ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL

At Wyke, one of our favourite family sayings is “Look after nature and it will look after you”. For us, that means not only doing all we can to make our production of cheese and butter as sustainable as it can be, but also going the extra mile to help preserve the beautiful Somerset countryside we’re so lucky to live and work in.

The clearest sign of how well we’re doing on this comes from the animals we share the fields around our farm with. Currently, that includes five pairs of barn owls, who make use of nesting boxes we’ve put up, as well as finches who are encouraged by the wildflower grass mixes we sow along the river. Then there’s another river resident, the kingfisher that we prize so highly that it’s made it as an illustration on our packs.

We don’t take these for granted. It takes time and real commitment to the way we and the other farmers around us work the land before we see change and numbers increasing. It’s only in the last few years, for example, that we’ve seen hares running across the fields in spring. Before then, they hadn’t been here for about 40 years.

While technologies such as our anaerobic digester and solar panels play a vital role in making our farm “Green by Nature”, much of the work we do to encourage wildlife would be recognised by previous generations. We plant trees in partnership with the Woodland Trust and often put in 400 metres of hedges in a week to encourage a diversity of wild animals.

And, of course, we don’t forget the all-important insect population, who pollinate and start the food chain for a whole host of animals from the brown trout in the River Brue to the birds. As well as the wild-flower mixes that encourage them, we also have “insect hotels” around the farm, where bees and others can nest or shelter. We look after them, then they look after us.

We also work to keep the soil healthy, rotating our wheat feed crops and grazing to ensure that we sustain some of the richest grass in the country, adding herbal lays and lots of clover.

This has a direct effect on the cheese and butter we make, helping to make the rich and creamy milk that gives us our famous flavour, but caring for the land really is as important as our Cheddar. It’s part of the job.