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Eco Friendly Farming

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Shorthorn Cow and Calf

Not only is the grass green at Hillstown Farm

When we came up with the idea of opening our farm shop back in 2007 we wanted to create new principles of high quality, high welfare and eco friendly farming. We were already good at the high welfare and by changing our animal breeding to more traditional breeds and rare breeds the quality was easy to do. Back then environmental issues wasn’t a big thing but we took it serious from day one. We were quite lucky to have my uncle in a way, who the Eco-warrior in the family and has helped us along the way. 

Very quickly after opening we got a system in place to recycle all our waste. We are proud to say we have nothing going to landfill from our business.  All our butchery bones go to be rendered and actually go into the cosmetics industries. Our cafe waste is composted for garden fertiliser, our plastic, paper waste and glass all goes for recycling, our tin all goes to the local scrapyard.

We’ve always made a point of buying our fruit and veg as loose as possible to try and help you our customer from have loads of plastic to try and manage. All the extra boxes are useful for our amazing customers to pack their groceries into to save plastic bags.

As we all know recently there has been a lot of negativity towards farming, much of it nonsense to be fair. But yes there are a few areas which could be improved and we’ve been working hard on those to. Over the last 12 months we have greatly reduced our fertiliser usage by over 50% (we didn’t use much anyway, well below the national average) We found that regular soil analysis on all our fields and the spreading of chalk  to make the grass growth more efficient and sweeter for our cattle and sheep. Also better management of our farm manure produced good grass growth.

Also recently there has been a couple of reports done on reducing methane produced in cattle which is a big pollutant.

Our Cows Smell Gorgeous

First one was feeding garlic to cattle reduced this gas in the animals, this happens to be something we’ve been doing for years! We’ve been feeding garlic for a totally different reason which was as a natural organic way to keep flies from annoying our cattle and it works a treat. We just didn’t realise we were saving the planet by doing so. 

Beer Fed Beef Saves The Planet

The second is a more recent study into feeding brewers grains to cattle which greatly reduces methane production in the cow. Researchers in Belgium have discovered that by feeding spent grains to cattle can lower methane producing in the cows stomach significantly. This is huge for us as all our cattle are finished on spent grains from our onsite brewery ( Hillstown Brewery) and it makes us happy that not only are we feeding a great local by-product and is now proven to reduce methane. This i guess makes our beef come from the most eco friendly farming available.

Check out our Beer Fed Rib Eyes for maximum flavour and tenderness

Its also pretty darn tasty. 

 

The post Eco Friendly Farming appeared first on Hillstown Farm Shop.


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