Learning, trialling and doing more is one of the main reason the Wensum Farmers gain from being part of the group. From our ancient woods to our arable margins to our water meadows, we are always looking for ways to enhancement our natural habitats. Hedges provide significant habitat for many threatened species and are critical for the continued existence of much wildlife in farmed landscapes.

Hedges – blessed with thousands of meters of hedges in the group, but we are still planting more! Norfolk is not a traditional hedgelaying county but we appreciate that hedges need to be layed and coppiced to promote new dense growth. Our long-term goal is to provide better connected, brimming with food across all our farms in the group. In 2020 we have been trialling different hedge management techniques to promote rejuvenation including rolling with a digger, employing local layers and coppicing with shears. This provides the perfect experiment to see over the years how the hedges enhance. 

Most of the farmers in the group are in Environmental Stewardship or Countryside Stewardship schemes where large areas are specifically deigned to boost biodiversity. Areas such as bettle banks, floristically enhanced margins and wild bird feeding plots have hugely boosted and supported our farmland bird populations – see the bird surveying section for more information.

With the river Wensum being the spine of the group, binding the farmers we take part in river restoration to restore the channel to a natural state and encourage the natural ecology to thrive. Additionally, we have a large amount of valuable water meadow pasture which we graze extensively to develop grassland biodiversity and invertebrate populations.