Organic is on the up once more, and the Soil Association have just launched a campaign to explain why organic meat is the food you can trust. The higher standards of animal welfare insist that animals are given plenty of space and fresh air to thrive and grow - guaranteeing a truly free-range life, including reduced exposure to antibiotics and other drugs commonly used routinely in intensive farming. Organic agriculture is better for the environment, helping to fight against climate change by sequestering carbon in soils, and organic farms like Higher Hacknell are havens for wildlife, where plant, insect and birdlife are overall 50% more abundant . Most importantly it’s good to know what’s in your food when so many supermarket labels can be confusing to say the least! GM ingredients and artificial preservatives are banned under organic standards, so the best way to reduce exposure to pesticides in all food is to buy organic. Tim and I get furious when we read and hear it recommended that people should give up meat to save the planet from climate change. Eating meat which been reared on upland farms where other crops can’t be grown actually helps to store carbon in the soil because the grassland is not being ploughed up, and animals are naturally fertilising the fields, it all makes good sense!
Back to earth and the work ahead; I think we will lose all sense of reality by the end of the month, with the mayhem of hundreds of lambs being born and transforming our fields from a haven of tranquility to what will be noisier and more frenetic than a playground on the first day of school! Each of our children have helped with the lambing at one time or other and it’s become almost a family rite of passage. It’s Ellie’s ‘opportunity’ this time when she returns from university, so we
hope that all those late nights out clubbing will have trained her to stay up all night in the lambing shed! There’ll be more to follow on Facebook….!
We have had some issue with our website server and you may have experienced slow loading of the site, so we apologise for this and recommend you phone us on 01769 560909 if you have any problems, though we hope they are now resolved. You can also message us on Facebook or Twitter.
There are only a few days left to order that special roasting joint of beef, lamb or pork for lunch on Mother’s Day at www.higherhacknell.co.uk as we need orders by this Sunday 8th March for delivery next week on Thursday 12th or Friday 13th. Make the most of our seasonal offer of 10% off Rib on the Bone which lasts until 15th March and check out our NEW Easter Boxes.
I hope you enjoy the arrival of spring- as March has come in ‘like a lion’ let’s hope it goes out ‘like a lamb’ as they say round here.
With best wishes from
Tim and Jo and all at Higher Hacknell Farm