OUR ENVIRONMENT
-Dedicated to better-
Through our farming practices we are continually looking to improve our methods to ensure we are having a positive impact on our environment both for nature and the livestock that live on our farm. We focus on working with natural cycles to find a harmony with nature that allows our business to thrive and our natural environment to flourish.
It starts at home – as a farm food lies at the heart of everything we do, our aim as a small family run farm is to create great tasting nutritious food, that is grown slowly in tune with nature, benefitting our customers and our local environment. We strive to sell all of our produce locally, directly to customers and independent restaurants in order to keep food miles as low as possible.
SOIL ASSOCIATION
ORGANIC CERTIFICATION
We are currently under organic conversion with the Soil Association. Running our farm organically is important to us, it means we never use chemicals or artificial fertilisers on our ground, instead we promote soil health and plant biodiversity and use rotational grazing systems to naturally produce everything we need for our animals.
We also only source animal feeds which are produced sustainably in the UK, under organic conditions and wrapped in biodegradable packaging.
GALLOWAY NATIONAL PARK ASSOCIATION
Help us make Galloway Scotland’s third National Park.
National Parks could play a crucial role in the future of our rural areas, socially and environmentally.
With its unique history and a distinctive character, distilled by centuries of migration, trade and conflict. Our landscape of wild mountains, forests and moors is bordered by a rich, historic coastline of sandy bays and wide, distant horizons where the sky meets the sea Galloway is the perfect setting for Scotlands third national park.
We need your help to create a National Park at the heart of a sustainable future for Galloway.
UNESCO BIOSPHERE
GALLOWAY & SOUTHERN AYRSHIRE
UNESCO BIOSPHERE
We are proud to be supporters of Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere, the first biosphere awarded in Scotland.
It means that our lovely part of the world is globally recognised as a world class environment for people and nature.
The biosphere encourages businesses and people to work together for a better future for people and nature.
TREE'S & HEDGES
PROMOTING WILDLIFE AND HABITATS
We have been planting new hedgerows with the Woodland Trust’s MoreHedges fund and linking valuable habitats beyond the borders of our farm, giving nature a home and providing wildlife corridors for vulnerable species to travel across greater areas of our landscape.
We’ve also built a farm pond with an intricate drainage system which creates important wetland areas for wildlife and ensures a constant flow of fresh water for our livestock. Allowing water courses to meander naturally across the farm and flood, when necessary, helps retain water and can prevent flooding downstream.
We have recently been awarded a grant from the South of Scotland Tree Planting Grant to create a small area of native woodland which will further add to the habitats already present on the farm.
NATURE FRIENDLY FARMING NETWORK
The landscape in the UK is shaped by farming. Yet not all change in recent times have been desirable; soils have been depleted, water courses degraded, and nature has struggled to cope with the pace of change. We have seen declines in over 600 farmland species over the last 50 years. However, many farms are bucking this trend. Soils are being restored, nature is thriving and if more follow this lead, we can reverse these declines. The Nature Friendly Farming Network aims to unite, and support seeks to unite the many farmers who are passionate about wildlife and sustainable farming by providing a collective way forward.
SAVING SCOTLAND'S RED SQUIRRELS
We are actively supporting Red Squirrel Conservation in our area by volunteering as recorders for Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels Spring Survey and actively recording all squirrel sightings in our area with the SSRS.
B-LINES
Our bees, butterflies and hoverflies have suffered badly over the last fifty or so years, due to changes in land use as a result of modern farming methods, urban spread and new transport links. Over 97% of all flower-rich grasslands have been lost since the 1930s, reducing pollen and nectar sources and leading to a serious decline in the wildlife depending on wildflower-rich habitats.
B-Lines are an imaginative and beautiful solution to the problem, created and supported by Buglife - The Invertebrate Conservation Trust. The B-Lines are a series of ‘insect pathways’ running through our countryside and towns, along which they are restoring and creating a series of wildflower-rich habitat stepping stones. They link existing wildlife areas together, creating a network, like a railway, that will weave across the British landscape. This will provide large areas of brand new habitat benefiting bees and butterflies– but also a host of other wildlife.
Our farm sits proudly along one of these lines, and we are actively doing all we can to link habitats on our farm and give pollinators the vital boost they need to survive.
