The Biohub at Ings Farm is showcasing what a regenerative and circular farm looks like … but it won’t happen overnight. David Burrows reports.
Some food and hospitality sector businesses are looking to get closer to the farm to understand how adoption of regenerative practices can support their sustainability ambitions. This includes partnering with trial farms, which act as hubs for testing new regenerative approaches and sharing learnings from both successes and failures.
Ings is an upland pasture farm in an area of outstanding natural beauty situated just west of Harrogate. It is August but the clouds are low-lying and it is drizzling with rain. “There is so much attention on regenerative agriculture at the moment but water seems to be the forgotten element,” explains Vincent Walsh, the founder and MD at RegenFarmCo running the “circular and regenerative” Biohub here.
Walking around the 91 acres of hilly land, we stop at one of the many swales being carved out, part of a mosaic of water features – Walsh’s “hydrology project” – that also include ponds, hedgerows and trees. “The second the rainy season starts this swale will start to fill up and we’ll tinker with it and monitor it over the next 12 to 24 months to make sure it’s efficient for the farm,” he explains.
Since my summer visit the water features have now started to show their “true worth”, explains Walsh in an update. “The integrated dams, swales, berms are holding, sinking and spreading the water across the landscape, so good to see,” he adds.
Patience is key for the work here at Ings – and the partners involved understand that. The farm was set up in 2023 thanks to sponsorship from QuornPro, Levy (part of Compass Group) and Yorkshire Water. The original farmer, Derek Greenwood, is also a partner, having farmed sheep here since he was a boy. Like many farms in this area, the land had been used exclusively for grazing – the sheep trotting where they like, when they like. But not anymore.
The animals will be part of the system but Walsh is keen to keep them at bay until the silvopastures are ready for them. Fences are being erected where walls have crumbled as he attempts, in his words, “to create the best conditions for life … whilst improving the functionality of the system”.
Not having the sheep as the “dominant force” is tricky for local farmers to get their heads around. You certainly need thick skin for this kind of trial – you are battling the elements, decades of tradition and a new approach (albeit one that harks back to ‘olden’ ways). Mistakes mean money, as Walsh found out with wild flowers that didn’t come up. He is learning about the trees that work (a new partnership launched this month will see trees provided by drinks supplier Sapling Spirits planted here to add to the thousands already planted), as well as the other plants that work with them.
Various cover crops are being trialled too. “That’s why food companies need these trials and farms like this,” Walsh explains, acknowledging that he is in a fortunate position: farmers don’t have the spare cash to throw at such projects (and many are worrying about who will pay for the regenerative approaches that their corporate, cooperative and consumer buyers seem to increasingly demand).
The land here is tenanted rent-free, with support from Levy (which is already using some of the produce at football stadiums), Quorn and Yorkshire Water (the country’s second largest land-owner). The latter is hoping the site will help showcase “regenerative interventions” that can be adopted by others. Staff from Levy and Quorn have also been here to listen, learn and lend a helping hand.
There is much still to do, says Walsh, but the local community will ultimately by a beneficiary of the work being done at Ings. “People have already said to me they’re seeing more birds in the area,” he adds.
Ings Farm is featured in a new Footprint Intelligence report – Unlocking the community benefits of regenerative agriculture from field to fork – produced in association with Nestlé Professional. It is available to download here for free.
