Stockbridge Technology Centre (STC) Ltd is much more than a working farm. Launched in 2001, it is situated on the former Stockbridge House site in Yorkshire, which has been an important centre for development of horticultural crop production for over 50 years.
Established to ensure that technology developments for the horticultural industry continue, STC is structured into three main business areas; agronomy, which includes the growing of field vegetables, arable and protected crops; crop protection, involving a diagnostic services plant clinic; and sustainable systems, where the team works on pesticide reduction and bio-control development. STC also runs courses for the public procurement sector, and includes an information centre and a LEAF innovation centre.
Covering more than 70 hectares, the combination of facilities available is unique within the UK. Graham Ward, chief executive of STC, has seen many changes due to his involvement in Defra’s initiatives and the region’s Sustainable Farming and Action Plan. He says: “The focus is now on putting the nature back into the soil.
“These initiatives are now designed to make farms emit less pollution. For example the ditch at the side of the fields has to have a five-metre grass margin to stop fertiliser and sprays getting into the ditch, which controls pollution,” he adds.
STC follows Defra’s sustainable farming and food strategy. The farm layout has been altered so that other farmers can visit and see how a sustainable environment can work alongside commercial farming. The farm earns money through its demonstrations, farm walks and open days.
“We have fields left for summer fallow, which is also subsidised by the government. The land is left with the stubble of wheat on it so it will feed the birds through the winter and be cultivated in spring,” says Ward.
“Multi-species hedges with single trees are something else the government pays the farmers for. The hedges have a lot of insects to which birds are attracted and then come to the hedge to mate.”
STC’s facilities also include a protected crops unit of more than 40 glasshouses, ranging from 12 to 1,000sq m. Suitable for small-scale studies and commercial demonstration trials, the unit also features laboratories and culture rooms allowing indigenous pests and diseases to be produced for controlled release in glasshouse and field experiments.
“At the moment we are looking at the effect that the change in light spectrum has on each crop,” says Ward of STC’s work within polytunnels. “For example, when lettuce is grown under polythene, its leaf structure changes. You can grow it so you can put it straight into the outside ground. This kind of work can also save a year on asparagus establishment.”
Ward adds:“This is what we used to get funded for from Defra, to look at different crops and improve crops. That money has now disappeared and the focus has changed.”
In one of the greenhouses, Ward is growing a mixture of strawberries, sweetcorn, cabbages and flowers for the National Farmers’ Union’s (NFU) Great Yorkshire Show stand, as well as the environment. He says: “It’s about doing things for the community.”
This is where the reconnection agenda fits in. A Year of Food and Farming in education is an industry-wide initiative, first proposed by Farming and Countryside Education (FACE) and supported by Defra, Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the department of health, alongside the Royal Agricultural Society for England (RASE), amongst many others. To run from September 2007 to July 2008, the initiative aims to reconnect young people with their food and to encourage understanding of the food chain and the role played by farming. It is hoped that the project will increase links between schools, farmers and food producers, and conjure up a greater appreciation of the importance of the countryside and environmental issues.
“We have to reconnect the children and customers with farming, in connection with the Year of Food and Farming next school year,” says Ward. “Every primary school child in the UK will have a visit to a farm. We have to get this knowledge of the industry across, and of course it is also a great opportunity to influence the next generation of customers.”
STC has been working with primary schools over the past five years and has been offering local children the opportunity to see how food crops are grown. The facility works with the same children throughout the year, offering a ‘learn and grow’ package where pupils come to the site for half a day either three or four times from April to September to grow their own salad and vegetable crops.
“The reactions are very positive and all the children seem to have a good time,” says Julian Davies, who co-ordinates and guides the school visits at STC. “It fits the government’s agenda for an outdoor classroom and it links to healthy eating, and what the children like is the fact that they get to take the produce home with them to their families.”
Each school that visits the site has its own allotment and the pupils sow and harvest crops such as potatoes, carrots, sweetcorn, lettuce, courgettes, cabbage, peas and beans. As part of the trip, which is funded by the school, the pupils also have a look at commercial glasshouse crops, bugs and pests under microscopes, and have tasting opportunities.
