Farm walk with Kitty Spencer: an afternoon discovering her passion for regenerative farming.

katedewally

Sep 9

4 min read

On the 11^th August I had the pleasure of meeting Kitty Spencer, a 20-year-old farmer from Cambridgeshire and a fellow member of the Emergent Generation agricultural network (https://www.emergentgeneration.co.uk/). After a chat in the garden, she was kind enough to take me on a walk around her family farm to discuss her experiences and journey into agriculture.

Farming here on their mixed family farm in South Cambridgeshire is a true family collaboration, as Kitty works closely with her dad, David. As a child Kitty always showed a flare for farming and entrepreneurship when she started selling eggs on the driveway. This enthusiasm meant that David has been teaching her the tricks of the trade since she was young, for example, an early memory Kitty has is when she was given a small tractor to fix with the promise that she could use it once she had. Nowadays, fixing machinery is mainly managed by David, and instead Kitty has developed a keen interest in caring for livestock. In fact, since she started working more on the farm, the range of livestock has increased including Kitty’s purchase of some pigs! Overall, her dad’s experiences and encouragement have ignited a passion for farming in Kitty, which now carries through in their work together.

In a time of extreme heat and drought, Kitty explained the challenges she was facing but also how farming regeneratively has increased the resilience of the farm and has left them in a better position than some conventional farmers. For example, as we walked round the farm, I could see evidence of greenery and the cows were still being supported by the grass. This has been helped by using regenerative practices, but also choosing cattle breeds that can survive for longer periods of time on grass

"we just grow grains to feed the cows, but we've turned to a heritage variety to try and get the size of the cow down so we can keep them out longer, so that they're more native and they can grow on grass rather than having to keep feeding on grain. "

The cows!

David has always been enthusiastic about farming in a nature friendly way such as maintaining wild corners in fields and preserving hedges, despite this not being common at the time. However this is now a main part of the farming business and to help support their work, the farm uses the government agri-environmental scheme, the Sustainable Farming Incentive, to provide a variety of habitat types and promote healthy soils. For instance, we walked through a field of herbal lay, which had been funded using the grant. Using regenerative principles, and because it makes good business sense, the farm has harvested some of the herbal lay seeds using a combine stripper header, which not only saves money on future seed mixes but keeps living roots in the soil allowing them to fix nitrogen and maintain a healthy soil structure. Another example of how the management has benefited the environment on the farm is the use of wild bird seed mix and pond restoration, with both of these habitats providing an essential refuge for wildlife.

**Wild bird seed seen on our walk around the farm**

For me, a striking part of the afternoon was to see Swallows on the farm and observe Kitty's joy in seeing them. For Kitty, who has some South African heritage, seeing the swallows return from their winter in Africa is a special moment, and shows the interconnected nature of global ecosystems:

“It always makes me emotional when the swallows come back because they've been in Africa, like eating all the bugs around all the rhinos and the elephants, and then they come here and eat all the bugs around our cows, and it's like, it's so lovely.”

The environmental work on the farm doesn’t stop there. The vision for the future is to massively extend their existing network of hedges. But even more than a desire to improve the environment, the farm have recently hosted hedge laying community days, which not only started to provide habitat but brought local people to the farm and connecting them to the countryside. As well as their aesthetic and environmental value, another key benefit of having hedges is that it keeps livestock in fields, which reduces the need for fencing and reliance on funding to put them up:

“I was trying to apply for capital grants and that filled up so quickly – it was like going to Glastonbury”

**Kitty showing me her wonderful hedges on our farm walk**

Kitty has also been getting out into the community through direct selling produce on the farm and selling at Keddington Market. She has found that there is quite a large appetite for local meat, especially as she farms in an area which is typically conventional arable farming. Her passion for selling meat within the village started when she worked for the local butcher, who told her about the days of running a small abattoir on site. In the future, kitty would like to further develop her direct meat business and have her own farm shop with a small meat processing unit, as she believes this would give her more control over the products she sold.

“My experience at Michael, the butcher, was absolutely brilliant and completely, I think it completely changed my life.”

Kitty is an open minded and passionate women in farming. On our walk she was very happy to share her experiences of rural life and it was a pleasure to meet her. She also shares her story, and very cute videos of her livestock, on her Instagram, @kitty_rose_farming_ so please give it a follow, and support David and Kitty's fantastic farming business!