United Kingdom-Farming the old traditional breeds.
UNITED KINGDOM-TRADITION BRITISH BREEDS.
A traditional approach has helped a couple run a successful farm business. Agricultural Correspondent
Mark Casci reports.
FARMING and nature run deep in the veins of Andrew and Janet Stott, and it is a passion they have shared their entire lives.
Mr Stott works on the maintenance and environmental management of the magnificent Sutton Park estate while Mrs Stott is a staff nurse at York Hospital.
However their combined zest and love for farming and food led them five years ago to take the plunge and go into farming for themselves.
Having become disenchanted with the quality of meat they were buying, they decided that they could do better themselves and began running a couple of Dexter cattle on a patch of rented land.
Today they farm a herd of 68 native breed cattle from Woodhouse Farm Cottage, off York Road, between York and Helmsley. They live virtually self sufficiently, and also run a flock of 50 Hampshire Down breeding ewes on their 90-acre holding near Sutton on the Forest.
Harking back to bygone eras, the Stotts avoid producers and supermarkets.
All of their Aberdeen Angus and Dexter cattle are reared, finished and sold direct to local customers, with no middle men or promotion.
The farm is run in a very traditional manner, with very low input levels while at the same time offering a fascinating glimpse of how Britain’s countryside used to be. Much of the heavy work on the farm is carried out by a shire horse and a David Brown tractor, while muck from the livestock is used as the chief fertiliser.
Mrs Stott said that apart from the fact that the traditional methods yield such natural healthy results, she feels it is important that such methods are practiced and not forgotten about. "We are totally dependent on clover rich swards – we no longer apply nitrogen fertiliser, we also manage a system free of ag-chems, apart from making spot treatment with herbicides."
The couple produce animals all year round and a batch of lambs has been recently born with a view to the Easter market.
The grass-orientated diet is, in Mr Stott’s opinion, the key to the flavour of the animals. "If you are feeding animals on grain then they are on a high carbohydrate diet. Grass is naturally a good source of protein.
"We are operating a low input forage-based system using two carefully selected traditional breeds to efficiently produce the highest quality meat branded as Sutton Beef and Lamb."
The proof is in the produce – with the beef they rear having a fantastic "marble" effect of fat throughout which melts away when cooking. The animals are hung for three and half weeks prior to sale to maximise the flavour and tenderness.
Easy care Hampshire Downs have convinced the Stotts to focus their immediate attention on expanding the sheep enterprise, confident demand that boxed lamb will readily match increased supply.
Mrs Stott said: "We initially chose the Hampshire Down to use as a terminal sire breed because we’d read about its high levels of performance combined with meat eating quality, and we’ve found this first hand. We are finishing our Hampshire Down cross lambs solely off milk and grass to 20kgs deadweight or heavier within 12 to 14 weeks, they have great conformation and we hang the carcasses for up to 10 days to achieve a consistent superior eating quality lamb. Our Hampshire Down cross lambs have also proved to be easy to lamb, the lambs are soon up and away sucking and they’re hardy – they’re ideal for our low input, high output system."
They way they talk if their enterprise reveals a passion for what they do and the couple are incredibly enthusiastic about the farm they run and the food they sell. The effects of mass production and multi-national supermarket chains are, in their opinion, eroding the traditional English small-scale farming life away from the country.
This trend has led to a lack of awareness from the general public about what leads to their food arriving on their plate – something the family hope is starting to change with growing interest in food miles and provenance. Mrs Stott said: "We were never completely satisfied with the availability of what was on offer so we decided just to produce it for ourselves." Mr Stott added: "What we are doing is hugely commonplace in Italy and in France. There are lots of people like us in those countries. We produce for a growing group of customers, repeating orders throughout the year. In terms of tractability we are as far as it goes and our food miles are minimal."
In spite of the small scale of the enterprise the quality of what the Stotts produce has not gone unnoticed. They won Hambleton District Council’s Food Producer the Year Award in 2007, and the couple have enjoyed success at a number of agricultural shows, including a third place in the Hampshire Down shearling ram class at last year’s Great Yorkshire Show. Mr Stott’s culinary skills are in demand and he frequently finds himself cooking home reared meat for local customers including his employer, Sir Reginald Sheffield and his family who also order boxes of Sutton Beef and Lamb.
As far as the future is concerned the couple are preparing to launch a website for their food. They also welcome visitors to their farm by appointment.
To reach Woodhouse Cottage Farm, email janet@jstott.plus.com or call 01347 810998.
