Visit to Huxham’s Cross Farm, Dartington

12^th August, 2022

A visit to Huxham’s Cross Farm has been on the cards for a while with the hope that it would inspire the design process for Tregovenek. 18 of us put aside the day for a tour of the farm which more-than fulfilled our hopes. The team there have created a productive, diverse, profitable and regenerative farm from depleted soil in just 5 years. It was exactly what we needed to see!

This is some of what was shared in our feedback circle after the tour:

• It’s about having a clear vision and going for it!
• The farm really connects people together to share experiences and knowledge
• It’s ok to learn from mistakes!
• It gives a sense of hope
• Challenging times call for courage
• There is a great diversity of activities and numerous ways to get involved
• Farm Club for children is a beautiful idea
• There’s a need for art/creative spaces
• Design in green manures and windbreaks
• Community outreach is so important
• Young people need to be involved from the start – this is for now AND the future
• We need to build in resilience for an uncertain climate and economy
• Healthy soil can sequester carbon and grow healthy food
• It shows good use of scale for manageability
• A healing element is so important
• What we’re doing is creating an oasis
• We’re standing on the shoulders of giants!
• Good water design/management is key
• It’s about celebrating the simplicity of being human

To top it all off, Mariana has just published a book called ‘designing regenerative food systems’ which many of us purchased on the day. It’s a perfect toolkit for Tregovenek outlining organic, biodynamic, permaculture, agroforestry, agroecology and regenerative farming methods. I’m already half way through!

All this in the same week that we’re signing contracts with the solicitor for the purchase – it’s really happening!!