Jo Bradley (Hungary Lane Farm): Biodynamic Farming - what is it and what does it mean?!

FINALIST FOR ARABLE INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR

Hungary Lane Farm, Leicestershire
Producing the highest quality food for humans and animals, while at the same time enhancing the natural environment is the goal of Jo Bradley, who operates a biodynamic system.

It uses similar production methods and certification standards to organic farming and products attract similar premiums, although Jo feels those enjoyed by biodynamic farmers are more secure than those for organic products.

Fertiliser for arable crops comes from home-produced livestock manure and a toolbox of herbal sprays created purely from the farm’s resources.

The farm is under an eight-year rotation with four years of arable production and four years of grass.

To help control weeds he has just bought a ‘combcut’ which brushes the more supple stems of cereal crops out of the way before cutting the stiffer stems of weeds like wild oats and poppies. Other methods of weed control include burning and spreading the ashes on fields or rotting them down in water and spraying the resulting liquid on the fields.

Sustainability
Jo aims to disturb the soil as little as possible and getting the balance right between soil fungi and bacteria goes along with biodynamic thinking, he says.
Biodynamic yields are about 20 per cent lower than those of conventionally grown crops but his input and machinery costs are lower.
A search for a sustainable model of farming helped shape Jo’s belief that farms should be as self-contained as possible, which eventually led to him adopting biodynamics.

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