Progressive and Passionate
Team Yatesbury
The Gantletts have been farming at Yatesbury since 1968.
Richard and Charlotte Gantlett farm today, supported by their children with the aim to produce the best quality produce in the most sustainable manner.
We have an enthusiastic team of local, dedicated and skilled farmers (our staff), engineers, craftsmen and tradesmen who support and make the team.
Yatesbury House Farm is a 534 ha family farm, on the Wiltshire downs near Avebury. Experience and tradition is combined with a deep-rooted belief that farming should work together with nature, not against it. The bio dynamic methods we use are a key part of achieving sustainable, natural and quality food.
At Yatesbury House Farm, we are focused on providing the highest quality of produce with the highest levels of customer satisfaction – we will do everything we can to meet our customers expectations.
New agroforestry orchard above, starting to take shape....planting started 21st January 2020....with thanks to the Woodland Trust PUR Fund and their supporters for supplying the 500 apples, pears, plums and cobnuts.

Health & Impact
Everything we do on the farm is about health. Health is infectious, healthy soil leads to healthy plants, leads to healthy animals, wildlife and eventually, because of the global impact of agriculture, the health of the whole planet. We are beginning to understand these links through the current climate crisis and also the food system vulnerability through the current pandemic.
Climate Change
This is an incredibly important issue which we are fanatically passionate about.
Methane emissions from cattle are receiving a great deal of attention recently. See our Carbon balance below. Our cattle are pasture fed, they make an essential contribution to the sequestration of carbon in our soil, the levels of which have approximately doubled since we converted to organic methods.
One of the most important farm goals is to be a zero fossil fuel farm.
We now generate enough electricity for all our electricity needs.
Every decision we make on the farm uses less or zero plastic, uses less or zero fossil fuel and stores more carbon in the soil. We measure our impact on people and our planet. Through Public Goods Tools and B Corporation's Impact Assessment tool.

What we grow
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Cereals, Quality Produce
The cultivated crops on the farm are wheat, barley, oats and field beans.
We work closely with our long term customers who produce flour, porridge oats and malt for
whiskey from our crops.
Soil Quality or Terroir is a critical influence for produce quality.
This factor has been understood in viticulture for a long time and is beginning to be understood in farming.


Agroforestry
-including Silvopastoral Farming, Hedge rows and Copses.
About 5 years ago we started grazing small areas of woodland attached to permanent pastures (after checking with Natural England). It has been such a success that we plan to allow access of the cattle to all our woodland. Don't panic, this is only for short periods of time when the animals are nearby. The trees and shrubs provide browsing, shelter from wind and rain and sun. The cattle allow an opening of the vegetation providing a new dynamic element to the growth of the plants. This process is also bringing the woodland directly into the farm organism.
Maybe we will end up electric fencing our crops to allow our cattle to roam everywhere else in future?

"… so many more bugs here than other farms I go to", "the hares are the size of foxes here", "your Farm is cherished", "a feel of velvet"
Where we sit

Climate
Rainfall
1040-580 mm, 800mm mean
40-23 inches, 31 inches mean
(view across our fields to the Marlborough Downs)
Who we work with

Research
Everything on our farm is work in progress. Trial and error has been a big part of developing our systems, now we like to call it research as it is a little more structured and organised. We have scoured the planet for good ideas. In this picture two Brazilian scholarship students from the University of Reading are helping to gather baseline data for a research project entitled High Biomass Rotation and its impact on Soil quality, Crop quality and Weed burden.
As well as the University of Reading we work with many other organisations such as the Organic Research Centre and are humbled to be involved in many projects

We are certified by the Soil Association for farm assurance standards known as Red Tractor and we support the important work which they do. .

Shumei
A Japanese charitable organisation and UN NGO
have their UK base on our farm developing and demonstrating their method
of sustainable farming called Natural Agriculture. Their market garden
is beautful and their wide variety of market garden crops delicious.
They are working to encourage others to take up their method which has
been used successfully for fifty years in Japan.
shumei.eu/yatesbury/

Calcot Manor Hotel
We have been working with Calcot Manor Hotel since 2009 and help look after the land that joins the Hotel. The pastures are rich diverse flower meadows grazed by our cattle, the fields were previously in intensive arable production. We have planted 14ha of woodland with the English Woodland Grant Scheme and the help of the Woodland Trust. We have planted 2ha of orchard and repaired the stone walls with the help of Natural England. There is now a buzzing, thriving and diverse array of wildlife and biodiversity thanks to the enthusiasm of the team at Calcot who nurture them on a daily basis.
Look at our Instagram site for recent photos.