{"id":25353,"title":"Meet The Regenerative Farming Trio Rewilding On The Isle Of Wight","description":"Francesca, Hollie and Christy run Nunwell Home Farm, a groundbreaking project that is in the process of regenerating and rewilding former arable land.","content":"

\"ktt8541gsmismdurzqd1mg6rc2nzmsrpouul1sabvk0hbxeh.jpg\"It\u2019s a misty winter morning in the middle of the Isle of Wight, and nestled in the historic Nunwell Estate, some small, saddleback pigs are doing their bit for the climate crisis. Padding around on ex-arable land, these mini ecosystem engineers are turning the soil over as they walk and feed, disturbing wildflower seed banks and allowing them to grow up and over the crop that was dominant before the pigs arrived.<\/span><\/p>

\"dwupvwwluhoudeykth1fxw9bqwdtpspfkpjsfnjmg0klf0vq.jpg\"- Francesca wears our <\/span><\/em>women\u2019s organic cotton shacket in khaki <\/u><\/span><\/em><\/a>and our <\/span><\/em>women\u2019s plain tee in white<\/u><\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>

\u201cIn the autumn it was incredible because there were pretty much no birds in any of the fields that had just been harvested,\u201d says Francesca Cooper, one of the three young regenerative farmers working this land. \u201cAnd then you\u2019d look out this way and it would be swarming with birds because there were so many seed heads. You could see clouds of them. The amount of diversity on this land in just two years is so exciting to see.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\"szpnjijxs8j9cadzm7x8ezzmwktuspspfaijyt3ehgfuncnm.jpeg.jpg?w=1140&h=auto\"- \u201cWe\u2019ve seen linnets here, loads of linnets. There\u2019s just so much seed.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>


Francesca (33), along with her brother Christy Morely (25) and their childhood friend Hollie Fallick (30), run Nunwell Home Farm, a groundbreaking project that is in the process of regenerating and rewilding former arable land. With the support of landowner Rob Oglander, whose family has been resident in neighbouring Nunwell House for centuries, and the Wildlife Trust, the collective is using regenerative farming practices - methods that enhance the entire ecosystem of the land, with a particular focus on soil health, and improve the resources it uses rather than depleting them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>


These aren\u2019t your average farmers (\u201cTwo of us are women for god\u2019s sake!\u201d, exclaims Francesca), having all been vegan at various points in their lives and coming from non-farming backgrounds; Francesca was a rural surveyor of country estates, Christy trained horses and Hollie has a background in nutrition. But their passion for flipping industrial farming on its head is clear as they speak enthusiastically about their cause.<\/span><\/p>

\"rxh6vxwfu3yet2afonmaic1t7vjfpfznvo4hrcmbvwjtfebz.jpg\"- Christy wears our <\/span><\/em>men\u2019s flannel shirt in yellow check<\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>


\u201cIn the last 50 years, farmers have been told to produce as much food as possible for as cheap as possible,\u201d says Hollie. \u201cBut now we\u2019re realising that was a really terrible idea. It\u2019s not that farmers have done anything wrong, it\u2019s that they were told to do the wrong thing.\u201d Nunwell Home Farm instead focuses on keeping slow-growing heritage breeds, staying hyper-local, and using a circular farming system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>


\u201cLots of farmers say that they farm on a certain acreage but they\u2019re buying in so much [feed] it\u2019s like ghost acres because someone else is growing it,\u201d says Francesca, as she explains that they use a mix of local Isle of Wight maize, grains and field beans to feed the pigs, rather than buying in soya. Both the pigs and belted Galloway cows that are also kept on the farm are hardy heritage breeds that can live outdoors year-round and are ideally suited to regenerative farming. And when it comes to the cows, it\u2019s all about mob grazing the grasslands.<\/span><\/p>

\"kfdpfzrafor2dr50gng7f3xbsrrty5jmo4krhuybhwnvqrfb.jpg\"- Hollie wears our <\/span><\/em>women\u2019s organic cotton shacket in black<\/u><\/span><\/em><\/a> and <\/span><\/em>plain women\u2019s tee in sand<\/u><\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>

\u00a0\u201cCows can provide most of the ecological benefits you need on grassland,\u201d Francesca continues. \u201cIn the summer, we put them in small mobs to emulate the natural movement of a herd across grassland. Grasses have a three-day growth cycle, so if you leave them on for longer than three days they end up eating the grass which is growing from the roots rather than naturally regenerating. They call it avoiding the second bite.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>


When cattle graze for more than three days in the same location the grass is not regenerated, so it stops growing from the roots and is constantly depleted. Moving the herd to graze on a different area every two to three days, however, as is done at Nunwell, allows the grass to keep regenerating, which in turn produces longer root growth and much more resilient grass. \u201cThat also means you\u2019re capturing more carbon in the ground because you\u2019ve got more organic matter being captured underneath the ground,\u201d she adds.<\/span><\/p>

\"ufzdag6f2o0zhys58sld9o4jnar3qjplagy2kdklhkmeslpa.jpg\"<\/p>

These regenerative farming methods use less machinery, which the process of rewilding or regenerating arable land would also require without the animals. \u201cWe want the animals on the land for as long as possible, because they do the job of regenerating the land for us,\u201d says Christy, who also explains that they keep these native pigs for up to twelve months and the cows until they are thirty months old - much longer than industrial breeds. It\u2019s a method that appeals to the Wildlife Trust, too. \u201cIf we didn\u2019t have pigs on the land they\u2019d be using mechanical means and fossil fuels to do the same thing,\u201d continues Hollie. \u201cThis is a much more ecologically friendly way of us producing food and doing the same job that they would be doing using a tractor. It works for both of us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\"0urw5f2aruln2u18bqauvoflbyqc20rh0jlwjmifjhmopwou.jpeg\"- Yellowhammers have been spotted in the areas that are being rewilded<\/span><\/em><\/p>


Even the animals\u2019 dung is an integral part of returning the land to a more biodiverse state. \u201cWe obviously don\u2019t use any fertilisers, and we don\u2019t use any routine wormers or antibiotics,\u201d says Francesca. \u201cThe Wildlife Trust have told us that where they\u2019ve seen us grazing, all the dung disappears within a couple of weeks, whereas where they\u2019ve had conventional cows, it stays there because it\u2019s completely sterile.\u201d\u00a0 By not keeping the animals indoors, they don\u2019t need to waste time mucking out either, and the goodness of the dung goes straight back into the land.<\/span><\/p>

\"chrxkdih6a6abzlekp9n8f5femshx5fwv28xgo3csbjrdhw3.jpg\"And that kind of time efficiency really appeals to the trio, who learnt much about what they do via the Internet. \u201cBeing able to listen to a podcast whilst you\u2019re out in nature is a really good use of time; learning while you do a lot of hands-on, fairly monotonous tasks,\u201d says Hollie. Francesca agrees. \u201cBeing able to connect with farmers has been invaluable, especially in America where there are a lot of small-scale and regenerative farmers. I think unless we\u2019d had the Internet, trying to develop a dream and a vision just being surrounded by the conventional farmers we have here would have been almost impossible.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\"ftzxyrbszta1bawlkphb0wujvndmjrejoe4ggxihxte6ae6w.jpg\"<\/p>

We see similarities between what they do and what we do - while Rapanui is a circular, online brand inspired by nature, Nunwell Home Farm is a circular nature-based project, inspired by the Internet. Got a question as a young farmer just starting out? Just ask Google, says Francesca. \u201cThe first time we were farrowing pigs I was like, \u2018Hollie, does this look right?\u2019 And she said \u2018I\u2019m just going to Google it!\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>









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