Dorset family farm goes organic (From Business in Dorset)

Dorset family farm goes organic

9:00am Tuesday 9th June 2009

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A conventional Dorset farm is switching to organic because it is more profitable.

With its 800 acres and 400 Aberdeen Angus, Launceston Farm in Tarrant Launceston generates a £400,000 turnover.

“This year we will be roughly £90,000 better off by being organic,” said Jimi Collis who runs the business with his mother, Sarah Worrall.

“If growing a crop in a field, the whole priority is to maximise the yield.

“It’s more profitable to grow organic because you can charge a higher price and the crops don’t need all the spraying and intensive labour of conventional farming,” added Mr Collis, who previously worked as a business banker for Barclays specialising in farms.

Half the farm is devoted to rearing beef cattle, which are sold through a third party to Marks & Spencer, while the remaining 400 acres is used for growing barley.

In order to guarantee the farm’s future, Mrs Worrall and her son felt it necessary to diversify.

They ploughed £350,000 into refurbishing the farmhouse.

It now has six en-suite letting bedrooms and has already “hit year two targets in year one”.

Having tackled that market, it is embarking on selling its services for lucrative networking events and the conference market.

In its first year the venue was forecast to generate £7,000 from conferences and it has already achieved this in six months.

“On the conference side, we expect to do around £15,000 this year,” revealed Mr Collis, who added that the venue has already attracted the RNLI, Blandford Signals, Sherborne School and Bournemouth internet firm Redweb.

“My ambition is to have four to five meetings a week,” he said.

The farm has been in the same family for three generations and employs eight staff including stockman Mervyn Wills, who has worked there for 50 years.

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