Sustainable farming - it started with one goat

Life on a farm
Paula Wolton moved to the countryside with her husband in her early 20s, went shopping for a table and came home with a goat. Eighteen years later she is running Locks Park Farm alongside bringing up her four sons: Olly, Will, Joe and Benjamin. A graduate in art, the former London jewellery designer who has presented for BBC1’s Countryfile, knows she isn’t a ‘typical farmer’. That’s partly why in June 2007 she started a blog, supported by CPRE, all about the day to day life of running a farm. ‘I wanted to open urban people’s eyes to what the countryside is like,’ says Paula.

Knowing where food comes from
‘The Government really needs to put food and farming into education right from primary school. Children will then learn about where food comes from and about the environment. ‘Hopefully, they’ll grow to understand the value of quality food and be prepared to pay the extra needed for farmers to earn a living wage.’

Small, family-run farm
The farms around Paula’s are all family-run. They were badly hit by foot and mouth outbreaks, and the majority find it hard to make money. ‘The industry is dominated by big, commercially-run farms, which are highly targeted businesses,’ she says. ‘To go into small-scale farming nowadays you need passion and innovation.’ Paula would like Locks Park to become totally eco-friendly, creating all its own energy. She’d love to convert some of her barns into classrooms where farmers could be taught business, IT and marketing skills. In return, local farmers and craftspeople would teach practical countryside, rural and farming skills.

Adapting to change
It is crucial farmers find such ways of adapting to change in their industry, says Paula. She says in the future, farmers might plant fields of trees for carbon storage and drought resistant crops. But ultimately, Paula says, farming depends upon all of us as consumers. ‘Should people care about farming?’ she asks. ‘Should they care whether we continue to produce food in this country? Whether we carry on both exporting and importing lamb? I think it would be a travesty if they didn’t.’

Find out about life on a farm in Paula's blog
> Locks Park Farm website

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