Well, Well, Well! We’ve Made the Final!

We can now announce that A. R. Gorringe and Partners at Lower Blakemere Farm has been shortlisted for Regenerative Farmer of the Year in the British Farming Awards, sponsored by The Ethical Butcher.

We are absolutely delighted — and surprised — to have been nominated, and even more surprised to have made the final!

We are also very aware that we are not a finished product.

We are still trying things, changing things, digging holes, counting worms, reducing inputs, making biology, moving cattle, growing cover crops and occasionally wondering whether any of us actually knows what we are doing.

So getting through to the final feels like a real boost.

The other finalists are Mallard Grange Farm in North Yorkshire and Timothy Riley in West Yorkshire, and we are very pleased to be alongside them.

This is a proper team effort.

Phil and Monty run the farm and deal with most of the worry. Monty also brings fresh ideas, machinery enthusiasm and UK Mini Trucks into the mix.

San keeps the accounts from becoming completely alarming. Mostly.

Dennis is our key man on the ground and gets an extraordinary amount done without making much fuss about it.

Rob sorts the websites, photos and videos, and somehow turns our random clips, wind noise and half-finished sentences into something people actually want to watch.

And Heather argues the case for worms, hedges, skylarks, biology and soil — usually all at once.

Then there is the whole team at Wiggly Wigglers and UK Mini Trucks, plus our contractors, advisers, neighbouring farmers, customers and everyone else who helps keep the wheels turning.

Sometimes literally.

Our regenerative farming system is still very much a work in progress. Some things have worked brilliantly. Some have not. The weather has been difficult, machinery has objected and the slugs have had their own plans.

But the soil is improving, the farm is changing and we are learning all the time.

That is why making the final means so much.

Not because we think we have cracked it.

Because we know we still have a long way to go.

Anyway, the cattle are unimpressed, the weeds remain fully committed and harvest is still happening.

So, thank you very much to the British Farming Awards.

And now, Farmer Phil — get back on the combine…