Patrick & Joyce Noble
Bryn Cocyn Farm, near Denbigh, north Wales
Patrick & Joyce are one of the pioneers of organic farming. They describe their farm, and aspirations :
"We moved to Bryn Cocyn,which is Joyce’s family farm in 1986 and registered with the Soil Association for organic conversion in 1989.
Bryn Cocyn is a small upland, livestock farm in the shelter of Moel Fodiar, looking out into the Vale of Clwyd.
The land is strong heavy clay, enabling us to grow our own organic crops of oats and legumes for winter feed.
Our rented fields are typical light hill land which we have left to permanent pasture and have farmed in a manner to encourage a diversity of species of grass, legumes and herbs. We have farmed there organically since 1978.
We hope this may be a pattern for sustainable agriculture; using the latest varieties of grass and clover on the good land while allowing the poorer land to produce what it does best naturally.
We believe high yields (and our world population may double to 10 billion in only fifty years) are essential, but only to the extent that the land and the world’s shrinking fossil and mineral resources can sustain."
