Small And Beautiful

A group of friends in north Suffolk have realised their vision of creating a productive organic smallholding which serves their local community. Could they be a model for the future? 

- David Green

BECKY Taylor is planting leeks when I arrive at the organic smallholding she and a group of friends set up 12 years ago. Back then, the 20 acres was made up of two fields which grew cereals produced with the help of artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Today, the land is farmed organically, divided into small fields, bordered by thick hedgerows, and it includes a four-acre woodland and an orchard of 500 trees. Livestock graze the meadowland. Becky, slim and suntanned from working outdoors, is not planting leeks in numbers we associate with back gardens or allotments. There are 1,600 plants, she has been hard at it since early morning, and she still has several hours of back-breaking labour ahead of her. Others will arrive each day to carry out similar tasks, including care of the tomatoes, squashes and peppers in a series of polytunnels. In a large greenhouse – built by a member of the group who is a carpenter – apricots, peaches, lemons and aubergines, as well as more tomatoes, are being grown.

It was in 2005 that the environmentally conscious friends raised enough loans to pay the £90,000 being asked for the land at Berry Farm, Ilketshall St Andrew, near Beccles.

“We wanted to do something long-term which would help make things better in the world, a project which would be run and owned co-operatively and would diversify the land in an ecological and social way,” says Becky. “It is increasingly difficult to live in the countryside because of property prices and also to find work in the countryside. When a farm is broken up these days most of it goes to big agri-business companies, so we were lucky to be able to buy just 20 acres. It was a blank canvas in terms of what we wanted to do with it.