Farm of the Week: Junior doctors farming organically on old Cannon Hall estate

“I was brought up consuming organic food,” says Alex. “Mum and dad very much wanted to have an organic farm here, through a tenant. While they are not farmers themselves, and neither were we, they are passionate about health and eating food grown without using insecticides and pesticides.

“The sensible alternative, since we knew nothing about farming, was to try and find a tenant who wanted to farm organically.

Having not been successful in that regard Alex, Hannah and Rob decided to take it on themselves, with the assistance of their neighbouring farming family the Penroses and helpful advice from organic farmer Stephen Briggs, who runs Abacus Agriculture, they completed organic conversion of the farm in 2021 and their first organic harvest last summer.

Hannah says their medical background is one of the drivers, but that they have learned and appreciated so much about agriculture’s place already.

“Alex and I are in the medical world and see first-hand the issues faced in healthcare. There are huge amounts of chronic diseases that we can’t always treat with a drug. We look at how diet, lifestyle and food all interact.

“We are also learning about food production in a way that none of our colleagues in hospital are able to. There are so many decisions you have to make on a farm, that we now have to consider, other than just the food nutrition part. There’s the environment, carbon, biodiversity all these things and more.

Currently Denby Hall Farm is all down to arable and grassland with no livestock of their own, but that’s likely to change. They have also learned that whatever the plan, they have to adapt.

“Stephen (Briggs) has been fantastic,” says Hannah. “He walked the farm, saw what we were aiming to do and gave us a bit of a road map. He encouraged us to start simple and that’s where our initial rotation came from.

“At the moment we have a fairly basic organic farming rotation that has been relatively simple to initiate,” says Alex. “We aim to have about a third of the farm in grass and we follow with a first wheat. Right now, we have 30 acres of a first winter wheat variety Nelson, which is a Group 1 organic milling wheat that we are hoping to sell to Yorkshire Organic Millers.

“We start our rotation with a two-year grass and red clover ley, fertility building, using different types of grasses and red clovers, ryegrasses and a bit of black medic as root diversity and a natural wormer for the animals grazing it. It all goes on with a nurse crop of mustards to protect the clovers over wintertime.

“We began planting those in September 2018 and after two years of red clover ley we plough the ley out. The plan was to have wheat, barley and oats as three predominant cereals before going back to ley.

“This year we have 60 acres of first year ley; 40 acres of second year ley with red clover; with a fraction of that first-year ley now being put into a white clover ley, the basis being that we might put those fields to grass a little bit longer to integrate livestock to improve the soil.

Alex sees spring wheat as an important part of the mix, but also points out a change already made to the rotation.

“This year we have 50 acres of spring wheat blends Molika and Missaba. Our idea with spring wheat is its growth coincides more with the natural availability of nitrogen after the grass clover ley has been ploughed out. Winter wheat has the potential that you end up with a nitrogen flush. Some organic growers have found that growing a spring wheat means you’re more likely to meet milling spec for protein.

“As we learn about our land we’re still trying to fully establish our rotation. Some of the fields we put barley into last year really should have been followed by oats, but only one of them has oats and the other has a seed crop of triticale.

“We have no barley this year, which is a shame because I’d like to grow it, spring barley follows the cover crops. We also have a grain trader that has expressed an interest in being able to take organic barleys for malting, but we have to be a bit reactive to what there is a demand for right now.

It’s a lesson that the Frasers have been quick to learn and is the reason for a crop of 35 acres of organic triticale for seed this year paid at a premium.

“We found somebody who wanted to buy some seed triticale, and therefore it made sense to grow it. It’s a good, dense small crop with a canopy that suppresses weeds and potentially offers scope to sow red clover leys going forward.

“Our other main crop is 30 acres of winter oats. We have tried spring oats but have run into some slight problems. We’ve also realised that our soil, which is predominantly clay loam, cannot push a full three years of arable after red clover leys just yet as we don’t have the organic matter as yet.

Nine acres of heritage wheat is also being grown and the Frasers are also trying agriforestry within a 50-acre field with 24 metre cropping alleys. The alleys are separated by 6 metre strips of wildflowers that incorporate double rows of trees in each section with a mix of alder, sweet chestnut, sycamore and hazel. It is early days for these yet but the Frasers see this as a way forward to increase income from a field in the long term.

“We’d like to have cattle too,” says Hannah. “It’s a bigger animal impact that will add to the soil. We are looking at all options. Perhaps we could find a local organic dairy and work with them, taking retired stock or we could do an exchange where we take their dry cows and over winter them, using them on some of our leys in early and late season. We would like to rear our own grass-fed, organically suited herd of Salers such as Angus Gowthorpe has at Escrick.

Hannah’s Nuffield scholarship is all about valuing the farmer’s role in public health.

“That’s the overall question. How much can farmers improve nutrition quality and health?

Where does farming fit in? What, as farmers, are we able to manipulate and improve? We can’t control the weather, but there’s a lot we can control. And then how do we get the food system interested and get nutrition valued?

The Frasers are certainly 100 per cent committed to farming. They have recently also taken on a further 200 acres which is currently in the process of organic conversion.