Courteenhall Farms in Northamptonshire has been certified as a Pasture for Life producer.

Pasture for Life certification provides an important distinction over food produced by other methods.

There are three key elements which include: understanding what our grass is capable of producing and improving it where necessary; matching the breed of animals to the available grassland; and ensuring the end product meets the requirements of the available markets.

The cows at Courteenhall Farms have a high quality of life and graze outside all year round on the estate’s grassland, with no supplementary feed needed.

Dr Johnny Wake, Managing Partner of Courteenhall Farms, said: “Our cattle are Traditional Herefords and we worked with the Rare Breeds Survival Trust to choose the breed best suited to being here.

“They’re a hardy native breed and we wanted to reintroduce them to the estate as they were traditionally kept here for three generations until the 1960s.

“We started with a herd of thirty and welcomed our first calves in 2023. Our plan is to build up to a herd of fifty and we’re looking forward to our first calves of 2024.

“Our growing herd has lots of space to meander and they love to naturally do a form of mob grazing, supporting our soil, regenerating our land, keeping our grasslands healthy and boosting the quality and diversity of flora and fauna as they do so.

“They support insects, including pollinators such as bees, and we’ve already seen the return of the dung beetle, a keystone species which can bring an array of benefits, and even types of orchids that we have not seen before. We’re also seeing more wildflower species which are a good source of pollen and nectar.

“We raise them to the highest possible standards before selling them to The Ethical Butcher, which exclusively sources from Pasture for Life certified farms and is on a mission to reconnect people with nature, food and the land it comes from.

“At Courteenhall a large part of our climate-friendly farming is Countryside Stewardship and we have moved into a Natural England Higher-Tier environmental stewardship scheme to restore our parkland and reinstate historic features. We have ambitious plans for the whole farm, including being carbon neutral by 2030 to ensure that the estate is in the best possible shape for our future generations too.”

The Wake family has been in South Northamptonshire since the 13^th century and has been farming at Courteenhall for over 350 years.

https://www.courteenhall.co.uk/

https://www.pastureforlife.org/profile/P457/

https://ethicalbutcher.co.uk/