Village Farm is situated on a windswept hill top in south Devon. The goal is to turn this challenging farm into an abundant, rich landscape that produces nourishing, healthy, high welfare food and is a haven for wildlife; with trees at its heart.

Rebecca Hosking and her partner Tim Green run a flock of 350 sheep, but as Rebecca explained, high on the estuary headland they battle against extreme weather.

“It is so exposed that in mid winter we can’t use some of our fields, and have to take them out of action, there isn’t enough shelter; and the winds are so extreme we’ve lost sheep to Pasteurella pneumonia.”

But since taking over the tenancy in 2014, with the help of the Woodland Trust, they have planted 9000 trees to create shelter belts, and improve their grazing regime.

The sheep which are cross bred to be hardy, move around the farm on a holistic and planned mob grazing regime. They are regularly moved from one field to the next, giving access to fresh grass, and allowing the grazed pasture to recover. And the trees will eventually provide fodder as well as shelter in a wooded pasture or silvo pastoral system. Rebecca is learning lessons from the past to turn the farm into a resilient enterprise for the future.

“I remember Dad telling me when there was severe drought, they used to cut boughs and use them as fodder. We are planting species like Goat Willow, which the sheep really love, it’s extra food, it’s natural and it’s free.

“The trees will also slow down water flow on the land, and help check frost pockets, as well as provide extra pollen and nectar for our bees.”

Rebecca says Village Farm will use trees to help withstand increasing extremes of weather, where conditions range from hot summers to howling winter storms. She said; “We are in farming for the long haul, and want to find ways of withstanding climate change; one of them is to populate the farm with as many trees as we can. “

We sat down at our kitchen table with Hamish Thomson, (the Trust’s woodland creation adviser), and worked out our first planting plan. This year we are aiming to put in a copse; which we will harvest and use for green woodworking”