“It fits into all of the government’s agendas for healthy eating like 5 A DAY and the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme. The children are also exposed to new crops that they wouldn’t have seen before, encouraging them to eat different things,” says Davies, who has witnessed the project evolve over the last five years. “Today the children were harvesting the lettuce they planted six weeks ago, and at the same time planting courgette seeds that will be ready to harvest the next time the school visits.
“As well as educating school children about British produce, the kids appear to be having fun growing the crops and seem to be more interested in eating them.”
The children, from English Martyr Primary School in York, harvest cabbage, carrots and onions, which they will then make into coleslaw as part of a workshop.
Janet Waite, a parent helper with the primary school, says that the good example set at STC is a template of how schools can be involved with farming in the future. “The fact that they’re actually doing it hands on is a great influence,” says Waite. “Growing the fruit and vegetables makes eating them more exciting and interesting. My son now has his own vegetable patch in our garden.”
Ward is happy with the primary school visits’ success, but realises that there is still a long way to go for everything to be ready for A Year of Food and Farming in education. “Farmers are still reluctant to join A Year of Food and Farming, as they feel that the general public is against them due to the media portraying them as the evil people that are destroying the countryside with pesticides,” he says.
STC is growing fields with strips of wild flower and grass in between the crops to attract insects, and therefore wildlife, to welcome nature back to the farm. Dr Pam Croft and the team at the STC are now looking a step beyond this and are hoping to use different types of flowers to attract the right kind of beneficial insects to kill pests on specific vegetable crops.
Working in conjunction with partners, such as Professor Felix Wackers, head of Waitrose Centre at Lancaster University, STC is currently applying for LINK funding from Defra for this project.
“We are looking to see if we can get these strips to help farmers,” says Dr Croft. “The current strips are there with the idea of encouraging bee and bird populations. Our plan is to see whether we can encourage in beneficial insects as well, to reduce pests within the crops, and therefore reduce pesticide usage.”
Dr Croft and her team have been following a study in the Netherlands which has found that flower species in the original strips fail to attract the beneficial insects to the vegetables. The Dutch study is now developing all kinds of flowers that will provide a good source of pollen and nectar and attract the right kinds of insects.
“We are growing three crops just for one year; potatoes, lettuce and vining peas,” explains Dr Croft. “Potatoes we envisaged to be quite an easy crop, because you can have some tolerance to pests on the leaves, so you don’t have to wipe out every pest, and that’s where bio-control works well. Peas will be tricky, because they attract a lot of different types of pest, and lettuce is very delicate.
“What we found was that potatoes did very well and we didn’t need to spray. We also found that with the lettuce actually, pests were there but it was a species that only colonised the perimeter leaves, so that is an advantage, and we didn’t have to spray,” she reveals. “Peas, however, flowered in June last year and the insects moved in when it was really hot. So that became a problem.”
“We have put more margins in as well, to increase the density of the pests and encourage them to stay within the crop. It’s the only way it’s going to work and so we have to con the beneficial insects into thinking that those are actually higher pest density than they are, so they stay longer and do the job more thoroughly.”
But Dr Croft does not think this will totally do away with the chemicals used in commercial farming. “I would think for some crops it is possible, but for other crops, all you could hope to do is to integrate it and to reduce the amount of broad spectrum of insecticides you use,” she says. “You could use more specific pesticides, maybe less frequently, and that would be our main goal.”
On the subject of pesticides, Ward maintains that there is still a need for them, but as a commercial farmer you have to be aware of the public’s opinions and influence.
“There is no evidence whatsoever that pesticides are bad for food and there is a massive regulation programme. The problem is that certain people think pesticides are bad, and therefore they have persuaded the public of this,” he says. “Since we are selling fresh produce, we have got to get ourselves in line. One way of reducing pesticide usage is to balance nature. The argument is that farmers have been spraying extensively and that we should now try to draw back a bit and think about it a bit more.”
Dr Croft’s next step is using the technologies available to her, and making them useful to the farmer. “We will use the environment to cut down costs and make it useful to the farmer,” says Ward.
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