The Shop and the Farm
We are proud to be producing/raising much of the food for sale in the shop from the farm. It is very labour intensive and not at all good for 'economies of scale' to have a lot of small enterprises but we are working our way towards becoming a really sustainable farm which can feed the local community with all its fresh food. Our aim is to grow everything we need for a full meal. This is not easy. To make a farm pay, most farmers concentrate on one enterprise. We are doing the opposite. When we took over the farm in 1990, it was sheep, dairy (sold off farm) beef and arable. We have introduced and learnt about laying hens and pigs, vegetables and soft fruit, running a farmshop and cafe and conference/education space. Lately we have started to pasteurize our own milk. We now have our own whole and semiskimmed milk, yoghurt. cream and cheeses for sale in the shop and also our own chicken. These small new enterprises are challenging, labour intensive and financially risky for us. But we believe farms are for feeding the local population, not for growing one thing that is sent all over the country or the world, often benefiting the middleman more than the producer.
