University’s farm goes fully regenerative in a bid to tackle the effects of climate change

The Royal Agricultural University (RAU) has joined forces with an award-winning local regenerative farming business to make the University’s teaching farm fully regenerative.

Coates Manor Farm sits next door to the University’s main Cirencester campus. The 457-acre arable farm is now being farmed in a new collaboration between the university and local farmer SS Horton and Sons, run by RAU alumnus Ed Horton.

This change in farming system - which includes a more diverse crop rotation, a range of cover crops, grazing cover crops with livestock, and direct drilling - has enabled RAU students to gain experience in a wider range of farm management techniques including growing peas, beans, and spelt wheat, as well the management of over winter cover crops.

RAU Agriculture Professor Nicola Cannon, who oversees the teaching at Manor Farm, said: “In addition to using the farm as a base for practical field classes and environmental planning, it also allows us to teach students the more traditional agricultural skills, such as crop and livestock monitoring and evaluation, understanding a range of husbandry practices, and weed, pest and disease identification.

“During the Covid-19 pandemic, many food supply chains suffered and we had empty shelves. Using ultra-local food supply chains can help improve food security.”

Regenerative farming focuses on enhancing soil health. A combination of practices - including maintaining soil cover, integrating crop and livestock enterprises, maintaining living roots in the soil, practicing diverse crop rotations, and minimal soil disturbance - helps to build organic matter which, in turn, stabilises the soil and helps to reduce erosion as well as creating diverse soil microbiomes and decreasing the risk of environmental stress.

Ed Horton explained: “We are aiming for the RAU’s farming operation to be a guide to regenerative agriculture at scale. Utilising our access to local markets for produce allows us to grow a more diverse range of cropping, such as spelt wheat for Northern Pasta, and durum wheat for our local mill, Matthews Cotswold Flour.

“Having a close working relationship with the customer means that the end user has full traceability and transparency in how their food is produced, and what the long-term benefits are to biodiversity, soil health, and water quality.

“We also aim to show to students and the wider farming community that, over time, a reduction in external synthetic inputs will still produce commercially viable yields in a tough market, with far less risk exposure to the vagaries of the global commodity markets.”

The University is also working with Zerodig - a social enterprise which established a seven-acre site on land adjoining the RAU’s Cirencester campus last year to teach students on the RAU’s MSc in Agroecology course and work with the university’s kitchens.

RAU students are actively involved in all aspects of Zerodig and the planting schedules for this season are currently being finalised to match the university’s catering requirements for the next year.

Edward Bonn, Farm Environment Adviser at Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) South West which is working with Zerodig, said: “The RAU wants to ensure that as much of the food as possible that it serves through its student and staff catering, and also its external commercial bookings such as weddings, conferences, and the like, is RAU grown. Not only does this cut down food miles but it also raises the visibility of seasonal vegetables which can be harvested to directly meet the market demands.”