This week Jez Fredenburgh talks to two more farmers about their regenerative journey and how they have gradually developed more mixed farm businesses based around natural processes – family farmer George Ford from North Somerset and farm manager Jake Freestone from Gloucestershire. George has transitioned his family’s intensive pig unit to a much more mixed business including a beef suckler herd, pasture-reared chickens, and soon-to-be pasture-reared Xmas turkeys. As manager of Overbury estates, Jake first started practicing min till over a decade ago, and has become well known for his work on soil health including long rotations, and companion cropping. He has more recently re-introduced livestock to the estate. They talk about what started their transition to more nature-based farming, how their businesses have changed as a result, and what they wished they’d known when they started. The chat also veers onto what Jake and George make of the current political climate in Westminster and what they’d like to see if PM Liz Truss ever had an epiphany about the need to support a transition to more agro-ecological farming practices.
