Regenerative farming is highly beneficial to the environment and projects like the Telfit Farm project are showing the way with natural inputs and diverse farming practices that improve soil health, water retention and biodiversity.
What is regenerative farming?
Regenerative farming is an agricultural approach to farming that aims to restore the soil, increase biodiversity and improve the overall ecosystem. It uses methods like cover cropping, crop rotation, reducing tillage and integrating livestock. This approach improves soil health, water retention and carbon sequestration (High Weald).
Eat Telfit’s Telfit Farm is a prime example of how a biodiverse hill farm can produce ethical, nutrient dense food while at the same time restoring the landscape in the Yorkshire Dales.
Why not conventional farming?
Conventional farming has contributed to soil degradation, carbon emissions and biodiversity decline in the UK. It is not sustainable. Continuously growing the same single crops on the same land harms the soil health, reducing the nutrients in it and also affecting the nutrient levels in the foods grown. Intensive farming of crops and the use of pesticides reduce the level of biodiversity above and below ground – affecting soil organisms like earthworms that improve soil health and pollinators like bees and butterflies. Intensive livestock farming requires high volumes of feed that need fertilisers and large quantities of land and water to produce.
The alternative – regenerative farming – is an organic and holistic approach to the farming ecosystem. At Telfit Farm they use natural inputs to mimic natural ecosystems. Natural inputs include seaweed, making their own compost and using their animal’s manure to fertilise the soil. This reduces their dependence on synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, further benefitting the soil and local wildlife.
Telfit Farm’s habitat restoration projects include orchards, pastures, meadows and wildlife ponds. They’ve planted trees and hedgerows, herbal leys and wildflower meadows. This diversity in habitat increases the number of species living on the land; both plants and animals. The UK is one of the most depleted countries for biodiversity and Defra estimates that our most important animals have declined by up to 60%. 14 out of 24 biodiversity indicators show long term decline (Gov UK).
By improving the soil, Telfit Farm has increased water retention by up to 20,000 litres per acre. This reduces flooding downstream from the farm and makes the farm less vulnerable to drought, which are increasingly becoming a concern in the UK. This month an Environment Agency and Defra report warned of widespread drought in 2026 unless we have sufficient rainfall over this winter. And localised flooding from recent rains has caused havoc in Yorkshire. At COP30 a report released by Save Soil highlighted the carbon sequestration properties of healthy soil, alongside the benefit of reduced flooding, and increased resilience in ‘increasingly unpredictable weather’ (Yorkshire Post).
Eat Telfit practices a nose to tail ethos for its butchery which reduces waste. Meat and produce from healthy soils are nutrient rich and flavourful. The chicken is free-range and the cows, pigs and sheep are grass fed. They also offer nitrate free bacon, dry cure gammon, wild venison, pies, broths and selected local products like butter, cheese, honey, flour, pasta, oils, vinegars, etc. Order food on their website at www.eattelfit.co.uk for delivery to most of the UK mainland.
