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Very exciting to be here. But im trying to understand what has happened to this land of yours, because when you arrived here, this was an intensively farmed land, wasnt it . It was. My husband, charlie, inherited it from his grandparents when he was in his early 20s, and this was back in the 1980s. And every inch of the land was ploughed, it was producing arable crops and dairy. And we fully expected to be farmers for the rest of our lives. Mm. 17 years on, we were £1. 5 million in debt, tearing our hair out and realised that, you know, this is very marginal land. Were walking on 320 metres of clay, over a bedrock of limestone, and its an absolute pig to farm. So you were literally close to going out of business . Yeah, the farm was a failing business. And we did everything we could. We diversified, we tried different crops, we tried different cows. We sold ice cream. We did everything we could. But always it was this clay that was against us. So lets just stop for a second and look a ....
ah, well, it s actually still, for me, very exciting to be here. but i m trying to understand what has happened to this land of yours, because when you arrived here, this was an intensively farmed land, wasn t it? it was. my husband, charlie, inherited it from his grandparents when he was in his early 20s, and this was back in the 1980s. and every inch of the land was ploughed, it was producing arable crops and dairy. and we fully expected to be farmers for the rest of our lives. mm. 17 years on, we were £1.5 million in debt, tearing our hair out, and realised that, you know, this is very marginal land. we re walking on 320 metres of clay, over a bedrock of limestone, and it s an absolute pig to farm. so you were literally close to going out of business? yeah, the farm was a failing business. and we did everything we could. we diversified, we tried different crops, we tried different cows. we sold ice cream. we did everything we could. but always it was this clay that ....
It s considered good for nothing. but it s one of the most biodiverse habitats we have. thorny scrub is just amazing for wildlife. i know you had cattle as part of your intensive farming. you ve kept some cattle. not the dairy cows we had, because they probably wouldn t be able to survive out here now. they re such a modern breed. so what we ve chosen is old english longhorns we might see some of them but they re amazing. and they look very much like their extinct ancestor, the aurochs, with these great sweeping horns. we needed to have an old breed that could sort of remember, as it were you know, genetically remember how to browse as well as graze. they eat vegetation as well. so all these sort of browse lines that you can see, you know, the cattle will be eating this kind of thing in the winter. and it s notjust cattle, is it? you ve got wild ponies here. you ve got deer. you ve got wild pigs. and there are no fences any more. so these animals are ....
It s considered good for nothing. but it s one of the most biodiverse habitats we have. thorny scrub is just amazing for wildlife. i know you had cattle as part of your intensive farming. you ve kept some cattle. not the dairy cows we had, because they probably wouldn t be able to survive out here now. they re such a modern breed. so what we ve chosen is old english longhorns we might see some of them but they re amazing. and they look very much like their extinct ancestor, the aurochs, with these great sweeping horns. we needed to have an old breed that could sort of remember, as it were you know, genetically remember how to browse as well as graze. they eat vegetation as well. so all these sort of browse lines that you can see, you know, the cattle will be eating this kind of thing in the winter. and it s notjust cattle, is it? you ve got wild ponies here. you ve got deer. you ve got wild pigs. and there are no fences any more. so these animals are ....