As part of our holistic approach to farming we have reintroduced livestock to the farm. Sheep and dairy cows graze our grass clover leys, green vegetable stalks and all the green manures we are sowing between crops to protect our soils. The livestock recycle goodness back to the soil and means the farm doesn’t use any artificial fertilisers.

We have our own breeding flock on the farm to ensure we have the healthiest of sheep to limit the use of antibiotics. We also source store lambs from other like minded organic farmers.

Pollybell are always looking for ways to tread lighter and reduce our environmental impact. We produce from renewables as much energy as we consume (though not always at the right time and right place – something we are working on).

Our flagship project is a floating solar farm on our irrigation reservoir to produce the electricity we use to run our packing facility, cold stores and farm irrigation. It was our belief that we should not take land out of food production to generate energy hence why we embarked on building it on water. This proved beneficial in many ways including the improved operational efficiency of the panels and reducing erosion of our reservoir banks.

The wind turbine compliments the solar panels as it takes over as our primary supply in the autumn/winter when the days gets shorter and the weather gets windier.