Small-scale farms can offer resilience.
In this Article...
Small-scale farms are less affected by adverse weather conditions and could become an important part of our food security networks. Local producers, Stonelynk Organics, in Fairlight Hastings run by Hélène Maerschalck and her partner Stephen Atkinson, explain how they survived the persistently wet Spring weather. (2 min read)
Now that summer has finally arrived it’s easy to forget just how much rainfall we endured from October 2023. With some alarm, the Guardian reported in April that:
‘Fields are completely underwater’: UK farmers navigate record rainfall
According to the Met Office, 1,695.9mm of rain fell from October 2022 to March 2024, the highest amount recorded for any 18-month period in England.
The report confirms that many farmers are struggling to get the crops in the ground and there is the threat of food shortages later in the season, as explained by farmer and agricultural journalist, Tom Allen-Stevens:
Our farm is mainly arable so it’s crops that we grow. The constraints that we are facing this year means we are going to have an appalling harvest. We’ve hardly got any crops in the ground at all, I’ve only managed to get 30 hectares [74 acres] of my 170 hectares planted and we have 110 hectares of “croppable” land. That’s less than a third.
Fortunately, smaller farms were not so adversely affected. On a visit to Stonelynk Organics I spoke to Hélène and asked her how they had managed with all the rain. Oh, she said with shrug, there have been a lot more slugs and snails but we don’t use big plant machinery here so we have been able to access our whole site using wheelbarrows.
Stonelynk Organics is a 2-acre market garden where vegetables, fruit and herbs are grown in 140 permanent beds and 4 cropping polytunnels. They currently provide approximately 35 veg boxes a week to locals in Fairlight and the surrounding area using a mixture of click and collect and local delivery. Small, sustainable farms could help fill the gap this season and once people get the taste for freshly harvested crops there could be no turning back. At Stonelynk they grow a mixture of seasonal salads, vegetables, fruit and fresh herbs at their own farm, with other items brought in via an organic wholesaler. Here is a sample of their produce:
It may cost a little more than the supermarket but small-scale farms could be vital in a rapidly changing world.
Check out their website for more information including recipes. You can find them on the Open Food Network.
