Cranswick is proud to be supporting Routes to Regen, an innovative farm pilot, managed by The Royal Countryside Fund and sponsored by members of the Sustainable Markets Initiative to show that regenerative farming can be a practical and rewarding option for farmers.
The programme aims to simplify the often complex landscape of sustainability by providing a whole-farm approach, tailored to the needs of each farmer.
Cranswick will be joining other leading agricultural, food and finance businesses to contribute to a carefully curated menu of resources and opportunities, which will be available to farmers to help them on their route to regenerative farming as a practical and rewarding option for their farm.
The programme will be delivered by Ceres Rural, providing free business consultancy advice to help identify the best sustainability solutions from the menu for each farm, such as:
- Routes to premiums for sustainably-grown crops.
- Discounts on cover crop, pollinator and specialist seed.
- Opportunities to integrate livestock and organic matter into your system.
- Demonstration days and knowledge-sharing events.
- Support to begin collecting environmental data.
Keith Halstead, Executive Director of The Royal Countryside Fund said, “At The Royal Countryside Fund, we know that farming in a sustainable way can often feel overwhelming for busy farmers who are facing relentless social, environmental and economic challenges. This new programme, Routes to Regen, was created with them in mind, making regenerative farming practices feel more achievable by bringing together resources and rewards from industry-leading businesses into one, easy-to-access package, which will be discussed on farm. We look forward to managing its implementation.”
Ash Gilman, Director of Agricultural Strategy at Cranswick said “UK agriculture is facing into unprecedented challenges simultaneously, be it rapidly phased out Government financial support, pressure to minimise its impact on the natural environment, changing weather patterns and ultimately proving healthy food can be produced efficiently alongside nature. Maintaining healthy soils are at the very heart of this challenge. Moving back in time to more traditional methods of farming whereby livestock and/or organic manures are incorporated back into the soils is the most effective way of improving soil health. The result being a soil that is more drought resistant, requires less synthetic fertiliser and maintains crop yields and a healthy ecosystem that can sequester carbon more effectively than woodland if managed well.
It takes time and money to transition to this type of regenerative farming system. The Sustainable Markets Initiative, launched by The Royal Countryside Fund aims to support farmers and landowners in that transition. Cranswick and its four farming businesses Wayland Farms, Wold Farms, White Rose and Crown Farms are well positioned to be an integral part of the initiative in the short to long term. An opportunity to create new business relationships with farms that need to diversify into pigs or poultry to be more financially resilient and also secure a supply of “free” organic manure to displace some of the cost of synthetic fertiliser and remove some exposure to the new fertiliser tax, coming into force in 2026.
Further programmes to be launched as part of our agriculture strategy include sourcing cereals for our pig and poultry rations from regenerative farming systems and a carbon insetting scheme within our own farming businesses that will allow us to achieve further reductions in our livestock carbon footprint in the future and demonstrate biodiversity uplift within our farming operations. Not only will this reduce our carbon footprint, but also potentially increase the nutritional value of the feed…an exciting area of focus to explore in the future.
Following the SMI pilot programme in East Anglia with Wayland Farms and McDonalds, we very much look forward to developing both these workstreams within the Sustainable Markets Initiative and our wider farming and customer base.”
For more information, visit: Routes to Regen.