Turning back the clock at Lyons Hill Farm, Dorset

“There is no question about it, we need to eat less meat,” Mark Leatham explained passionately over coffee after an early morning stroll around Lyons Hill Farm. This well versed ecological argument is not one you would expect to hear from a business savvy Dorset livestock farmer. But, for a man who cares as much about his farm’s butterfly population as he does for its herd of pampered rare breed cattle, it is as important to his farming approach as it is to his business philosophy.

Ever since the 1950s and the “green revolution” that followed the second world war, intensive farming practices have led to a catastrophic loss of biodiversity in the UK. Since the 1970s our insect population has halved. Moths have declined 88%, ground beetles 72% and butterflies 76%. According to a 2012 study titled, Our Vanishing Flora, we are losing one of our 950 species of native wild flower every year. 60% of global biodiversity loss is down to the food we eat and much of this is down to the intensive growing of crops that are used to feed animals reared for meat.

The effect that our growing meat consumption is having on greenhouse gas emissions is also well documented. In his latest book, We Are The Weather, pop-philosopher Jonathan Safran Foer makes the environmental case for dramatically reducing our meat consumption to only one meal a day. His eloquent and well-reasoned prose makes this argument seem less fatuous than it might seem on the surface. In his previous book, Eating Animals, he delves graphically into the appalling treatment of animals in US “factory farms” in the hope of shocking and disgusting us out of eating any meat at all.

Mark Leatham describing the flora at Lyons Hill Farm

Both arguments however have so far failed to convince the foodie crowd. “Either you fully identify with animals as equals, who are therefore deserving of our complete protection, or you regard them as lesser and subservient, in which case – accepting their right to be spared cruelty – it's OK to eat them.” Wrote Jay Rayner in his Observer review of Eating Animals. “It will come as no shock to most readers that I fall into the latter camp, and there is nothing in this text to shift me over to the other side of the argument.”

Just as the onus is being placed on luxury brands and super models to change attitudes towards the fast fashion industry, the cultural subset of chefs, restaurant critics and passionate producers stand a better chance of inspiring meaningful behavioural change in our food consumption habits than any academic. In the words of Carlo Petrini, father of the Slow Food movement, a “gastronome who has no environmental sensibility is a fool; but an ecologist who has no gastronomic sensibility is a sad figure, unable to understand the cultures in which he wants to work.”

Mark Leatham is a gastronome first and foremost. A keen country sportsman, in the 1980s, he and his brother Oliver started out selling game to top London restaurants. When faced with the dilemma of what to do outside of the shooting season, they branched out into other products. Their pursuit of speciality, high quality ingredients eventually grew into the sizeable food importation and distribution business known today as Leathams. It includes the Merchant Gourmet brand and trademark products including SunBlushed tomatoes and Roquito peppers that have become household names. Now retired from the business, Mark is following a lifelong ambition to create the finest tasting meats in Britain.

The house and flower meadows at Lyons Hill Farm

Lyons Hill farm is situated halfway up the Batcome Ridge, a sharp line of chalk hills that marks the southern frontier of Dorset’s Blackmore Vale. This natural amphitheatre provides the backdrop to the work of Thomas Hardy. It was along this ridge of hills that Tess of the D'Urbervilles made her way on foot one winter's day to Emminster, dressed in her Sunday best, to visit the family of Parson Clare in the hope of gaining their assistance to reconcile her failed marriage to Angel.

If Tess were to drop down today, in the hope of finding a warm hearth and sustenance to help her on her way, she would find much that would be familiar. Even the lavatory in the farm house - an ornate, painted, ceramic bowl - hails from 1850, the same year that the foundations for the building were laid.

But it's outside where Mark and his 33 year old son James are going to the greatest lengths to turn back time. Since the 1930s, we have lost 97% of our wildflower meadows in the UK. At Lyons Hill, pastures are being carefully returned to their wild state. “See that?” says Mark, stopping at a cluster of tall, yellow flowers in an empty field in front of the house, “that is Yellow Rattle. It feeds off the vigorous, invasive grasses, like Italian rye, allowing more delicate native species to come through.” The cattle at Lyons Hill Farm feed off up to six different types of native, wild grass, “a mixed leaf salad.” Mark explained.

The Government is taking action to reverse our biodiversity loss. Grants are available through DEFRA to restore land to old pasture. However, this is only available to farmers who graze rare and traditional breed cattle. Traditional grazers, like the White Park, are good for the land and help promote vegetation succession. However modern commercial breeds need high yield, high sugar grass like Italian rye to sustain them. These grasses exhaust the soil and have to be ripped up and replanted every few years, resulting in a monoculture. Old pastures require no ploughing and allow plant and insect life to flourish.

Still a passionate shot, Mark runs a small hobby shoot on the farm. This offers added incentive to plant cover for game, increasing the biodiversity on the property. In a patch of newly planted woodland, Mark points out an Alder Buckthorn, “this is the only source of food and breeding ground for the Yellow Brimstone butterfly,” he announced, “without re-introducing it we wouldn't see them here.” A keen entomologist, he recently spotted 15 of the 58 species of butterfly native to the UK within a single hour on the farm. On our short stroll we saw a Common Blue and a Marbled White. At each sighting Mark stopped for some minutes to take pictures and marvel.

