Seize the potential of pasture-fed
Although there are challenges to be faced, the South West’s iconic suckler beef sector is ripe with opportunities. One of its leading champions, Jilly Greed, invited Athwenna Irons for a tour of her family farm in Devon to find out more
WHAT started as doubts for Jilly Greed while being made to watch regenerative agriculture videos online has developed into a system which is ticking all the right boxes and securing the future of her Devon farm.
A fourth generation arable and suckler beef producer, Jilly farms in partnership with her husband, Edwin, and son, George, over 600 acres on the river meadows on the Exe and Culm.
While only a stone’s throw from Exeter, Fortescue Farm is the definition of a rural idyll, with perhaps the only indication of its closeness to the city being the 10 small businesses who reside in the professional office spaces, based in the lovingly converted Victorian courtyard buildings.
This thriving diversification was the brainchild of University of Reading graduate George, 30, who has since returning home led a major transformation of the family business over the last six years, defined most notably by the decision to ditch the plough.
Inspired by the American regenerative farming pionner, Gabe Brown, min or no-till systems minimise soil disturbance and are claimed to sequester additional carbon over time, as organic matter increases and with it soil carbon levels.
Jilly, who is the first woman to farm at Fortescue having taken over the then tenancy from her father in 1999, explains: “George was really keen that we embrace this technology and science. We had to watch these YouTube videos of quite some length and it’s fair to say that we were a bit concerned about losing something like ploughing after this long - the mainstay of cultivation and such an engrained system of arable cropping.”
Only lightly cultivating their red Devon soils with the use of specialist equipment, grant supported by Devon County Council and LEADER funding, the no-ploughing policy is proving successful in lowering machinery costs, reducing damage to soil structure and delivering environmental benefits such as increased soil fauna and habitats for wildlife.
Jilly adds: “It has been one of the best things we’ve ever done in terms of soil health. We’re substantially reducing our inputs. The sustainability of a family farm this size is going to be quite challenging in the brave new world of the decline of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), so I’m glad that we’ve been able to modify and change. We’ve got a very clear business plan for the coming five years and our next step is to become organic regenerative.”
This nature-friendly system is further enhanced by the mob-grazing strategy in place for the family’s suckler beef herd, comprising a total of 250 cows, calves and youngstock kept in two main groups.
When we think of a ‘mob’, many of us conjure up images of a disorderly or riotous crowd, intent on causing trouble or violence. But in this instance, the bovine bunch of around 100 cows and calves which I am shown couldn’t be more at peace with their constantly rotating buffet and peaceful surroundings.
Mob grazing is defined as short duration, high density grazing with a longer than usual grass recovery period. The Greed’s herd, which largely consists of native Aberdeen Angus, Red Poll, South Devon and Blonde d’Aquitaine genetics, are moved twice a day to fresh grazing in two-acre electric fenced paddocks, sown with a deep-rooting and protein-rich herbal ley including chicor y , plantain, timothy, red and white clover to name
but a few.
As Jilly explains and the cattle duly demonstrate, they mimic the buffalo herds of the North American prairies by roaming through the ley, some with more of an excitable spring in their step than others. In those few hours, Jilly says they will “eat a third, leave a third and trample a third”, with all of the dung acting as a natural fertiliser and providing nutrients for the earthworms, dung beetles, soil fungi and bacteria. Crucially, the field is then left to recover for between 30 and 60 days.
“It’s a very kind, nature-friendly system. Admittedly it isn’t going
to be for everybody, but it does work for integrating the beef and the arable systems and getting more soil organic matter onto the fields,” she says.
“We’re in a Countryside Stewardship Mid-Tier agreement and have just gone into another on a much bigger scale, with winter bird food margins and some arable fields planted out into herbal leys. This is to build up our soil fertility over the next five years while we’re in this transition period from the BPS to Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme.”
Jilly, who co-founded the promotional group Ladies in Beef and Great British Beef Week in 2011 alongside Wiltshire farmer and current National Farmers’ Union (NFU) president Minette Batters, says mob grazing has led to hugely improved soil quality, healthier cattle, lower input costs and nature recovery.
Furthermore this regenerative grass-based system, together with the no-ploughing policy and an abundance of healthy hedgerows, acts as a huge carbon sink, countering methane emissions which have seen the livestock industry come under fire in recent times from documentaries such as BBC’s Meat: A Threat To Our Planet? and George Monbiot’s Apocalypse Cow: How Meat Killed The Planet.
