Strategic Cereal Farm South

Name:

David Miller

Location:

Basingstoke, Hampshire

Farm sectors:

Cereals & Oilseeds

Twitter:

@fowell103

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About Strategic Cereal Farm South

Wheatsheaf Farming Company hosted the programme over three years (2021 to 2024)
David Miller, who is the Strategic Cereal Farm host, has been the farm's manager since the late 1990s
The farm has 700ha of owned arable land (670ha cropped)
David has embraced regenerative agriculture practices for over a decade
The farm has adopted cover crops and been fully no-till since 2015
He will continue this journey and aims to reduce input use on the farm
This farm’s goal is to be profitable, while maximising carbon sequestration and biodiversity

Main trials

Cover crop benefits
This project investigated the impact of cover crops on water quality, beneficial invertebrates, wider soil health and following crop performance. The work complemented cover crop trial data from a project by South East Water (led by FWAG-South East).

Soil and crop health: impacts of different management systems
Two work packages examined the long-term impact on soil health and crop performance of management practices, including changes to cultivation systems and the use of cover crops.

Soil and crop health: interventions at crop establishment
This work examined two approaches (biological amendments and companion croppiong) to enhance soil–plant interaction at or soon after drilling.

Regenerative practices and food quality: targeted grain quality testing
This study examined wheat grain samples from five regenerative fields at Strategic Cereal Farm South and 10 conventional sites (across six farms) to identify any differences in nutrient metrics between the two production systems.

Learn about the on-farm trials at Strategic Cereal Farm South

Background to Strategic Cereal Farm South

The vision

To accelerate and ease the journey in regenerative agriculture of the wider industry.

The mission

To conduct relevant trials where results can be financially quantified. From these, the aim is to provide some basic principles that are attractive for arable farmers to follow to grow nutritious crops in a more biological way with less reliance on mechanical and chemical interventions including inorganic fertilisers. By adopting these principles, the industry will become financially and environmentally more profitable and sustainable.

Core pillars of work

To develop principles and guides for a more biological production of crops avoiding complexity, time and cost for arable farmers by distilling the work of the Strategic Farm (and existing practitioners) to basic principles of what you need to know and do for successful regenerative farming
To learn how to confidently reduce crop inputs evidencing what is possible without detriment to net margin
To financially evaluate the benefits including non-financial benefits of Regenerative Farming (e.g. food nutrient value)
To simplify the messaging of a reliable roadmap to successful regenerative farming communicated in a language attractive and applicable to any type or scale of farm

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