Woodland Walks podcast

You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust, presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive. 

Adam: Well, for this podcast we're going to Hall Farm Estate in Devon, which is very special. It once belonged to the Woodland Trust founder, Ken Watkins, and it's where he brought to life his vision to protect and restore nature, which is continuing today. Five decades later, that vision is still at the heart, really, of what the Woodland Trust does. Now, the farm I'm going to sits on the fringe of Dartmoor at Harford. It's made up of Gorage Waste, Hall Plantation, Kingswood, and Hall Farm. And there's a rich mix of habitats, it includes ancient and veteran trees, mature hedgerows, ancient woodland, and even, so unusual, not just in the UK, but of course in the world, it also includes temperate rainforest species. And what's going on at Hall Farm is particularly exciting, and I think it's fair to say ambitious as well, because in addition to continuing the conservation work that Ken Watkins started, it integrates woods and trees within regenerative farming. And so it's bringing together a proper commercial farm and a sense of looking after the land and the environment around you in a very particular way. I'm going to find out how that works and to meet the people doing it. If you want to know where Hall Farm Estate is, if you know what you're doing with maps, it is grid reference SX632592, map reference explorer 28, OS Land Ranger 202. Or you can just go to the Woodland Trust website and look up Hall Farm Estate. That's woodlandtrust.org.uk. Enough from me. Let's go to the farm. 

Seb: Good morning. I'm Seb Powell and me and my partner Freya have just, well, six months ago taken on Hall Farm, the tenancy at Hall Farm. And we're going to show you around. 

Adam: Brilliant. And we're starting at the, his is really lovely. There's old farm buildings over there. It's all super picturesque, much more picturesque than many of the farms I've been on. 

Seb: Yeah, it's definitely a special place. I think, I mean, the first time I came here, I fell in love with it pretty much instantly. And I think it has that effect on most people. It's described as a fairytale land, I think, in a sort of historic book about Hall Farm. And why is that? I suppose it's just rich in natural character. There's these old walls, there's a beautiful lea, I think we'll walk past in a minute, so you've got this trickling sound of water in a lot of the parts of the farm. Lots of trees, obviously. And we're on the edge of the moor. 

Adam: We're going to go for a walk, but we're starting with a map to explain where on earth we are, the sort of... the journey we're about to go on. So just talk me through what we're going to see here. 

Seb: The map shows us, obviously, the farm, it’s 300 acres of which about 80 acres are woodland and the rest is pasture. So it's an upland farm. And then we've just thought, well, how can we integrate all sorts of different types of tree planting? So on this map, we have an idea here, which is in one field called the dehesa, which is based on a Portuguese, Spanish, like cork oak, not plantation, but where livestock would basically live in amongst the woodland. So we're going to try and do that here. Not with cork oak, but with native oaks, but also walnut trees, for example. 

Adam: Oh, look, is that a neighbour passing through? 

Seb: That is actually, we've got an event here today, they're demonstrating the use of no fence collars. So yeah, part of the farm actually is we have quite a lot of sort of outreach stuff going on and it's great, it gets us involved with all the neighbours. 

Adam: Brilliant. Okay, so that noise of that Land Rover is a bit of the outreach. Very good. Okay, so you've got... That's about, okay, that's a great place to start. I want to talk to you about that. So lead on to wherever we should go first. 

Seb: Well, let's go, we're going to go down the hill a little bit. We're going to go to a place where trees have already been planted about 40 years ago. So when we were coming up with this map and the ideas of what we're going to do, we looked at what was here already and trees have already been incorporated here and we thought, well, we can learn from this. That's what we're going to do. 

Adam: Lead on. So one of the special things about this farm is its use of something called silvopasture. So what is that? 

Seb: Silvopasture, in essence, is integrating trees and livestock. So it's sort of bringing woodlands, where woodlands meet pasture, I suppose, and trying to integrate the two, merge the edges of where those blurred lines of woodland in theory can come into field and think of all sorts of ways how we can sort of recreate that. 

