
“We were also getting things like mare's tail and lots of weeds that are restrictive to yield. For the first couple of years I threw all the inputs at it and didn't achieve very much in the way of yield or profit.
Farmer Tom Edmondson
“After a few years we tried a cover crop in one of the fields which was the worst for blackgrass and put in a four-way mix with phacelia, mustard, linseed and vetch. We let it grow, and it all went to flower and to seed and then we rolled it and it regrew.
“It had 18 months out of production and went from being a grey, sad, lifeless, wet mess, to showing signs of aggregation in the soil. It went from having no worms to having worms, which we hadn't really seen previously there.
“We grazed it with sheep the year after and then sprayed it off and put a spring crop of oats in.
“The phacelia and the buckwheat came back and we let them grow to almost flag leaf on the oats and then we sprayed them off. The oats kept on going and they looked stronger and healthier and it out-yielded the field next door.
“That was the start of it all really, experimenting and wondering what had made the difference.
“Was it 18 months out of rotation? Was it the sheep we put on there? Was it the fact it had a companion growing at the same time? I tried to pin it on one thing without really realising it was all of those things.
Changing to a more regenerative farming system
“This also came at a time when I was having a bit of a crisis of belief in the way I was farming and whether we should be using all the inputs we were.
“Should we be keeping thousands of pigs indoors on straw when, actually, we've got all this space we can do other things with?
“We had 2000 contract fattening pigs, 200 acres of arable and 100 acres of permanent pasture that was being grazed by somebody else. It was stocked pretty high. We were using all your normal commercial farming inputs, spraying off all the thistles and the nettles and applying normal nitrogen and potash and phosphate to grow silage crops.
“As a farmer you always need to manage animals within a system, but I came to realise that you can manage them in a way that is much more natural.
Longhorn cattle grazing at Cranley Barn Farms
“Over several years we’ve gradually changed our system so that we now have 15 Longhorn breeding cattle and all the followers, 40 sheep and followers, 350 laying hens and 200 acres of cereals with grazable SFI options included within that.
“I AMP (adaptive multi-paddock) graze the cattle outside for as long as I can and then bring them in in the winter depending on the conditions.
“We’re using grazable break crops within the rotation. So it's not going into grass, it's going into species mixes, which we're then grazing with the livestock. Then we'll go to two years of cereals and then back into a break again.
Saving money and cutting inputs
“The way we've been farming has helped get us off the input treadmill. We've massively reduced our input usage on the arable and also diesel and time.
“Since we started moving the animals every day as part of the AMP grazing, the use of chemicals on the grass has gone to zero and our input cost has changed dramatically. The ground has become much more resilient, much more able to cope with extremes in weather and still produce grass and carry the animals.
“Seven or eight years ago, if you'd suggested to me that I should have cows out in December I would think there's no way we could do that but now it’s possible.
Tom has been working hard to build sold health on the farm.
“Our livestock health has also become much better so we're spending very little on meds.
“We are starting to select for ease of birthing and we're choosing not to breed back from the ones we've assisted. I didn't have to assist any of the cows last year or the year before. Despite the odd outlying thing like an injury I haven't had to medicate the cows at all.
Increasing wildlife and biodiversity
“The changes that are happening are being driven by us selecting the way we farm to encourage soil biology, dung beetles, worms and all these other things that are able to improve the soil so it can work for us and produce the nutrients that we need to grow a palatable and good crop of grass.
“We’ve also seen more diversity of wildlife just by increasing the diversity of the sward. We’ve seen tawny owls, barn owls and little owls.
“Because we've increased the diversity of the sward, we've also increased the number of insects. If you come down in the early evening, the bats are diving around your head.
“You see the barn owls hunting when they're breeding. They fly along and all of a sudden they just fold up and drop in and they come up with something in their talons. It's so cool. That's my favourite time, just to stand and watch the birds in the evening.
A reputation for high quality, sustainable produce
“We started the farm shop five years ago and we’ve now got to the point where we sell all the meat we produce through the shop.
“People are just absolutely mad for the produce we sell. It really helped to drive our direction of change when we could see how much people were actively seeking us out.
“We've got a very dedicated cohort of customers who are very much connected with what we do. We bring them on farm walks, we talk about what we do, we share on social media. It has helped to build a very important level of trust between us and the customer.
“They're happy to come and buy their meat from us because they feel that it has a positive impact on the whole environment and us as a farming family.
“The vision for the future is more livestock and more trees. We can get a lot of benefits from putting trees in the right places, in the grassland and in the arable as well.
“I think doing what we're doing will help ensure we remain farming here for a very long time.
“We're a lot happier doing it like this. It's very satisfying to come out here and to see the cows and see them growing and to see all the calves coming through.
“We're seeing it right through from birth to death to happy customers who are pleased you've produced a sustainable product that helps sustain them and the environment around them.
Working with Regenerate Outcomes
“Everything that we do on farm already is beneficial for carbon and a big part of joining Regenerate Outcomes is that it will help prove that is what we’re doing.
“I really like the ability to call on the mentoring team from Regenerate Outcomes to help understand any problems we might have or any opportunities there could be to tweak our system slightly.
“One of the real benefits is that you are left to make your own decisions but you are steered as to what practices you could put in place for the greatest benefit.
“I can drop Kyle (my mentor) a text and show him a thing that I've seen, or a weed that I've found, or a particular problem I've got with my sheep. If he can't answer the question directly, then I'm getting answers directly from people like Allen Williams. So that's really a big selling point for me.”
Mentoring in soil health for profit and production
Regenerate Outcomes provides mentoring in soil health to help increase profits and improve crop and livestock performance.
We also provide soil carbon baselines and measurement to generate carbon credits which you can retain or sell for additional income.
All of our services are provided at no upfront cost.
Download our Programme Handbook to find out how we can work with you.