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Farming Today: Farming with no farm

15/04/2022

Farming with no farm

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Farming with no farm

Anna Hill finds out how a Suffolk couple are managing to farm, without a farm.

Can you feed a local community with no farm, no tractor, and only renting land for livestock? Anna Hill meets the Suffolk couple trying to do just that.

Andy Moye and Abbie Bryant are new entrants to farming. 

They have 14 cattle and 19 sheep, no tractor, no buildings, and they rent out grass for their animals, keeping them outside all year round. 

They set up their grazing enterprise in the Suffolk village of Melford over the last three years, and only in the last couple of months decided to make the big leap of giving up their jobs. Andy previosuly worked on a livestock farm, Abbie as a childcare specialist. 

Now, the pair plan to focus their energies on creating a self-sufficient farm that can feed a local community the size of a hamlet. 

They’ve been laughed at and criticised for their ambition, but say their vision is to use regenerative farming to link people up with the reality of quality meat production - and they're harnessing the power of social media to do that.  

But can they realise their ambition, or is it pie in the sky?

Presented and produced by Anna Hill.

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