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We are aiming to consider all 6 principles of regenerative agriculture to achieve a diverse farming system with nutrient dense food.
Every farm faces its own set of challenges on the path to regenerative agriculture — physical barriers like soil type, alongside financial and social hurdles.
The biggest of these is often financial. Transitioning to regenerative practices means investing in new equipment, such as direct drills and cover crop seed, before the benefits are fully realised.
For example, moving straight to no-till agriculture isn't simple — it requires separate, specialised equipment that most farms don't already have. We were able to make this transition by securing two grants, which helped us implement these principles without bearing the full cost alone.
Example of a cover crop mixture.
Graphics from Cotswold Grass Seeds
Cover crops are planted after the cash crop — usually wheat or barley in our case.
They protect the soil surface from rainfall, wind and erosion.
The roots hold the soil together while they grow, building organic matter as they go. Stubble turnips and fodder radish are particularly good at this — they produce a lot of biomass quickly and capture nitrogen in the soil, stopping it from leaching away. When the cover crop is grazed or decomposes, those nutrients are released back into the soil.
Different species have different rooting structures and nutrient requirements, which further builds diversity in the soil.
Cover crops also support principle three: maintaining living roots. To keep soil healthy and productive, we aim to have living roots in the ground for as much of the year as possible.
These roots feed soil microbes and mycorrhizal fungi by releasing carbon-rich compounds essential to their survival — without this food source, microbes begin consuming soil organic matter instead, driving soil degradation and a decline in soil health.
Mycorrhizal fungi, in turn, extend the plant's effective root system, boosting both nutrient and water uptake. They help supply essential nutrients like phosphate and nitrate, and can even unlock minerals bound within the soil, making them available to plants. This cycle builds organic matter and supports greater biological activity throughout the soil.
Ultimately, healthy soils depend on healthy biological communities, and healthy biological communities depend on living roots. By keeping roots in the ground, we're not just feeding our crops — we're feeding the entire soil ecosystem that supports them.
Historically, most farms were mixed — but post-war industrialisation and synthetic fertilisers pushed food systems toward simplified, "efficient" monocultures, separating livestock from cropping.
This is where our partnership between farms comes in. One of Romshed's challenges is heavy clay soil, which becomes unworkable in winter, forcing our main herd off pasture (though youngstock stay out, often on poor-quality grazing). Filston's lighter soils allow us to grow cover crops suited to winter grazing — extending the grazing season and providing valuable forage when grass growth stalls.
This benefits more than just the animals. Grazing livestock return nutrients directly to the soil, keeping the nutrient cycle working naturally rather than relying on mechanical spreading. This cuts our reliance on tractors for muck-spreading — reducing fuel use, soil compaction and labour. In effect, livestock become part of our nutrient management system, helping build healthier soils while making the farm more efficient and resilient.
Excessive cultivation disturbs the soil structure that roots and biology have worked to build, with knock-on effects throughout the system.
It leads to a loss of pore space and structural diversity, reducing both air and water infiltration and increasing anaerobic activity. This in turn reduces biological activity, harming the bacteria and fungi that are fundamental to recycling organic matter.
By minimising disturbance across our wheat rotation, we protect this structure, keeping soils better aerated, more biologically active, and more resilient.
Diversity is at the heart of regenerative agriculture. A broad rotation of crops helps break pest and disease cycles, spreads risk, and asks different things of the soil rather than depleting it in the same way year after year.
Rotational leys — periods of grass and clover within the arable rotation — rest the soil, rebuild fertility, and support grazing livestock, strengthening the nutrient cycle.
Companion cropping, where two or more species are grown together, adds further diversity above and below ground, improving nutrient uptake and resilience to pests.
We also look to stack enterprises on the same land, layering cropping, livestock and other activities so the farm draws multiple benefits from a single area rather than relying on one output alone. Together, these practices build a more resilient system — one that mirrors the diversity found in natural ecosystems.