Eventually, after an hour of stopping to look at grasses, orchids, saplings, moths and other insects we reached his pride and joy - a small herd of White Park cattle.

His twelve cows were with their calves and a mighty bull, so we kept a reasonable distance just coming close enough so that he could point out the animal’s distinctive markings. White Park are thought to be the oldest breed of cattle kept in the UK and are descended from Britain’s wild white cattle that were kept in hunting parks during the middle ages. In 1973 there were just 60 breeding females in the UK, however with the help of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and a few dedicated farmers that has increased to around 750 today. They have elegant, wide spread horns and their brilliant white bodies are marked with black patches around the feet, eyes, ears and nose and subtle black “stitching” above the eyes. Their temperament is docile. They look on calmly at us, gently swishing the flies with their tails.

The calves born here will live their whole life on the farm, feeding just on grasses and wildflowers. Most commercial cattle live just 18 to 24 months however the cattle will graze the unimproved pastures at Lyons Hill Farm for a full 36-48 months before being sent to slaughter just a couple of miles down the road.

It is not just cattle enjoying the biodiversity of Lyons Hill Farm. It is also home to a drove of Iron Aged pigs - a cross between British Tamwoths and the Eurasian Wild Boar. These swine were first bred in the 1970s for a television documentary to represent the type of animals that our prehistoric ancestors might have kept. It was only later that the breeders discovered their exceptional flavour. Slower growing than other commercial breeds they have the distinct, full flavour of wild boar, coupled with the high fat content of a Tamworth, making them highly prized by chefs. After being weaned, the pigs spend their lives running wild in the woods at Lyons Hill Farm, foraging for acorns and other wild food. There are also rare breed black Hebridean sheep which will become hogget, and “Indian Game” chickens which they rear for 180 days, five times longer than your average organic chicken.

Mark’s ultimate aim is to take control of the whole process of meat production, bringing the slaughter house and butchery on site to ensure that his exacting standards are followed at every stage until the meat is distributed direct from the farm. With his beef, pork, hogget and chicken, Lyons Hill Farm hopes to be a one stop shop at the top end of the food market, catering for the increasing number of customers who are equally discerning about taste as they are about the environmental and animal welfare credentials of the products they buy. “What Lyons Hill can offer that other, luxury butchers cant is absolute traceability and a guarantee of the highest standards of animal husbandry, as well as exceptional flavour” Mark explained.

Slowly rearing animals on a natural and varied diet creates more intramuscular fat, or marbling as its known in the kitchen, which enriches the flavour. Animals that are forced on grains and cereals end up with clumps of bright white fat as opposed to the yellow coloured fat found on grass fed beef. It is no surprise therefore that the Lyons Hill Farm products have been noticed by some of London’s top chefs. Phil Howard, chef patron at Chelsea’s Elystan Street and former chef patron at The Square recently posted on Instagram, “if I had to single out one farmer who I’ve come across who absolutely lives and breathes his animals, it's a man called Mark Leatham.” Charlie Caroll, the owner of the Flat Iron chain of steak houses described the White Park beef from Lyons hill as “some of the best he has ever tasted, and I’ve had a bit.”

And it's not just the ardent foodies that they are hoping to convert. This slow reared, old style meat is also better for you. Six intensively reared chickens today have the same amount of omega-3 as found in just one slow reared chicken from the 1970s. Cheap grain fed beef also contains unhealthy saturated fats which increase the risk of heart disease, whilst the leaner grass-fed animals contain a higher percentage of healthy fats and are more densely packed with nutrients.

As a result of being farmers, as opposed to butchers, Lyons Hill Farm is also hoping to create a new breed of followers for the nose to tail concept. Wholesale customers must purchase a full side of an animal. As a retail customer, it is impossible to choose just the prime cuts. They must be bought as part of a share in the animal alongside slow cooking and pot roast joints, mince and offal. “Education is the key,” explains James, who looks after sales and marketing at the farm, “eating oxtail and beef shin isn't just delicious, it's also good for the environment. The so-called ‘off-cuts’ is where the flavour is, as any top chef will tell you. They are hugely undervalued. The recent lockdown has been a great help in that respect. People have been spending more time at home and as a result, discovering new things in the kitchen.”

70% of the land area in the UK is currently used for farming. If we are to stand a chance of restoring our lost biodiversity, farmers like the Leathams will play a key role. The business model however has to succeed, and this will require a change in attitude from consumers towards eating meat. Our exit from the European Union and emerging trade deal with the US looks almost guaranteed to allow a flood of cheap animal protein to enter the UK market. As well as the usual horror stories of “chlorinated chicken” and “hormone injected beef” there will also be more animals fed on crops grown in illegally cleared areas of the Amazon basin. This will present consumers with stark choices. Rearing animals in the manner done at Lyons Hill Farm will never be able to satisfy the current levels of demand. It would also be too expensive for all but the wealthiest in society to eat products like this on a regular basis. However, the Leathams are banking on a more mindful consumer, driven by taste and ethics, making the conscious decision to eat less but better meat.