The Land

Baddaford Farm consists of 154 acres of a rolling Devon valley. Soil is clay loam over slate, limestone and gravel which changes every 10 meters. With careful site selection our well drained versatile soil can grow almost anything, but the slopes, stones and thinness of the soil can make it a challenging environment for farmers.

To make the best of this farm, we have to embrace complexity in our cropping and enterprises. Land is not uniform. The topography, geology, history and ecology influence each field is farmed. One needs to consider everything from the aspect, drainage, slope, exposure, hedges, trees, soil depth, cropping history and prevalence of weeds. And then there is the wildlife; plants, flowers, rabbits, deer, voles, hares, owls, birds of prey and squirrel’s mean that each of our relatively small fields are comprised of many different, multifaceted microenvironments.

We farm organically, as do all the members of the collective (certified!) and we have watched the biodiversity thrive. We now share the land with greater horse shoe bats, barn owls, sparrow hawks, slow worms, grass snakes, newts, stoats, weezels, sparrows, swallows, house martins, golfinches, field mice, door mice, geese and ducks. And we have seen an increase in these population increase across the board, including butterflies, moths and insects. Our long term project is to try and record these and any other new arrivals!

The farm is supplied by its own spring; for irrigation we have winter filled reservoirs which also act as a magnet for birds, dragonflies and amphibians - and our neighbours who enjoy jumping in for the odd swim!