Adam: Okay, so I'll hold on. So, okay, so what is the purpose of silvopasture? Is it just a charitable thing to get trees into the ground or is it a different type of farming? I don't quite understand the benefit. 

Seb: Yeah, it really is a different type of farming where you incorporate trees into the farming system and then the trees will have benefit to the farming system or the livestock in the system. So in our case, we've got cattle and they will benefit in a dry, hot year from the shelter of the trees. And in the winter, if the cattle are outdoors, they will benefit from the, as you know, the trees acting as a windbreak. 

Adam: Which sounds sort of obvious and easy. So why doesn't everyone do that? I mean, just a tree providing free shelter rather than having to take the cows into barns or something. It sounds like a cheap way of doing it. Why isn't everyone doing this if it's so straightforward? 

Seb: Well, I think it's an old practice and most people know that, you know, we're in a modern time where we don't always use old practices anymore. So there's a bit of a revival of what in Devon used to be called the Devon Barn, which is basically just cattle up against the hedge. And we're just trying to revive that really and use it with a modern twist, incorporating trials of how trees could, you know new tree planting, not just traditional hedges, could be incorporated into fields in trees. 

Adam: And how complex is it? I mean, the way you describe it sounds very simple. Look, we need some shelter. We'll chuck some trees in the ground and wait a few years and then there'll be shelter. Is it that simple or is there something more complex going on? 

Seb: I think in essence, yeah, it is really simple. I mean, decide where you want the trees and plant them. The only complexity probably comes in is how long is it going to take for those trees to grow? Did you decide that where you planted them was actually the place you wanted them or are you going to go in five years and decide that you want them over there? And are they going to be eaten by anything? Are they going to survive? Is there going to be a drought? So there's challenges, but I think that's part of our sort of journey in a way, is also to learn from the process. 

Adam: I want to ask you some more of that, but we've come to, not a puddle, I'd say this is a minor lake we've got to cross here! Okay, so there's a fence. So we're going to open the fence. Oh, are we going to climb across that? 

Seb: Yeah there’s a very cleverly perched... 

Adam: Okay, right, we're crossing. Sorry, I'm just concentrating so I'm not talking or holding the microphone. We're crossing a sort of little stone bridge, which is very nice. I thought I was going to have to try and leap across that. Okay, so yes, we're talking about planting trees and everything. Is there any downside to it at all? 

Seb: I think in the short term, if you look at it, you look at tree planting with like a conventional farmer's hat on, you're losing potentially productive land. So you've got to wait, you've got to offset that, you know, for maybe five or ten years, there's going to be less, this land is going to have less pasture. And we're going to accept that and realise that, but in 10 years’ time, there's going to be these trees and they're going to offer all these benefits. Does that make sense? 

Adam: Yeah, it does. Very good. Okay, we're through the... wettest part without opening to a much broader field. Is this one of your fields? 

Seb: This is, yeah, this is Welsh Hill, and this is actually one of the first fields, or the first field, where we put the cattle into when we moved here, because there was some grass here. And the cattle, the first thing they did was, in fact, we let them into those woods, which are about 40 years old. And they went in for the shelter, because there was a howling easterly wind, and they started calving in there. 

Adam: Wow, that's so the cows here are living outside all the time. Is that the idea? 

Seb: Yeah, try and keep the cattle out for the whole year. 

Adam: And the advantage of that is what? 

Seb: Well, so having the cattle out all year, the main benefit to us is it simplifies the system. In a traditional farming system, you'd make hay or silage or whatever to feed the cattle when they're in the barns in the winter. You'd also have to bed them. And there's a whole process there involved that you're making hay and then you bring it in, then you're feeding it every day in winter, then you're mucking out the sheds, then you're spreading the muck. We've kind of turned it a little bit on its head, and this isn't a new practice, it's just a practice that's being revived. You could call it regenerative agriculture if you want. You could call it traditional farming, you could call it organic farming. But basically it's just a very low input approach which simplifies our life and means that the cattle actually also have a simplified life as well. They're outdoors doing what they want to be doing. 

