“It turned us onto a new way of thinking which puts as much emphasis on the environmental and social benefits of the work we do here as it does on the food production side of the business.
“Prior to that we had run the farm on assumptions rather than facts and it made us realise that if we still wanted to be here in 10 or 15 years’ time, we had to take a clinical look at every aspect of the business.”
Mr Heseltine is now one of the leading members of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, which was set up to promote sustainable farming, and having reduced the number of grazing livestock while at the same time delaying the annual mowing of meadows, he has successfully increased the farm’s biodiversity credentials.