John Turner

1 March 2010

Where?
South West Lincolnshire

What?
Mixed organic - 40 beef cows, cereals

Who is produce sold to?
Mostly wholesale market, plus local box scheme

John Turner has a farm of approximately 250 acres in South West Lincolnshire.

His family has been farming this land since the 1930s, and John made the farm organic in 1999.

John has a herd of 40 beef cows and grows some cereals as well.

Most of the animals are sold to the wholesale market. Some, however, are sold through a local box scheme to nearby villages, which John describes as "much more rewarding"

Avoiding soy feed completely

All the cattle are fed entirely on grass throughout the year.

From Spring until Autumn, the cows graze directly on a mixture of ryegrass and white clover.

During the Winter they're fed grass silage, and occasionally barley or oat straw.

The added clover boosts the protein content of the feed, in John's case removing the need for supplementary sources of protein such as soy.

According to John, high protein soy-based animal feeds are "a very inefficient conversion of feed into food."

"Because of the vast amount of land needed to grow protein for animal feed, it's better to grow crops for direct human consumption, and graze animals on the land that's not as productive for crop growth"

John Turner

As well as adding protein, clover fixes the nitrogen in the soil allowing the grass to grow and removing the need for synthetic fertilizers.

This avoids the damage caused by synthetic fertilizers on the soil and the accompanying problems of fossil fuel use.

He believes that we can feed the world - and carry on enjoying meat - by changing our livestock production methods "using only grass for grazing animals and re-shaping arable land use away from cattle feed production."

A long-term project

The biggest problem he's faced has been matching the breeds of animal with the farm's grassland: "We just tried a number of solutions, kept what worked and moved on from the things that didn't"

John is also looking to improve in other areas of his operation too:

"We are currently working on ways of becoming self-sufficient in terms of water and in the longer term getting as close to energy self-sufficiency as possible"

John Turner