Adam: That sounds amazing. It just sounds so obvious to me. I'm just thinking it can't be that obvious because otherwise everyone would be doing that. And it sounds like your response to that is, well, people are just stuck in their ways. That's not how a lot of farmers behave because that's not how they behave, is it? 

Seb: Yeah, very good question and possibly one I can't answer. All I know is that it's working for us and that we try and upsell our end product as best we can, so we're getting the most value we can for our milk and our beef, and reduced as much as we can the costs involved in producing those products. So outwintering the cattle, having the cattle grazing, having, you know, I quite often think of myself as a human muck spreader, but I'm not muck spreading, I'm just moving the cattle, if that make sense. Is it replicable? I don't see why it isn't. And there's more and more farms now that are realising that they could actually adapt this system with whatever numbers of cattle you have. And actually, weirdly, works better with higher stock numbers, believe it or not. So the concept of mob grazing, which you might have heard of, which is something we're using to graze our cattle, which is basically move them around in little mobs so that they put fertility into the soil in concentrated doses, and then they have the soil and the grassland has maximum rest period. It's basically replicating what happens in like the Savannah where like herds are, will they be wildebeest? 

Adam: Yeah. Wildebeest in the Savannah, yeah, not in Devon, but in the Savannah, yeah. 

Seb: That's what they're doing. And they are like having that sort of almost like slash and burn effect like happens in the Amazon of rejuvenating the soil and then giving it a rest. So we're just duplicating something that is a natural process. 

Adam: Great. So, but you've not got any trees in this field. I can see a couple over there. 

Seb: Yeah, interesting. So there's existing tree planting that's happened before us. So 200 years ago, maybe plus, where the temperate rainforest down in the valley along the River Erme has been buffered with trees. And we're going to basically do another tranche of buffering that woodland again, so doing our little bit to extend existing woodland around this farm. 

Adam: And it's interesting, you said that the trees over there were pre-existing, but you said how long ago? 

Seb: I think only 40 years ago. 

Adam: Yeah, that's what I thought you said. I mean, I think often we think about forests and trees, I'll plant them now and it's always that old phrase, you know, you plant it there for your children, not you will never benefit from the shade. But these aren't small trees, these are huge trees. And that's grown in a few decades. That's surprising, isn't it? 

Seb: Yeah, it's surprising and it's also quite topical in that I think the person who had the foresight to get those trees planted was Ken Watkins, who's founder of the Woodland Trust. So we can learn from what his vision was on this farm. He was like, I think trees might fit in the corner of this field. Little did he know that 40 years later, a farmer comes along and he's like, they're really useful and we're going to put our cattle in there. In the summer, I think it was August, the cattle were here and I actually came to check them and I couldn't see them anywhere. And initially they were all in the bottom of that barn. And the reason they were in the bottom of that barn was because it was a cool place. They'd all crammed into the bottom of the stone barn. But then I thought, well, why don't we let them into the trees? They don't have to be jammed in the bottom of a barn. So we cut open the fence of this 40-year-old tree planting and they went in. 

Adam: And they don't damage the trees? 

Seb: I mean, these are now established trees. You know, they're, what are we talking, they're like 12, 15, 20 metres high. If anything, they have, like the trampling effect they have in there is almost having a positive effect. The hooves will clear a bit of ground. In theory, then if we close that off, there would be some natural regeneration would happen. You know seeds could take in the areas that the cattle had disrupted the surface of the ground. 

Adam: Okay, where to? 

Seb: I think where we're going to go next is into a place called Blacklands Corner, which is at the bottom of a really beautiful bit of heathland. Quite wet. 

Adam: Okay, I'm prepared for wet. Off we go. Okay, so we've come into what we were talking about, the wood pasture, which is lots of trees and some grass. So the cows come in here and graze amongst the trees. All very picturesque, isn't it? It's a beautiful part, I wish I had a proper, we were just saying, I wish I had a camera crew here, we could have made a beautiful video, so maybe next time. But it's a nice place to pause for a moment, just as the cows find it nice, I too find it nice to stop here. I'm just interested in how, your journey here. So were you always a farmer or were you always interested in this area? What brought you to this farm in Devon? 

