Farming in the Shropshire Hills National Landscape: Sharing the stories of our producers.

We'd love to say that "it's no secret that the Shropshire Hills hosts so many amazing food producers"... but the truth is, our farmers rarely get the spotlight or acknowledgement that they deserve. It often feels like they are a secret - but the fact is that their dedication, knowledge are second-to-none... and it shows in the care that they put into the land, businesses and products.

With funding from Defra’s Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme, SGFP has been speaking to our local Shropshire Hills farmers to learn about their farming journeys.

We want to share these stories.

We want customers to know who their local farmers are, and showcase the many examples of 'best practice' in farming on their doorstep. We also want other farmers to know who to link up with to chat about the nuts and bolts of farming systems. As Dan Watkins of Powkesmore Farm says, “You just want to make sure it works before you invest too much time and money into it”, so having peers to learn from can be invaluable for giving confidence to set the wheels in motion for a new journey.

We've created a series of social media posts to introduce our farmers, but more importantly SGFP has put together a series of case studies for farmers to look at, with the hope that it will lead other food producers to see what has been happening 'just down the road', and to reach out to our Shropshire Hills farmers and talk shop.

We've been chatting about their businesses, sales models - what has worked, what hasn't, and what they'd like to see in the future - how they manage their land, livestock, goals - what the 'AHA' moment was to make a big shift.

These wide ranging chats have had a number of big themes:

Routes to Market and Direct Sales:

We've found that farmers see direct sales as way to increase the return they get for a quality product. It's a great way to share their product with customers, and build a relationship based on a quality product and shared values. But it's hard work to switch to a direct sales model because it take a lot of time and a new skillset for marketing and promotion. Farmers need support if they're going to sell direct.

Animal welfare:

For our farmers moving to regenerative systems, they have noticed the improvement in animal wellbeing and health. Healthy animals, moving daily into fresh pastures, eating a wide range of forage need fewer treatments to combat parasites. And they have a more natural quality of life outdoors for longer periods of the year. This translates to healthier animals and a better quality product. A challenge is that the general sales models and abattoir infrastructure doesn't make this visible to the person choosing meat from the shelf in the shop. The story gets lost.

Biodiversity:

Every farmer that we spoke to who has switched to a rotational grazing model in their regenerative farming journey has told us that the little things are actually big things... that means the soil microbes, insects, pollinators, birds and wildlife. By changing their grazing systems to ones that mimic nature, they have observed increases in wildlife, and soil health on their lands in only a short time. Losing the SFI grant scheme will put this at risk for so many farms.

A Shift in Mindset:

Shropshire Hills Farmers are do-ers. They are hungry for knowledge and striving to do better - always learning, tweaking, refining and observing. They think in systems on their farms, understanding that there's no such thing as an isolated action, but that  from the soil to the cow, to the climate, all things are connected.

Strength in numbers:

Many of our local farmer are members of 'farmer clusters.' these are hyper-local groups in a shared landscape area that join us to share knowledge, support each other and undertake trials and research, often across multiple farms. These groups not only share a love of their shared landscape, but nurture a shared commitment to a higher level of stewardship - a positive and self-reinforcing loop of accountability for good practice amongst a small group of farmers and their farms. Farmer clusters also show our farmers that they aren't on their own, but a part of a community of like-minded professionals.

A huge thank you to our Shropshire Hills Farmers who took part in our interviews and graciously gave their time to share their stories;

• Hare Hill Farm

• Powkesmore Farm

• Bodbury Farm

• Proper Good Dairy

• Cowhall Farm

• Myndtown Farm

• New House Farm

• The Bog Farm

With gratitude to the Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme for supporting SGFP in this initiative.

The farms featured in the case studies have all benefitted from support from the Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme.  The programme has been extended until March 2026, so funding opportunities to develop projects as described in the case studies are available for farmers within the Shropshire Hills National Landscape.  Click on this link for more information Farming in Protected Landscapes funding programme to March 2025