Did you know we need just two things to grow all our food: a six-inch layer of topsoil and rain? That’s it – we owe our existence to these two simple things.
Now, we know we can’t control the rain (although that would be handy!), but soil is a precious resource that we can protect.
Farmers are custodians of the soil and farming regeneratively keeps soil healthy. Regenerative farming is an approach that has soil health at the heart, and the inclusion of livestock, such as our golden hooves herds grazing on it, is a key principle.
Permanent pasture, which makes up the majority of the fields our golden hooves cows graze on, is already some of the healthiest soil about, and is teeming with biodiversity. But you can never have too much of a good thing, which is why we’re encouraging our farmers to do less ploughing, fewer re-seeds, apply less fertiliser and graze land more effectively to improve their soil even further and help protect that precious 6-inch layer.
We regularly hold on-farm workshops for our Golden Hooves farmers to come along and learn more about protecting soil.
There’s an old adage in farming that if you look after the land, the land will look after you. So, our Golden Hooves farmers follow the five principles of regenerative farming to support healthy soil.
- Minimise soil disturbance from ploughing
- Grow different plant species to improve soil biodiversity
- Protect soil from wind and water erosion
- Keep living roots in the soil
- Integrate livestock – this is our favourite one, putting that cow poo back into the soil system is key!