Seb: Good question. I was brought up on a farm. My dad was a farmer and then we left the farm. I loved everything about the farm and I followed my dad like, you know, like he was just everything he did was gold. And we left the farm when I was about 10 and I just always knew I wanted to farm. Skip forward 20 years, I did all sorts of other things, driving buses around Scotland and tourists around South America and having a great time and avoiding real life. And then I met my partner Freya and someone inadvertently said, you don't fancy milking cows? And I said, yes, that's the ticket. And then it all began eight years ago and we bought some cows and away we went. 

Adam: That's a huge change from driving tourists around the Highlands of Scotland and Latin America to farming in Devon. What is the appeal of this lifestyle then for you? 

Seb: I think, I mean, I've got a lot of nostalgic memories, I suppose, of growing up on a farm. I love the outdoors. I've always loved the outdoors. I like good food. Farming combines a lot of those things. It's loving the outdoors, like you're basically just, you're in the outdoors, so you're doing something really nice, feels wholesome. It's quite direct, what you're doing, you know, producing food whilst looking after a beautiful place. It just ticks a lot of boxes of things that I'm interested in, really. 

Adam: One always hears it's a hard life being a farmer, is it? 

Seb: Depends which day you ask a farmer on, I suppose. I think you can sometimes find yourself being a bit of a jack of all trades. So, one day you might be trying to work out your invoices or, the price of your yoghurt and the next day you're trying to work out where you're going to plant however many trees. I think yes and no. There's lots of amazing moments of beauty and then there's bits where you're like, God, what am I doing? Normally I start off at get the kids off, they're off at 7.30 to school, and I go off and get the cows and milk the cows. We only milk the cows once a day, so in theory, when you milk them, could be midday, could be six in the evening. So kind of the system we're designing is also one that's sustainable for our life, if that makes sense. 

Adam: Okay, that also surprises me. You see, I'm a city boy, I used to present breakfast news and we had to start at 3.30 in the morning. And I always thought, me and the milk farmers, we're up at 3.30 in the morning, but that's not true. It's just breakfast news presenters who are starting that shift. So that's really interesting. So this farm is different and special because of its connection to the Woodland Trust. How did you get involved in the Woodland Trust and, not your farming journey, but what made you interested in the importance of trees? 

Seb: I think I've always known that trees are important. They're a good thing. I was actually born in Finland and Finland is covered in trees. So whether it's like in my genetics, I don't know. But as we started farming, we soon started integrating trees as part of our farming. And now, being tenants of the Woodland Trust, we've got the full backing of all their, I suppose, knowledge and know-how and passion to support us in integrating more trees. 

Adam: I mean, we never want to be too political, but we happen to be talking on the day that I hear the Conservative Party is perhaps thinking of dropping net zero targets for lots of reasons that they feel will be popular amongst a lot of people that are worried about cost of energy and the competitiveness of British industry. But I think it'd be worrying to a lot of the environmental movement. So I'm just interested in your view, not on that policy, but generally on how tuned in the nation is to the environmental message, do you think everyone's on board, there's still people to be brought over, or that it is a live debate? And you know, well, maybe planting trees everywhere isn't the right thing. I don't know. What's your view about this debate in the nation and what people feel about it? 

Seb: Interesting. Definitely a political question, which I don't feel I'm very connected to, living out here in like a bit of a rural idyll. I'm also conscious that some of our customers are, it's quite a niche custom, you know, if you decide you want to eat good food and you're willing to pay a little bit more for it, that's already a decision or almost a liberty that you're able to do. Actually, just driving back to the farm yesterday, I was thinking that we're still reliant on fossil fuels, like we still use, you know, we've got our car we use to take the kids to school and we've got the pickup we use to take the cattle to slaughter. So there's always more we can do. I think we need to keep focused on those targets and maybe we need to raise the profile of what's currently going on to reach those targets. For example, what we're trying to do here, which is low input farming and tree planting. 

