Sustainable & Climate Friendly Farming

Organic farming works in harmony with nature rather than against it, using techniques to achieve good yields without harming the natural environment. A recent IPCC report on climate change and land use from the UN stated that "animal sourced food produced in resilient sustainable and low GHG emission systems present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation whilst generating significant co- benefits in terms of human health”. There is no doubt that if we align our diet to what the local countryside can grow, we are eating sustainably.

At Brown Cow Organics, we constantly endeavour to produce food to enhance the environment and to combat climate change. We are most unusual in that we have one cow that not only produces milk, but also a beef calf.

Our farm is accelerating in its approach of combating climate change by planting fields with a wide plant mix of grasses and herbs. In using drought resistant, deep rooting plants, the soil can maintain a far healthier microscopic soil biome, which in turn supports healthier more productive plants. As our animals consume this wide variety of plants, the meat and milk produced is then more beneficial for us to consume.

Our farm is an Ornithologist’s dream, and we are embarking on a yearlong study with the British Institute of Ornithology to research the variety of birdlife present. Additional expertise is recording the bats, bees, butterflies, insects, fauna and flora along the way.

A family of four little owls flew their nest in the summer, herons drift through the valley streams whilst buzzards circle high in the sky and the diverse grassland is a movement of colour as butterflies flutter and bees diligently gather nectar.

We are trialing “mob grazing”, whereupon a large number of animals graze a small area of mature grasses for a short time period. The theory is that the carbon within the soils is captured through protection of the surface which is a mulch of bacterial activity.

Cardboard is composted into the farm yard manure, generating heat to break the winter bedding into fine compost over a six month period. This compost is then spread on the fields to enrich the soil with nutrients, which in turn grows delicious grass for the cows to eat. 

Paper tape is used to seal our cardboard boxes. We are also encouraging all our wholesalers to take deliveries in reusable plastic trays as the vast amount of cardboard utilised within the food industry is of great concern to us as cardboard is sourced from trees.