The community is rallying around an idea to buy shares in Babbinswood Farm near Whittington to secure it for the future.
Babbinswood Farm is a small mixed organic farm which has been in the same family since the 1890s and it was converted to organic in 2000. With the help of lots of volunteers, the farm has thrived along with its cows, sheep and pigs, producing organic meat, organic raw milk and yogurt and selling organic fruit and vegetables in the farm shop.
The farm is home to a holistic veterinary practice and other businesses have found a home there including Blossom and Bee Kitchen’s wonderful cakes.
Charlotte Hollins is helping Babbinswood Farm – in 2006 she and her brother faced a similar situation saving their father’s organic farm. Fordhall Farm is now a Community Land Initiative with 8000 landlords – all of whom bought shares in the farm – and saved it from becoming a housing estate.
Like Fordhall Farm, Babbinswood practises regenerative agriculture cultivating healthy soil, producing healthy animals and vegetables, feeding healthy people – and supporting a healthy planet.
Since Charlotte’s father, Arthur, started organic farming in the 1950’s, food production has changed along with buying habits. People rarely buy vegetables unpackaged from local shops and farms – farms have become isolated and many young people buying food in supermarkets have no idea where their food comes from or how it is produced.
In an effort to reconnect people to the landscape and to farming, Babbinswood Farm offers group visits with tours of the farm; they host courses in holistic land management, and permaculture, and their volunteers all learn how to grow food organically.
All the cattle and sheep are pasture fed and calves are left with their mothers so cows are only milked once a day. Part of the land is woodland and wetland which could become a nature reserve and there are already walking paths across the farm.
The farm was valued last year at £2.6 million. The outstanding debt is currently £1.42 million, the bank agreed a three month bridging loan to give the family time to find ways to pay off the loan – but this ends in January, 2024 so the family called a meeting on 3rd December to ask for help. A JustGiving page has raised nearly £30,000, the meeting attracted over 30 people – one of whom donated one of the bridging loan interest payments – and a steering group is being organised.
If you have any ideas, would like to help, or buy a share in the farm, you can find out more at www.babbinswoodfarm.co.uk where there’s also a link to their online shop of organic produce and vegetable boxes.
Thanks to Barbara Rainford for this article.