Adam: Talking of which, whilst we’re paused here, we've been talking a lot about planting trees and the importance of trees on farms like this. What's the scale of the plan here? I mean, how many trees are we talking about you planning on planting and the sort of timescale we're talking about? 

Seb: So the plan we've got is take our 300 acre farm, I think a third of it will have trees, new trees on, in various different densities. So some will be really low density, like, you know, 25 trees in a small field. Others will be 1,000 stems per hectare, which is, if you're in old money per acre, that's like 2,500 trees per acre. It's quite a lot of trees. In total, I think it's 20,000 trees we're going to plant, is the plan, all going well over the next two years. So 10,000 trees a year.  

Adam: Wow. That's not just you and Freya planting those, are you? 

Seb: No, I'm hoping that all the Woodland Trust volunteers are going to come along and have a day out and anyone else who's interested. 

Adam: I was going to say, because you should be busy planting, you shouldn't be talking to me, go get a shovel! Okay, that's a lot of trees. And the sorts of trees going into the ground here are what? 

Seb: It's predominantly native trees. So we're wanting to recreate the trees that fit into this landscape, like, we're in the national park, so there's also like a visual, it's got to look aesthetically okay, but we can also play within that little bit with, I mean, something really interesting we've been looking at actually with the Woodland Trust is climate projections for 2080 and what temperature are we going to potentially be dealing with and what tree species might like it here. So we spoke earlier about this idea of the Spanish dehesa, which we've called now the Devon dehesa, which is, in theory could have a few cork oaks in there and in 2080 they might be doing just fine. 

Adam: So actually you're planting trees really to anticipate climate change and which might do well in half a century's time or so. So that's really interesting. So sort of the Spanish cork oaks might go in here. And predominantly you've talked about native trees. What sort of trees are we talking about? 

Seb: Yeah, so there'll be, I mean, we're looking here at oaks, hazels, what else have we got? There's a lot of beeches here, but I don't think we're planting too many beeches. Yeah, rowan, willow, wlder, alder. 

Adam: Right. All of them. Rowan, my favourite, I think. Rowan, my favourite. Okay, very good. Where are we off to next? 

Seb: I think we're going to go through this little heathland, which is again one of my, one of my favourite bits of the farm. We're going to pop out and we should see the cows, which... 

Adam: Cows, of course. We've been talking about cows and I've not seen any. It could all be an elaborate con, that he hasn't got any cows, so we will have a look *laughs* I spy cows in a field. They're all sitting down. How long would they be in this field for before you rotate them? 

Seb: This field, they'll probably be in, they went in Tuesday morning. Where are we, Thursday? I'll probably move them this afternoon or tomorrow morning. 

Adam: So they're only two or three days in a field? 

Seb: Yeah, and the rotation speeds up at different times of the year. So now the grass growth is slowing down. So the rotation will either, like, we either start excluding fields or we'll go faster and then totally stop. And then you'll see as we go into the next field, you'll see bits that we've made for hay and where we're going to graze in the winter, which will be rolling out bales of hay called bale grazing. A bit of a revolutionary practice. 

Adam: Tell me about that, but I tell you what, strikes me is I know nothing about cows. Could you give me a one-minute primer? You're just closing the gate, hold on. Now, yes, what do I need to know about cows in a minute or so? 

Seb: I can tell you about our cows? 

Adam: Yes, yeah, your cows. 

Seb: So we've got, what breed have we got? We've got Jersey crosses, which are like a New Zealand cross. So they did originally come from Jersey. 

Adam: Jersey crosses? 

Seb: Yeah. 

Adam: I think they said Jersey clotted, like that's where clotted cream comes from, straight out the cow. Okay, Jersey crosses. 

Seb: Kiwi crosses, you can call them as well. So they're bred predominantly in New Zealand on a place which is very wet and grows lots of grass. And that's all they do. So we've got Jerseys, we've got a Beef Shorthorn bull, which is a British breed. And so then we have these crosses, which we get a Jersey and a Beef Shorthorn cross, which is the little calf you're looking at here. 

