Farming in the South West has been an integral feature of the landscape for hundreds of years.

Farming in Cornwall throughout the ages

But without an army of people, namely the small family units dedicated to rearing the animals for meat, raising chickens for our eggs, tending the fields and growing the crops, as well as acting as unpaid custodians of our countryside the landscape that we all appreciate today would be significantly poorer.

There are two million cattle, three million sheep and two and a half million acres of grass in the South West. Unlike other parts of Britain with considerably less grass used for farming, this preponderance of grass is beneficial to all of us. Grass stores carbon, has an established root network so less fertiliser is required for the soil. This in turn is better for the environment and ensures that the produce is as natural as it can be and that there are no unnecessary chemical additives.

The farming bodies in the South West are justifiably proud of this fact and are seeking an internationally recognised ‘quality mark’ for their predominantly grass fed livestock, in a similar vein to that accorded to ‘Parma ham’ and ‘parmesan cheese’.

Carbon capture is therefore vital to the environment but so is bio diversity.

It has been mooted that every cow produces three and a half times its own weight in insects over its lifetime, with birds being largely dependent upon those insects.