Raising the profile of sustainable sheep at GroundSwell

On Thursday, Phil Stocker, NSA Chief Executive spoke in not one, but two sessions promoting the value of sheep in a variety of different systems across the UK.

Phil comments: “As a first time visit to GroundSwell I was blown away by the size and the scale and the mood and optimism of the atmosphere. It was a great opportunity to portray sheep as the multifunctional animal they truly are.” 

The benefits of sheep in arable session was crammed with sheep and arable farmers wanting to learn more about the positives and negatives of the system. The second session on the role of trees and sheep was just as popular, with people sitting on the floor and standing around the edges. 

Phil continues: “It was encouraging to see how many sheep farmers and arable farmers attended the seminars and people who are already involved in sheep in arable rotations were present at the Golden Hoof seminar, but also there was a lot of enthusiasm too from attendees to hear about others’ experiences and to make improvements to their own systems.”

The first Golden Hoof seminar included two NSA members – John Pawsey, an arable farmer from Suffolk who brought a breeding flock into his organic system some years ago, and Robert Spink who used to work with John but now has his own sheep farming enterprise and is chair of NSA Eastern Region. Both highlighted the importance of getting things right from the start to avoid making costly mistakes and the value of learning from other people who are already running similar systems. Discussions were also had highlighting the real opportunities to be had between upland and lowland farmers using land for grazing sheep, moving closer to the right sheep in the right place at the right time whilst achieving environmental obligations.

Phil adds: “We also talked about the grazing list which NSA hopes to launch soon. This will be an online match making service for people who have sheep and want grazing and people with grazing who want sheep. This will bring together two groups of people who don’t naturally come into contact with each other and NSA can play a role in facilitating that.”

Regarding the role of sheep and trees seminar, Phil says: “This is still quite an embryonic approach but from an NSA perspective it is something that we have always been keen on, accepting that more trees are part of the agenda and we would like to see more trees integrated into farms and not mass reforestation. It is clear from the work we have been involved in that there are real benefits to sheep as well as clear environmental benefits to agro forestry provision such as shade and shelter for animals and also insects etc when we know that our weather patterns are becoming more extreme.”

There is also evidence that grassland can become more productive and is not compromised by the sensitive introduction of more trees. Phil adds: “Care needs to be taken and discussions had about how to manage sheep within an area of trees and there was a good discussion about certain breeds not stripping trees and how to protect trees from sheep, including grants for fencing.”

NSA member Mike Adams talked about the pros and cons of running sheep in agro forestry. He changed to this way of farming following an NSA trip a couple of years ago to southern Europe where he saw the use of trees in hot climates and not just the benefit to the environment and sheep but how farmers were creating new products from their trees and their crops such as nuts and fruit.

Phil concludes: “There was a recognition during the seminar that there is a still a tendency for many sheep farmers to look unfavourably at more tree planting on their land, but everyone there agreed that if this approach became more mainstream – and it is being encouraged by Defra through SFI schemes – it would show that sheep farmers can still be serious commercial farmers and not become hobbyists by planting more trees.”