Adam: Right, so are there bulls as well? No, there won't be bulls in this. 

Seb: The bull is with the milking herd, which is the other gang we'll go up and see in a minute. These are all the young stock, so these are all sort of 15 months old. There's younger calves, the smaller ones, which some of them have just been weaned. And there's a few beef suckler cows in here. So the big shorthorns, the big red cows in there, they've got their calves on them all the time. 

Adam: And that's also different here, isn't it? Because often in large scale dairy farming, the calves get taken away from the mothers very early on. But you don't do that, do you? 

Seb: Yeah, so that is a practice that actually Freya has like basically insisted we start with because she's a mother. We thought that it would have, yeah, it would go down well with some of our customers and it has done. We try and keep the calves on their mums. So we're basically sharing the milk up to three or four months. At three and a half months old, the calves are basically drinking all the milk. So then we go, all right, we're going to now sell some of that milk. But it's definitely better than, or we feel it's better than, weaning them at, you know, a day old and then having a whole other process of having to rear those calves on milk, which is a process. You need someone to do that. Whereas the cows are just producing milk anyway. 

Adam: Interesting. And so again, ignorant question, but these are not bulls, they're cows, but they've got horns. 

Seb: Yeah. 

Adam: So it's not just bulls that have horns, cows have horns? 

Seb: Cows can have horns, yeah. Again, another practice that we've thought we don't really feel we believe in or fits with what we're doing, de-horning cattle, we think they've got horns for a reason, like they grow, let's let them have them. We don't, we're not pushing our cattle in any way that they're stressed, so they're not coming to basically jab us with their horns. Touch wood! 

Adam: I was going to say, it's interesting because I think quite recently I've started reading about how dangerous cows are and how people don't, they wander across fields and don't realise these are big animals and they can squash you and stuff. Is that something you have to be aware of when you're dealing with them? 

Seb: I mean, I'm totally at one with these guys and they know me and I know them and yeah, I never had any issues. If you have to get them all into a little pen for some reason, like the one day the vet's here to do the TB test or something, that's a bit of an unusual situation. You're getting them in and it's not their normal sitting out in the field. They could be a bit edgy and you might not want to be in amongst them. So yeah, I think it's just, yeah, I mean, footpaths, that's quite often what comes up, isn't it that people are walking through fields of cows and the cows, if anything, are just curious, they're coming over and it's probably just daunting to have 10 big cows come to you. Your instinct is to run away. But more often than not, I think, cattle are pretty friendly, and if anything, they're scared of humans. 

Adam: Well, personally, I think it's always better to be safe than sorry, and I'd advise people to be careful of cows. They are large animals, after all, but I know I'm a bit of a townie, so it's not my natural environment. Anyway, that all aside, what is happening here isn't just important in its own right, but as a sort of model for what others can do. So for those with land, those farmers interested in this kind of approach, what are the lessons that have been learned here that could apply elsewhere? 

Seb: I suppose really just to be open-minded to some small changes, or big changes. I don't think there's any prescriptive size of change that counts as a valid change, you could plant an acre of trees and that's brilliant. You could plant 300 acres of trees and that's amazing. So, I mean, do whatever feels right for your farm or for your circumstance. Yeah, so the Woodland Trust are obviously our landlords here, so we have them on speed dial, but any farmer can go to the Woodland Trust for advice on tree planting. And it's great advice, I mean, I'd say hand on heart, even though you don't always speak totally openly about your landlords, like the advice they're giving us, you know, as outreach advisors is amazing and has given us basically the confidence to go and plant the 20,000 trees we've just basically signed up to plant and the what and the how and the where of how to do it. 

Adam: Which is a lovely way of ending. And of course, the Woodland Trust website has tons of information you may find useful and it's a great organisation to be part of anyway. So, until next time, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, happy wandering. 

Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks. Join us next month when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. And don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you are listening. And do give us a review and a rating. If you want to find out more about our woods and those that are close to you, check out the Woodland Trust website. Just head to the Visiting Woods pages. Thank you.