28 February 2023
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One hundred turn out to see progress of regenerative farming pioneers.
MORE than 100 farmers from the Borders to Aberdeenshire attended a ‘show and tell’ event on a farm in Angus, to find out more about practically integrating regenerative practices into their own farming businesses.
The Soil Regenerative Open Day was hosted by potato farmer, Hugh Black, at Backboath Farm near Letham, who belongs to a group of five farmers supporting the Farming for A Better Climate group (FFBC), delivered by SAC Consulting (as part of SRUC). Together, they have been trialling regenerative measures over the last four years and shared with attendees their experiences of improving soil and efficiencies through changed practices.
Zach Reilly, of SAC Consulting and coordinator of FFBC’s Soil Regenerative Agriculture Group, said: “The concept of 'regenerative' can seem too far out for some farmers and is often misguidedly associated with extreme change, so they don’t do anything. What was encouraging and clear from both the numbers and the conversations throughout the day at Backboath was that even those that consider themselves 'conventional' farmers are now looking at how they could introduce some soil enhancing practices into what they do. They could see that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, any system can improve with small tweaks.”
More details will be featured in the next issue of Potato Review. You can subscribe here.