Jilly adds: “We have the ability to grow grass the whole year-round and sequest large volumes of carbon, just by the fact that there are pastures either permanent or regenerative as we’re doing here. Clearly Exmoor, Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor, with their peat bogs, can also play their part as a sponge to download carbon from the atmosphere.
“There’s a big space for carbon sequestration - particularly here in the Westcountry - and there’s a big space for nature, we’ve seen that from going down this regenerative route. It’s an umbrella phrase, so just mob grazing in itself is regenerative. That’s why I think there is such real opportunity for grass-based suckler beef systems, particularly native breeds which are overtaking the continentals.”
And promoting suckler beef production, where calves stay with their mothers for up to eight months, is something which Jilly is hugely passionate about.
Since moving away from her marketing company One Voice Media, recently sold through a management buyout in its 30th year, Jilly has poured her drive and enthusiasm into co-launching the Suckler Beef Producers Association (SBPA) with Gloucestershire beef farmer David Barton and veterinary surgeon, LeeAnne Oliver.
Still in its infancy, the SBPA aims to achieve product differentiation, increase consumer awareness and develop supply chain partnerships which reward this ‘as nature intended’ method of producing high quality beef.
As Jilly explains, the British suckler beef herd is a dominant force in the supply of prime beef, occupying 55% of the market, with the remaining 45% coming from dairy beef. What’s more, our national suckler beef herd is the second largest in Europe after France.
But this “climate and nature friendly” production system, maximising milk and grass to produce nutritious beef that is rich in iron, minerals and vitamins such as B12, currently lacks the clearer branding and product differentiation it needs in order to generate the producer premiums deserved.
She adds: “Up until the mid 2000’s, there was a five pence premium for a suckler-bred animal. We really do need to promote the suckler beef system of beef production, otherwise its just ‘anonymous beef’.
“I think quite a lot of advantage is taken of suckler beef by the retailers, processors and abattoirs because they don’t want to differentiate. Beef is beef. Anonymous beef. It’s much easier in terms of packaging, throughput, numbers, everything. So there’s a real opportunity here to create a sustainable story.”
By their very nature pasture-based suckler systems, such as those in the South West, have the ability to capture and store large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, but Jilly says this needs to be backed up with specific emissions data. Among its priorities, the SBPA is in talks with the Farm Carbon Toolkit to develop a bespoke suckler carbon calculator for measuring and assessing carbon sequestration to the emerging GWP* (Global Warming Potential star) model.
It comes as several independent scientists have expressed concern that the currently accepted GWP 100 approach overstates the effect that methane emissions from herds of ruminant livestock have on global temperatures.
Jilly says: “Although for some farmers, ourselves included, filling it all in is quite a task, it’s a worthwhile exercise to do. A great statistic from Jonathan Smith, a director of the Farm Carbon Toolkit, to remember is that just a 0.1% increase in soil organic matter sequesters 8.9 tonnes of CO2 per hectare [soil bulk density of 1.4].”
Throughout her farming career, Jilly has never been one to shy away from change, however big or small, and with the transformation of British agricultural policy set to bring more of the same through until at least 2027, she hopes other farmers in the South West will share this mindset.
She says: “Things are changing very rapidly and the transition period is going to be bumpy. But I think there is real opportunity though and you have to approach it that way. If you’re going to say ‘we’re carrying on with what we’ve done before’ then I think it’s going to come as a brutal shock.
“It’s about being sustainable and reducing your inputs. Once the BPS goes, there is going to be a very big gap and farms will need alternative, stacking enterprises which can be integrated within the business.
“We have a countryside which is well looked after and a public who are now appreciating that, because they’ve been getting out there more and learning more. The Jeremy Clarkson [Clarkson’s Farm] factor is really bringing that home and it’s just how we make the most of that really good, warm feeling towards farming. By doing much more towards carbon sequestration and nature enhancement, we can take it to another level.”
Jilly concludes: “Am I hopeful for the future? Yes, I am. But we have to embrace change and see the opportunities. In the suckler sector, we need market development and that differentiation for climate friendly, grass-based beef. This is where the real opportunity lies, and also the challenge. But we’re up for it, as quite a lot of other beef-producing farmers are. We have to seize it and I think we are entering an era where pasture-produced beef, dairy and lamb has some serious potential. We just need the branding to unlock it!”
Visit the website www.sucklerbeefproducersassociation.com