Meet the farmers: Joe and Rachel Henry
Joe and Rachel Henry farm 300 acres with beef and sheep at Westhills Farm, near Rothbury, Northumberland.
They are first generation farmers, with Joe a farm vet by trade and Rachel a primary school teacher.
The couple moved to the area 20 years ago and began farming on a smallholding. They have been at Westhills for the last four years and have three children Patrick, Grace and Michael.
“Shortly after Foot and Mouth we went to New Zealand for a year and I worked as a vet over there and it was hugely illuminating to see farming in a subsidy-free system where there were no sheds and animals weren't being fed concentrate and there wasn’t much large machinery,” says Joe.
‘Using free energy from the sun’
"They were hugely focused on using free energy from the sun and turning that into milk or wool or meat without spending money. So no concentrated feed, minimal machinery and taking animals to the feed rather than feed to the animals. That had a big influence when we began farming back in the UK.
“We got our first two dairy calves for the price of a bottle of whisky. We taught them how to drink from a bucket rather than a teat and people told us they would die because we had nowhere to put them inside. But they didn’t. What we learned from that was that they can live outside and keep their condition.
“Our cows are all outwintered on deferred grass and then they get either hay or silage from January to April, although that can vary depending on the weather.
“The calves go on brassicas with lucerne silage from weaning from the beginning of November to the end of March. Lucerne silage is a real engine for our farm because we’re very dry and very sandy and stony. The lucerne was a game changer when we put that in. You get really high quality protein and plenty of it.
Joe during a Regenerate Outcomes farm walk at Westhills Farm.
“We make a quality high protein feed via a multicut system with lucerne and leave the bales in the brassica field and strip graze that through the winter.
“We have got to 0.65 to 0.7 of a kilo per day growth on those calves outside at 500 feet up in Northumberland and it’s done by somebody on a quad bike rather than a tractor.
“The mentorship Regenerate Outcomes are offering is extremely attractive, alongside the opportunity to baseline, monitor and monetise our soil carbon. ”
“I firmly believe animals should be kept outside. By keeping them outside the risk of pneumonia is much smaller. We've got 100% of our 45 cows in calf this year and all of those cows have got live calves. That's where the business model comes in. If you're getting calves and they're live calves the difference that makes to your balance sheet is greater than anything else.
“The mentorship Regenerate Outcomes are offering is extremely attractive, alongside the opportunity to baseline, monitor and monetise our soil carbon.
“If we can get a baseline of where our soil carbon is and then in a few years' time we can take it to market as carbon credits then that's fantastic. Fundamentally, we wouldn’t be able to do that without working with Regenerate Outcomes. There’s just not enough hours in the day.”
‘Really tasty, healthy meat’
“The starting point for us was to produce really nice food,” says Rachel.
“Number one was that we really wanted tasty, healthy meat. We chose the Hampshire Down breed of sheep initially, based on the fact they have the largest eye muscle of any native breed, which meant the chops would be bigger.
“Grass-fed was also an absolute given from the word go. Before we moved to Westhills we had no sheds and so we had to outwinter our cattle and our sheep. Nobody was really doing that at that time. Of course, the other factor was that we had to make money. Everything had to pay its way.
Understanding Ag’s Kyle Richardville at Westhills Farm
“Regenerative farming is a term that people use a lot now but that style of farming isn’t brand new by any means. It’s the way we’ve always farmed and our methods were probably just designed around what we wanted to do and we learned things along the way.
“I love the fact that what’s good for the environment is good for our stock and is also good for our bank balance at the same time.”
“We began doing rotational grazing because we knew we had to improve our grass and so we learned a lot about managing pasture.
“We looked around and saw that when our cattle were outside in winter there were a multitude of birds all around them and the birds are an indication of just how much life there is underneath the soil. They are what you see, but it’s a good indication that everything else is alive and kicking.
"I love the fact that what's good for the environment is good for our stock and is also good for our bank balance at the same time. If you look after one of them then you'll find the other two come as well. That's just brilliant. As soon as you know that, there's no turning back.”
Regenerate Outcomes helps farmers increase profitability by building healthy soil
Regenerate Outcomes offer expert, long-term, one-to-one mentoring from leading regenerative farmers.
We also baseline and monitor soil carbon and other environmental outcomes to create additional income for farms.
There’s no upfront cost to join and it is easy to leave at any time.
To find out more, please get in touch.