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http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/revolution-in-the-countryside-529295.html

Revolution in the countryside

Will a scheme to repay farmers for helping to conserve the wildlife on their land pay off? Sanjida O'Connell reports

Monday, 21 March 2005 

Farming Guilden Gate Smallholding

Forget Felicity Kendall in The Good Life. There's a lot more to running a sustainable organic smallholding than looking good in dungarees.

"It's exhausting," admits Simon Saggers, who, with his wife Jacqueline, runs a successful sustainable smallholding just outside the village of Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire, where the family has farmed for centuries. "It's very hard work - I will never be a millionaire but it is very rewarding."

The Saggers began planning their five-acre Guilden Gate smallholding in 1999 and have transformed the battery chicken sheds and ploughed arable land into what Simon calls a "mixed mosaic" of native hedging, wildflower meadows, coppice woodland, vegetable fields and fruit orchards.

"In many ways it's taken the holding back to how it would have been in my great-grandfather's time," says Simon.

The smallholding rewards the Saggers with a bounty of produce, from seasonal vegetables, fruit and herbs to home-reared chickens, eggs, mushrooms and honey. Once the two-acre woodland is better established, they'll add pigs.

The Soil Association-certified produce is sold though an organic box scheme, with the seasonable vegetables picked and packed every Friday from Easter to Christmas. This came about with the help of a grant from Defra's Rural Enterprise Scheme, which is delivered in the regions by the Rural Development Service. "The demand is very high," says Simon. "We've never advertised and we've always had a waiting list for our box scheme."

But Guilden Gate is much more than a small organic farm. The Saggers are also trying to live and work in harmony with nature, aiming for net zero carbon emissions.

"We've tried to create a holding that's as sustainable as possible and that goes for our house, too," says Simon. The family built their "eco-cottage" from scratch and this blank slate meant they were able to use the latest techniques to minimise their impact on the land. Rainwater is harvested from the roof - a borehole tops up their needs - and all greywater is recycled through straw and bark filters, a horizontal flow reed bed, a flowform pond and a willow trench soakaway. A dry twin vault compost toilet deals with other waste.

Solar panels and a soon-to-be installed wind turbine - also funded by Defra's rural enterprise scheme - mean they will also be energy self-sufficient.

Simon is evangelical about the benefits of smallholder farming, not just for the environmental benefits but also the health and sustainability of rural communities. Guilden Gate is a revival of the type of smallholding that used to be part of life in every village but that have sadly all but disappeared in south Cambridgeshire.

He said: "In Europe, small holdings and local markets are embedded in the culture but it's gone from our rural culture and that's terribly sad. The food miles on the typical dinner plate, with tomatoes from South Africa and peas from Mexico, are beyond belief."

Amy McLellan

Further information

www.guildengate.co.uk

Rural Enterprise Scheme: www.defra.gov.uk/erdp/schemes/res