Our Environment

Our farm is sympathetically and actively managed to monitor and encourage a number of species on the government’s bio-diversity action plan. These species include barn owls, lapwings, brown hares and English grey partridge.

Our full time conservation manager and everyone involved with the farm works hard to ensure that the best possible environment is maintained to encourage wildlife. This work includes leaving winter stubbles until February to provide shelter and a food source to farmland birds over the winter months, putting up nesting boxes for the owls and setting up 240 bird feeding stations.

To ensure that the existing natural habitat is not overstretched we have also planted 48 acres of woodland, 2,934 trees and 21,660 metres of hedgerows – that’s enough hedgerow to enclose every Premiership and Championship football pitch in England and still have enough left over to enclose the top seven teams in league one!

As if that wasn’t enough Pollybell Organic Farm looks after a listed Ancient Monument, three Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and, with a further two on their borders, are working with Natural England and other public sector organizations to help achieve the Government’s target of improving SSSIs by 2010.

Day to day environmental measures are numerous and include:

- 155 hectares of over winter stubble left post harvest and not ploughed until the spring.

- 6 metre cereal and vetch strips have been drilled around all organic grass conversion fields. This provides a mixed habitat within the field whilst it is in conversion, which is particularly important for small birds such as meadow pipits and skylarks. The concept has been extended and is now also next hedges on some of the conventionally farmed land.

- 240 feed stations have been situated around the farm; these offer grain at essential times of the year.

- Our intensive legal predator control programme during the spring and early summer months, help to protect vulnerable nests from predation and again has proved highly successful.

- we operate a considerate hedge and dyke maintenance programme that involves cutting every 2 or 3 years. This allows hedges to fruit and the reeds within our dykes to provide essential nesting cover.

- Wild bird cover is drilled annually across the farm to provide shelter and food through the winter for birds and mammals alike.

- Educational visits to Pollybell are also undertaken by agricultural colleges and local community groups. Work experience placements are also a regular occurrence on the farm and all this forms part of our wildlife education programme.

- Regular mowing of road and track sides throughout the summer gives the farm’s wildlife drying out and sunning areas. After any rain a wide range of species ranging from chicks to snakes can be seen warming up on the short mown grass.

- The organic conversion grasses are always mown from the middle out; giving any wildlife the chance to move to the edge of the field into the cereal strips and a safer environment.