Bespoke Herbal Leys with Charles Hunter-Smart & Sam Phillips

Where: Oxfordshire
Soil: Cotswold Brash
Type: Arable & Dairy
Size: 4500 Acres
MIx: Bespoke Herbal Ley
Two neighbouring Oxfordshire farmers have gone into partnership in an innovative, joint venture with a Cornish dairy farmer and herbal leys are driving the business.
The Bradwell Grove Estate, near Burford, totals 3000 acres. Macaroni Farm, tenanted by Charles Philips and his son, Sam, comprises just over 1500 acres. Charles Hunter-Smart manages the Bradwell Grove Estate for the Heyworth family, and explains how the joint venture came about.
‘We’ve farmed organically since 2005, utilising the single farm payment, but in 2016-2017 the reduction of BPS was having an impact. One member of staff was retiring and I was getting older too. We had a simple rotation of three cereal crops and two fertility-building crops. We had a hundred Limousin-Angus cross suckler cows and were running a joint venture sheep business with about a thousand ewes. At that point all our grass crops were multispecies herbal leys which we’d been growing for 6-7 years.
‘Sam Philips, a young, second generation farmer and our immediate neighbour, was exploring the idea behind the new Chameleon inter-row drill & hoe which looked to suit organic cropping. We got chatting and did some exploratory visits together to look at the drill on a farm in Suffolk. We realised neither of us could afford the drill on our own. Out of that conversation, I thought there might be an opportunity to share a little more than just the machine. Sam is full of enthusiasm, passionate about organic farming and food. I saw it as a way for me to gradually step back and do a bit less, and for economies of scale.’
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